No Free Ride for Central Conferences

Bishop Mike Coyner of Indiana tweeted yesterday, “We wanted UMC to be a global church, but now we are struggling to know what that means as US becomes a minority but pays the bills.”

I'll use Bishop Coyner as my straw opponent because he is my home bishop, and since guaranteed appointments are out the door, I'll probably never get an appointment in Indiana again, (Please laugh with me), and because Bishop Mike says gently what some are saying in ugly ways, I'll take this opportunity to respond.

1. First of all, the comment assumes facts not in evidence, at least not at the level I serve. I don't know where all this money is that supports central conferences, but it is not getting to the churches and pastors I work with. Maybe our bishops are living well and maybe our delegates to General Conference and general church meetings are getting a free ride and a free lunch, but the pastors in the field are suffering from hunger and exhaustion, and our district projects are failing without support from the greater connection. See my previous blog, "Abandoned and Forgotten."
2. Now that I've ranted, on to a more positive response. How about a trade? an exchange of strengths? Yesterday, Taylor and I listened to the head of the North Katanga delegation, Joseph Mulongo, give an elegant hallway speech (in French) on how we have one side of the Church dying in membership with money, and the other side of the Church dying for lack of money with growing membership. Is there not an exchange possible? How much did the General Church pay to consultants for programs like Call to Action and Vital Congregations? Would it not make sense to spend at least some of that money contracting with certain central conference leaders to help with these questions? It is not as bizarre an idea as one might think.
3. If you will go back to my blog on "Prepping for General Conference," you will see that we have already begun preparing for the day when there will be no money coming from America. We are aware of the financial downturn that is drying up mission dollars, and we are aware that Americans are losing patience with funding the central conferences, but there is a more important issue at hand. At least in North Katanga, we are aware that there is no excuse for our poverty. We are sitting in our poverty in the midst of abundance. The people we serve are poor, but our land is among the richest in the world. It's going to take some time, but North Katanga is committed, not only to self-sufficiency, but we believe that we can actually reverse the flow of support and become a funding source for the whole UMC, and not a black hole for resources. 

We ask for these considerations in our partnerships. 

• It is time for all of us to throw out the old charity model of missions and embrace full partnership in problem solving. We all need to open up to being surprised at the resources right under our feet. We tell our communities that everything we need, God has already provided.
• It's going to take some time, maybe 50 years, but we have to start now. This is a challenge to both central conferences and to general church agencies that are stuck in old models. This is a long game, but quite winnable.
• The sign on a local church in North Katanga says, L'Eglise Methodite Unie (The United Methodist Church) with a huge red and black cross and flame. Then, in smaller print, the parish is identified. Out on the frontier of the UMC we live, not as individual congregations, but as The United Methodist Church. There is a bit of a polity perception problem. To ask how the US minority pays our bills is a very confusing question.

Thanks, Bishop Mike, for standing in as my straw opponent and I hope that I don't need to come to you begging for an appointment in Indiana. For what it is worth to this conversation, my appointment as Director of Connectional Ministry in North Katanga is not funded by any General Church moneys, but by a few Indiana friends of North Katanga, especially my school teacher wife. Not complaining, but it seems that since you brought it up, I haven't had a salary in three years. (And, it's the most fun I've had in my life!)

Bob

What is Sin?

DS Daniel Mumba preaching the Good News in the village of Mulongo

Back in 1995 I was preaching at annual conference in Manono at the three year old Tanganyika-Tanzania Conference. Not yet a bishop, Pastor Ntambo Nkulu was my traveling companion and translator. We were preaching on texts from Revelation that matched the life of the Church and the nation, terror for terror, violence for violence. The world they were living in just jumped off the text. No need to say, "Back in John's day, things were like this." Things were like this right now.


Bishop Katembo was presiding in place of Bishop wa Kadilo, who had died that year. He said to me, "Thank you for the depth of your sermons. You understand our issues." I tried to refuse the compliment, but he insisted, "We have had missionaries who have been here for many years who don't understand our issues."


Ntambo and I ate lunch at the Bishop's table every day along with several conference leaders. The conversations began very guarded with predictable questions and expected answers. Then, midweek, some kind of trust came over us and the questions got deep and honest. 


And then came the hardest question, "What is sin?"


"Missionaries have taught us that this is a sin or that is a sin, but the Bible does not say that." The sins used as examples were polygamy and the drinking of alcohol. No one was arguing for permission to do these things, but they were asking the question of process. 


My answer was woefully inadequate, a bit of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral ending with the charge that only they could answer this question for the community they serve as pastors and theologians. 


The question haunted me until I finally sat down and wrote a very long essay on sin, tracking Christian thought on the subject from Augustine to Niebuhr to Suchocki. The essay became an illustration of theological reflection in my DMin thesis, "Scripture as a Tool of Community Development."


The Church isn't given easy answers to the hard questions. The hard question of the day is homosexuality. It is seen as an American problem that most Africans strongly reject as sin. Our Congolese delegates come to General Conference with strong opinions and great social pressure to vote against any relaxation of the UMC's stance on the issue. Those who might be open to hearing the other side, even for the sake of holy conferencing, find themselves in a sort of closet.  Even I have to measure carefully how I speak of the issue. (See how I call it "the issue"?) 


It would be one thing if this were simply an American cultural issue that cannot be understood by Africans. (Oh, if the world were that simple. I have been sitting in villages for the last three years in intentional deep listening and I only have a beginner's understanding of the practice of polygamy, let alone being able to speak intelligently about homosexuality in Africa.) What I do know is that Africa has its own terrible struggle with human sexuality. We serve in communities where unspeakable violence has been committed against women and girls, where rape is still far too accepted as a social norm. The Church needs to be the place of safety for all, even if that means we challenge the culture. The traditional role of women in a society is not an excuse for violence and abuse. 


Yes, The United Methodist Church is growing rapidly in North Katanga, as in other parts of Africa. But you also need to know that The United Methodist Church in North Katanga and Tanganyika has earned the hard way a reputation of being the pastors who stayed with the people when warring armies invaded their villages, the church leaders who can be trusted to oversee elections, the church of higher education, the church of community development, the church of social change (especially the role of women), the church of health and healing, the church that works well with others (even those with whom we disagree), the church that sits down with war lords who have committed unspeakable acts of violence. The United Methodist Church in North Katanga is a smart, courageous, skilled church that knows what it means when you say, "Real church work is hard."


My prayer this morning is that all delegates at General Conference can do the hard work of the Church, holding the whole United Methodist Church in loving hands. Nothing is harder and requires more courage and intentional love. 


Bob

$5 Million for Theological Education

Mande Muyombo, President of KMU at General Conference

Our thanks goes out to all the General Conference delegates who voted $5 million for theological education in the central conferences. We need the money and it will be one of the best investments that The United Methodist Church will make in the near future.


I do regret, however, that the money is to come from World Service funds. This feels like pitting one group of needy folk against another for the crumbs from the table, and it perpetuates the mental model that central conferences are an overseas mission project instead of an integral part of the UMC. Yes, we have been a mission project, but we were shooting for a full place at the table.  Maybe that was asking too much.


Never-the-less, "Thank You, Merci, Asanti Sana, Wafwako." We will make certain you do not regret this huge commitment to theological education for our pastors.


I spent time last night getting to know the staff at the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry, especially Amos and Kimberly. Terrific people! Amos has a small budget to work with schools like Kamina Methodist University in new and creative ways. With his help, we will be fully engaged with GBHEM as we develop KMU with whatever portion of the $5 million that comes our way. 

I'm humming the Rolling Stones' "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and counting on getting what we need. 

Bob

Central Conferences at General Conference

Sunday afternoon Taylor and I sat outside the Embassy (hotel) chatting with Bishop Ntambo. The sun was warm, the Bishop was in his jogging suit, and the conversation was all about family, especially baby Evelyn. We talked about how Taylor could get to annual conference in Malemba for her ordination without being separated from Evelyn too long, the bishop insisting that little Evelyn is far too young yet to travel into an area where she would be exposed to malaria, cholera, and typhoid. Our first official meeting of General Conference was to check up on family.  

After our meeting with Bishop Ntambo, we walked from the Embassy to the lobby of the Marriott. There we ran into Bishop Katembo of South Congo.  He asked if I had finished my book on my adventures on bicycle in the Congo. That’s the same question he asked the last time we saw one another. Better finish the book. That’s three people who are asking for it.

Then came the big reunion as all of our friends from North Katanga, Tanganyika, and Tanzania greeted Evelyn for their first time. Lots of photo taking. We had promised to see them in Tampa. Promise fulfilled.

The presence of central conference delegates at general conference has thrown a huge wrench into the machine. Some would say, even causing a train wreck. I’d rather say that we hit an extremely steep learning curve. I’m not sure what will be accomplished, but I do know that we learned a lot very quickly.

The global Church that we have talked about and dreamed of for so long happened all of a sudden with great surprise to all. We saw the numbers coming, but couldn’t appreciate the impact of the actuality. The central conference delegates came strong, not as beggars or guests.

It’s an exciting time, filled with chaos and dramatic change that is outside anyone’s control. The conflicts are disorienting, because they do not fall along easily identified political divisions. One might be thrilled with the new found strength of the central conferences and then disappointed by the way they vote. Those who came with an agenda have seen their plans thwarted, not so much over the merits of a proposal, but because central conferences were not considered in the build up to the General Conference debates.

I’m sitting in the press section watching a prolonged discussion on the languages in which future pre-conference materials will be published. The conversation around translation has moved from “How do we make our international guests feel welcome?” to “How does the Church prepare itself for a global gathering, all fully equipped to participate?”

This General Conference may end up a train wreck, especially for those who came with an intended outcome, or those whose world is neatly divided into left and right political battles. Many American delegates came believing that the UMC is at a crossroads where immediate action is required to save the Church from death due to decline. Central Conferences came with the energy of a Church just developing its running legs, ready to discuss the Church’s future from the perspective of rapid growth and bold mission. 

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again here, I don’t know what will happen here in Tampa. What I do know is that the next four years promise to be the most exciting quadrennium ever. I know this to be true in North Katanga. Our delegates came strong.

Bob

(This commercial message brought to you by Friendly Planet Missiology and Kamina Methodist University.)

Since this blog post, Bishop Yemba of Central Congo has delivered a powerful sermon that says it much better. Go to gc2012 to view.

An Apology, Sort of

When you light yourself on fire, you need a good friend standing by with a fire extinguisher. A few days ago I published a blog accusing The United Methodist Church (the General Church) of abandoning the districts inside the war zone in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was a passionate blog post that many read as angry. (I preferred to only admit to being very cross.) I knew that it would draw some cheers from the cheap seats. (where I sit) And I also knew that if I didn't go strong, the target audience would ignore my plea. Too strong?


I received a friendly email from an American bishop who wanted to alert me to how it was heard in his conference. His concern was that it was heard as a criticism of Bishop Ntambo and the leadership of North Katanga. That mishearing, I must correct! 


The blog was meant to inform all United Methodists that we had not celebrated the heroic leadership of our sisters and brothers during a brutal war and that those same colleagues are still there in place in their appointments and desperately need our presence with them. As to Bishop Ntambo's leadership, the Tannenbaum Center in New York City awarded him their Peace Maker in Action Award in 2010. (I was there and a few other UM friends, but official representation of the UMC was painfully absent. - Did I just throw gasoline on the fire?) 


In the last decade, no one has grown the United Methodist Church like Bishop Ntambo and his pastors and lay leaders, and they have done it in the midst of a horrific war. Note to lay delegates: In North Katanga, laity are subject to the Bishop's appointment, especially doctors, nurses, and educators. 


There was some hard truth telling in my report to Bishop Ntambo. He asked me and I answered truthfully. The remarkable story of recovery that is Kamina (the conference center), including the work of UMCOR and the help of several supporting conferences in the U.S., has not spread out to the remote districts our team visited. This was the biggest complaint we heard and it came not only from UM leadership, but also from the doctors in charge of the health zones and from territorial administrators. The United Methodist Church that stayed with the community through the war is now unable to lead in the recovery process. The support supply line isn't reaching these remote districts.


For those with a map, we are talking specifically about the Tanganyika Conference with the major towns of Kalemie, Manono, and Kabalo, in the northeast corner of the Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. 


Therefore, I apologize for my outburst, sort of. Sort of, because we've got to get some real help to these colleagues and we've got to get it to them fast. If I have to set myself on fire to get your attention, then . . .


Bob Walters

Prepping for General Conference

A Typical Rural United Methodist Church in our Report

Bishop Ntambo, Joseph Mulongo, and I sat outside on the basketball court at the Bishop's home in Lubumbashi. Two small deer were grazing in the yard. Mulongo and I were making our after-action report for the now completed 2012 tour of North Katanga to the Bishop. "Be specific. Don't just tell me it was a good trip. What did you see?"

I balanced my MacBook Air on my knees and ran a short slide show that I had quickly prepared the night before. Small screen, glare of the sun, not ideal for impressing a bishop. However, Bishop Ntambo was thrilled with the photo display, and I realized right then that we weren't teaching him any thing he didn't already know. He just saw the evidence he needed to back up what he had been preaching in both the Church and Parliament. (Bishop Ntambo is also a national senator.) He wanted two things from us. First, he wanted a slide show that he could show to the governor, the president, and a Chinese businessman who wants to work in North Katanga. I turned to Mulongo and asked, "Pastor Maloba (conference treasurer) can get us flash drives?" "No problem."

Second, the Bishop asked that I make a presentation to the General Conference delegates who are in Lubumbashi preparing for their trip down to Lusaka to get their visas for the U.S. Friday would be best. I was planning on leaving Friday to start my long journey home, but found myself saying, "Yes, sir." (I'll figure out later how to cut a day out of my travel plans and still make my flight out of Lusaka.)

The rest of the meeting was pulling out a calendar and nailing down the details for four annual conferences this summer: West Ohio, Tanzania, Tanganyika, North Katanga. The good news is that the Bishop of New Jersey is coming to the Tanganyika Conference to help dedicate four newly rebuilt churches. Remember yesterday's blog? This is huge!

Friday's meeting time arrives, 9 am in a large classroom on the third floor of the Methodist Centre. The room is filled with old friends and and some new ones, clergy and lay. The lay members are doctors, lawyers, and educators. Men in dark suits, women in brightly colored cotton dresses. Professionals, all. And I've been given two hours to talk with them about what I've learned about who they are, the communities they serve, and how they might present themselves in Tampa.

The meeting begins awkwardly. The Bishop wants to know why we don't have a large screen projector for our photos. My knee jerk response, which I keep to myself, is "This room doesn't even have a working electrical outlet!" But this is what I love about working for Bishop Ntambo. He expects that everything we do is done at the same pro level as he sees in America. He is blind to our handicaps. This is a blindness that is serving us well. We are expected to deliver excellence in spite of the lack of resources. Note to self: Buy one of those presentations projectors you see in "Sky Mall." Get the light weight one for packing on the bicycle.

My role in the presentation was not as cheerleader, but as truth teller. There was a lot to cover. Mulongo and Guy Mande tag teamed as translators. The Bishop insisted that the language of the meeting be Kiluba, not Swahili, not French. My presentation was frank, but not negative. There was as much in it about the resources already available to us as about the diseases of poverty and hunger that our communities face.

With well placed singles, Mulongo, Guy, and I loaded the bases. The Bishop then got up and knocked it out of the park. (Sorry about the baseball metaphor.) Here are the bullet points:

• North Katanga needs to plan for not receiving financial support from America in the future. This is not only because the global economic downturn is effecting mission giving in American churches, and not only because the mood in American United Methodist Churches is moving toward congregations and away from a global understanding of who we are, but because we are sitting in the midst of abundance. There is no excuse for our poverty. He coined the phrase: "Poverty in the Midst of Abundance."
• We can go to General Conference as leaders of the United Methodist Church, not as beggars at the table. We are, in every metric except finances, the strongest delegation going to the conference. In practice, we are succeeding where American conferences are failing.
• The chaos of restructuring gives us the opportunity to redirect the work of general agencies as they relate to central conferences. Don't be victims of restructuring, but use whatever movement is created to steer the denomination toward programs that actually help in Africa.
• We live or die as a connectional church. We go to General Conference to strengthen our place in the connection. Even if you vote differently than another delegate, do not think of them as the enemy and don't fail to make a connection. The votes on divisive issues will not determine our future; the connections we make will.
• And on personal behavior, don't go to General Conference begging for your own personal needs. Represent the whole episcopal area.

I came away from the meeting with a "Best Meeting Ever!" high fiving and being high fived. I don't know what will happen in Tampa. What I do know is that the next four years in the North Katanga Episcopal Area (North Katanga, Tanganyika, and Tanzania Conferences) are going to be the best quadrennium ever!

Bob Walters

Abandoned and Forgotten

Manono is exactly 100 kilometers by bicycle from Mulongo, if you take the short cut through the forest around Kyolo, which we did. The ride was serious fast. Team leader Daniel Mumba was driven to get there in record time. We even dropped a team member and sent him back to Mulongo when he pulled up lame. (At least, we didn't shoot him.)

In the forest, we find a mining encampment. It's a large group with both women and men mining, as well as women doing laundry, cooking meals, and caring for babies. It's also a friendly group. I'm having the feeling of running across a Gypsy camp in the backwoods of eastern Europe. (This is my imagination on sensory overload.) They welcome our picture taking and take time out to pose and smile. Don't let me deceive the reader, this is brutal work and in no way does the friendly welcome of the miners make this situation acceptable. Here is where your laptop or cell phone is born, dug out of the mud by the poorest people on the planet. This hard day's ride in the scorching sun is a physical challenge for me, but they are going to be here every day for the rest of their lives.

Out of the forest and back on the road, we head into the U.N. Peace Keeping Zone. There is some kind of political demonstration happening in the first village we enter. A large crowd has gathered and someone with a lot of energy is speaking. U.N. troops are there to keep a lid on it. The officer in charge of the company of soldiers makes eye contact and without altering his firm posture, waves us through, as if to say, "We don't need you in this mix." I'm needing a rest stop and had mentally prepared myself for stopping in this village, but we wisely keep moving and make our stop 5 kilometers out of town. A couple hours later, the transport with the U.N. Peace Keepers passes us on their way back to their base in Monono.

This is my third visit to Manono, the first in 1991 and the second in 1995. Taylor (with Bishop Ntambo) visited right after the war in 2005. She saw the town in its rubble after being leveled in the war. I'm seeing two distinct pictures. There is the rubble, but it is overgrown and disappearing into the forest. Then there is the artificial city of the United Nations. The "downtown shopping district" of the old colonial days, which was a ghost town even before the war, has freshly painted store fronts and all kinds of trucks unloading all kinds of consumer goods. Generators are running to power communications systems. Pallets of bottled water, Coca-Cola, and beer are stacked outside the stores. The citizens are still living in poverty, but the U.N. soldiers and the accompanying NGO's are living well, and someone is making a tidy profit.

We are greeted by the district leadership of the United Methodist Church. Here is where my blood begins its slow boil. (I felt the same way when I visited Kalemie in 2009, and Kabalo last year.) The United Methodist Church (the General Church) has totally abandoned and absolutely forgotten these people. This is where I personally lose my cool and say things on a blog that is permanent and global that are unwise, but this is the rant that is my 95 Thesis on the Wittenberg Door.

For the life of me, I can't understand how a Church that prides itself in going anywhere and everywhere in the world in response to tragedy, misses the (by death toll) greatest humanitarian disaster since WWII. There is no UMCOR here in Monono, no General Board of Global Ministries, even. It's worse than not responding, we have abandoned the mission stations that were critical to the community for education and health care. And we still haven't returned. Our Congolese colleagues rightly feel abandoned.

That's my second point in this rant. How did the United Methodist Church (General Church) miss the heroic work of the pastors and lay leaders during the war, risking life and livelihood to stay in their appointments? and now those same pastors and lay leaders are still there, exhausted and completely out of resources. And we still aren't there.

These are the brave (and loyal) people who paint a cross and flame on their church or school or health center because they believe that they are on the same team as rest of the United Methodists in the world. They believe that they can go to work each day, without pay and without supplies, because we have their backs. Am I to tell them that Sam Houston isn't coming? that they're on their own?

The Catholic cathedral in the center of Manono had its roof blown off in the war. It is now reroofed and repainted and is a symbol of rebirth. I meet with the territorial administrator and he asks why the United Methodists have abandoned their people. I'm embarrassed and ashamed. We visit a school (auto mechanics and electrical) that had been built by the United Methodist missionary Ken Enright. An Irish NGO (Bono?) paid for a new roof and a fresh coat of paint, but it's still an empty shell. The director of the school hands me an $80,000 proposal for restoring the school to its previous state. I'm helpless to respond, and I'm angry that no one from the General Board of Global Ministries has even been here to see the state of their own projects.

The General Conference of the United Methodist Church is meeting in Tampa next week. There will be 66 delegates from the North Katanga Episcopal Area. If you are there, look them up, shake their hands, and say, "I'm sorry that we weren't there with you, what can we do to help?"

If you're from any of our general agencies, look me up. I'm Bob Walters, the newly appointed Director of Connectional Ministries for the North Katanga Episcopal Area. I'm very cross right now, but I can easily be appeased with a smile and a handshake.

Bob Walters

A United Methodist Church in the Monono District

This United Methodist Health Center is empty inside, no meds, no equipment

ZamBikes Review

ZamBike is a new bicycle company in Lusaka, Zambia. Google them and read their compelling story.

Last year Taylor and I purchased one of their bamboo frames in a moment of impulse buying. It's just way too cool. I've yet to build the bicycle, no money for wheels and too much indecision about what I want the bike to be.

The bamboo frame is handmade in the factory in Lusaka, and the dream is that the technology of bamboo bicycles will eventually become affordable enough to build an inexpensive world bicycle in small business start up factories throughout Africa. Until then, it is the plaything of cyclists pushing the envelop. Two Dutch cyclists just finished a ride from Pole to Pole on bamboo bicycles.

Friendly Planet Missiology purchased 5 ZamBike Amaka Sana models with the funds raised by the Fondo du Congo, the annual fund raising ride organized by friends in the Plainfield (Indiana) United Methodist Church. (Amaka Sana is Bemba for Very Strong.) These bicycles are not the bamboo framed bicycles made in Lusaka. They are made by Trek on the same line as Trek mountain bikes are made in China. By special arrangement between Trek and ZamBike, they are painted yellow and branded ZamBike. Even though they are not made in Zambia, the ZamBike is the only bicycle in central Africa with a local brand. Our purchase of the ZamBikes comes both out of our need for a higher quality bicycle for our team and our commitment to support local business development.

Now for the review:

The ZamBike Amaka Sana is the first mountain bike (that I'm aware of) that has been designed specifically for Africa. It brings high tech design to the peculiar challenges of central Africa, particularly delivering an affordable and maintainable bicycle strong enough to hold up to the world's worst roads.

The most obvious design feature is the six speed rear cog set. The ZamBike designers chose to build the bikes with Shimano components, a decision to go with quality. This was the puzzle: to keep the bike inexpensive, but make it strong. On the other hand, they chose to pass on a front derailer and give the bike a single mid-range chain ring (front gear). To protect the rear derailer, a roll cage is added. Very smart.

A rear rack, fenders, and kickstand make the bike a good touring bike. The pedals are basic, but solid, which seems to be the design spec for all accessories. The saddle is much nicer than I expected.

The bright yellow color is cool. It makes the bicycle stand out in a crowd and very visible on the road. Our riders would like to have had a tool kit and a tire pump. Except for the 15 mm axle nuts, all bolts and nuts are adjusted by allen keys. The tubes came with Schrader valves, common in America, instead of the Woods valves, common in Asia and Africa. I don't know what is available in Mozambique and other countries where ZamBikes are now being used, but this is an issue I'd like to feed back to the ZamBike folk. There are pump mounts on the frame. Why not supply a pump? And why not a small tool kit? (Our riders would gladly pay the small cost for these upgrades.) We had to rely on the multi-tool and frame pump I had brought for my bike.

The bicycles came assembled and tuned. That was great. Our mechanics are very skilled, but the whole multi-speed thing is new. Although, when we needed a bike mechanic upcountry, the local bike shop (under a tree with minimal tools) was not at all intimidated. I have in my head an idea that we could bring a mechanic from ZamBike up to the Congo to do a workshop.

The riders had no problem learning the principle of gear changing and hill climbing. It was not long before any advantage I had with my Cannondale 30 speed touring bike was lost. We very quickly became the fastest bicycle team on the roads of North Katanga.

There were small things. A fender bracket failed on our shake down ride. Our mechanic (Elephant) quickly manufactured a bracket that not only worked, but was an upgrade. Elephant also learned quickly how important it is to check all the nuts and bolts daily, as the pounding on the roads shakes every piece and part. Keeping the drive train properly cleaned and oiled is critical.

We put 1,200 kilometers on our new ZamBikes and our only complaint is about the tires. Two tires failed early. One split along the centerline and one split along the bead. Both were repaired (sewn) and finished the ride. However, all the tires had to be rotated mid ride from front to back and by the end of the ride all our tires were tread bare. In fairness, I destroyed two tires on my Cannondale.

ZamBike gets two thumbs up, or 5 stars out of 5, or 10 on a 10 point scale for delivering a bicycle that works in the harsh environs of the mountains of eastern Congo, a long way from any well stocked bike shop. We'll figure out the tire thing.

Bob W.

Mulongo and the Nursing School

I am back in Indiana sitting at the kitchen table trying to organize all the photos and journal entries of the last three years into a readable story. Before diving back into the book, I want to finish a couple blogs that didn't get posted when we lost internet connection. First, our time in Mulongo.

Mulongo is the large (100,000 people) fishing village on the Congo River where we keep our boat, the Indiana. As we've posted before, keeping the players straight requires a score card. Dr. Ivan Mulongo is the former head of the British Brethren hospital. Dr. Ivan has been a member of congress, his reelection now in the courts over a recount dispute. While at the hospital, he began a nursing school. In 2008, Dr. Ivan Mulongo was a delegate to the General Conference of the United Methodist Church held in Ft. Worth. There, he pitched his nursing school project to Denver Thornton, an attorney from El Dorado, Arkansas. That's where we came in. Denver contacted the only person he knew who worked in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Taylor, and asked if she could confirm that the project is legit. (Keeping up?)

Taylor could confirm that we know the Rev. Joseph Mulongo, the district superintendent of the Mulongo District, and that I was on my way to ride 1,000 kilometers in the North Katanga Conference, would be passing through the village of Mulongo, and would check out the project personally. That was 2009.

Even though our missiology deals with the systems of mission delivery, we're not terribly systematic in the discovery process. We go where we're led. (by the Spirit, by the Universe, by our own noses, by local hospitality) Mulongo is the convergence of the passions of several people (related and unrelated) with a particular human need in a particular place and time. Creepy cool, when you think about it. This is why I believe in God. There is no way that any international development group (UNICEF, USAID, UMCOR) would have come to the remote village of Mulongo to build a nursing school. No one would have had access to all the pieces of the puzzle. (I'm a big fan of Doctors without Borders, but even they drive right through Mulongo on their way to their projects further north.) In the book, I'll make the full argument for the strategic sense of the nursing school, but right now, I'm only receiving it as a minor, although quite typical, miracle/gift of God.

The short argument for the strategic sense of the nursing school is that all the aid programs to "save Africa," like mosquito nets and water wells, will have no lasting impact if the community is not strong enough to receive them. Thus, the nursing school, a locally created solution to the health needs of the community is foundational.

The first building of the school is up and finished on the outside. One large classroom is finished on the inside and furnished. Classes are in session. Students and teachers are at work. The other classrooms are at various stages of completion and the foundation of the second building (for midwife training) is laid. What is needed? Cement to finish construction, scholarships for students, and medical training books for the library. (These books are available in-country, the school just doesn't have the money to buy them.)

While in Mulongo, we stay with Dr. Serge, the present head of the hospital and the academic dean of the nursing school. Since returning home, we've received the news that Dr. Serge has been given a new appointment in Lubumbashi. On one hand, this is bad news for the village of Mulongo, as Dr. Serge has been a true leader in the community, as well as the best surgeon in a very large service area. On the other hand, he is deserving of a big promotion and will serve the whole country as he takes on greater responsibilities. Also, this creates a window of opportunity to move the nursing school into the next generation of leadership. It is an unknown place, so it's a bit scary, but as Joseph Mulongo has said, the same God who sent us Dr. Serge is sending his replacement.

Bob W.

Operating Instructions: Reflections on Writing, God, and Missiology

From Emily Johnson:


Two things happened this week that were relatively inconsequential to the news cycle, but that I can’t stop thinking about. First, a psychology student from Kamina Methodist University died of malaria. Didn’t even make the news. Second, This American Life aired their first ever story retraction. Mike Daisey, author and performer of “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” admitted that his expose about the human rights violations related to the production of various “iProducts” was, in large part, a fabrication.

These things, to me, are huge. Because I saw myself in both of them, and both of them are deeply humbling. Again and again, I am struck with the reality that pulling the long straw, being born in the USA, has “protected” me from living the life of my Congolese brothers and sisters, where someone my age, studying the same field as I am, died from a completely treatable disease this week. When bad things happen at random, to seemingly good people, sometimes people say, “Wow, that could have been me.” And there is conviction behind that, but also the safety of the knowledge that it wasn’t you. When I hear news like this, through the miracle of modern technology (read: facebook), I feel compelled to grab everyone around me by the shoulders and say, “No, really, that could have been me.”  And how do we allow this to happen in our world, that on one side of the globe I am here, owning a house, and pets, and going to graduate school with a little elbow grease and a little luck, and on the other side of the world, someone exactly like me is dying. On days like this, I confess, I don’t understand God. Well, the reality is that I never understand God, but sometimes more acutely than others. 

Then there was Mike Daisey—who created this miracle of modern story-telling, with a compelling, convicting voice with the pauses in all the right places, and told us all about how horrible Apple is for doing terrible things to people in developing countries. Making them make our electronics by working 60 hours a week with poisonous substances in a cramped, inhumane factory (no mention of how this is made possible by exploiting Congo and the rest of Africa to get the raw materials necessary to construct said electronics). And the country is mad because we believed him. He was so compelling. He made us care. But it turns out, he didn’t really see or experience these things. And so his “creative nonfiction” about Apple was really “creative fiction”. I listened to his interview on this American Life, as he tried to explain why he lied to the country about human tragedy. He said this: “...I think the truth always matters. I think the truth is tremendously important… I don’t live in a subjective world where everything is up for grabs. I really do believe that stories should be subordinate to the truth. …And everything I have done in making this monologue for the theater has been toward that end – to make people care. It’s theater. I use the tools of theater and memoir to achieve its dramatic arc and of that arc and of that work I am very proud because I think it made you care, Ira, and I think it made you want to delve. And my hope is that it makes – has made- other people delve.”

Daisey goes on to tell Ira Glass that the things he talked about (underage workers, cruel living conditions, required overtime, harsh working conditions, etc etc) were things that happened in Apple plants… just not things that happened to him or that he witnessed. And he couldn’t stand the fact that this was an important story that America didn’t care about, and that he just wanted to make them care, and that it was worth it, even if it required a bit of “artistic license”.

The thing is, I wasn’t mad at Daisey, like the rest of the country. I completely understood. I think, that since coming back from the Congo and expanding my writing skills to being published in a few different genres, that I finally feel comfortable calling myself “a writer”. So I know what it is like to be a writer in a place like that, where horrible things happen to horrible people, and to want to make people care even if it means lying. Because it’s worth it, right?

Not quite coincidentally, my second essay about my time in the Congo went live yesterday. The differences between Daisey and I are huge and small at the same time. Because I feel that on some level, I understand him, am just like him—a nomad, a traveler, a writer, just wanting to make Americans care about something. But, I also didn’t lie about my experiences. I went to places where I took hundreds of pictures, not because I wanted to have them, but because it was just too much to bear to look with the naked eye. I had to have the camera between me and the world around me. And I came back, and I wrote about it. And I got published. I am proud and not proud at the same time, because I exploited this experience for personal gain. But people loved and respected it. People said to me, we want to send you everywhere, to Afganistan and the middle east and everywhere, so you can bring back your understanding and share it with us. 

And I felt proud, but also humble, and guilty. You see, I’m kind of a one-trick pony when it comes to writing. I am good at making people care. Better than Mike Daisey. Because I’m good at making people see tragedy. I see the brokenness of humanity in stark images everywhere I look. I did not have to go to the war zone or the refugee camps to make people see Congo. I am good at seeing the horror and destructiveness in the every day scenes. I’m good at putting them into words, and making people see the world as a brutal, broken place, which it is, in a lot of ways. But I’m also a “liar”, in a sense, just like Mike. Because I’m bad at making people see the grace and beauty of God. It is a lie to say that I went to the Congo and only saw the brokenness and weakness of myself and humanity, but that’s what I write about, have written about. 

I think that, we, as humans, are so broken, and need God so much, that it’s hard for all of us to see beauty sometimes.  I am familiar with the language of pain and loss. This, I have come to believe, is normal. When the fall of man happened, humans learned, for the first time, the language of pain and loss. We glutted ourselves on it. I joke sometimes that since I came back from Congo, I have a brutal French vocabulary; I know all the French words related to rape and violence and fire and destruction, but none of the words related to beauty and sunrises and babies.

Writing about beauty is an advanced skill for writers. As Louise Gluck wrote, “We can all write about suffering with our eyes closed.” Writing about God’s grace and peace in everyday life in America or in the Congo requires stepping outside of our humanness. I was thinking the other day that part of becoming a “missiologist” is learning to see yourself for what you really are—a depraved, messy, sinful, hopeless creature without God. Sometimes, as Americans, we have to travel to the other side of the world to see that, because we have an unspoken belief in our own specialness, our own divine potentiality, our own ability to save others. We will never understand how we can be missiologists without understanding our own nature as selfish, weak, hopeless beings that fall short without God. We are not saviors. We are not special, or different, just by virtue of being born in America. 

However, this acquisition of humility is only the first step. We see that we are broken so that we can be made whole. As the saying goes, God accepts us just as we are but He loves us too much to leave us that way.

I confess that I am still in phase I, a baby missiologist, learning to embrace my own weakness. My writing lies, my speaking lies, my story lies, because I so often fail to understand or acknowledge the greatness of God. I fail to recount the memories of the beautiful African sunsets and how different and more nuanced they are than the sunsets in America. I fail to understand the beauty of the people I met and love. Like an infant who must crawl before they can walk, sit before they can stand, I remain lost in the attempt to place myself accurately (if that’s possible…) within human nature, before beginning to learn how to place myself within God’s nature. My essays are about death and heartache and hardship. All of this is true and honest—this is the way the world is, and an accurate understanding of it is not accessible to most of us. So it is true that even by speaking the truth of the hardship in Congo, I do a service for God. But, God has called us to so much more—He stretches me as a writer and as a person by asking me to move beyond that. To show people the grace and beauty and salvation that is in Congo and that is in me. I hope that I’m up to the challenge.

Kizanga

Forest Stream in the Nyembo District

When we left off blogging, we were leaving Kamina for Kizanga. The decision was to meet our boat, The Indiana, in Kizanga rather than back tracking all the way to Bukama. The primary reason was that the District Superintendent of the Nyembo District lobbied us to visit Kizanga. Since it actually made sense to cut off a corner of a triangle on our map and we would avoid the expensive docking fees at the busy river port of Bukama, we relented to the plea to change our plan.

It's 100 kilometers from Kamina to Kabando Dianda, and then, 30 more from Kabando Dianda to Nyembo Umpungu. We're going to push ourselves to do this in one day.

We leave Kamina before sun up, make it to Kabando Dianda by noon, rest there a couple hours then ride on to Nyembo. Longest ride of the trip, easiest day. Good roads, fast bikes. We were cruising at 20 kph most of the day.

The next day, we take our time leaving for Kizanga. It's only 16 kilometers.

It ended up being the hardest slugging of the trip, yet. After the first hour, we had only covered 2 and a half kilometers. This is Henry Stanley, slashing through the jungle, speed. It's a single track foot trail through the forest with steep, rocky hills and deep muddy bottoms. The support motorcycle was buried several times, with the whole team pushing and pulling. Oh, and interesting bridges. This is why we ride bicycles.

It is amazing that you can cover 130 kilometers in one day with ease, and the next day struggle to make 16. But, at Kizanga, we did arrive.

Kizanga is a fishing village on a small lake that feeds the Congo River. Our boat will come up the river and into the lake to meet us.

Kizanga's presenting problem: cholera. We were brought there to see their health center project, which is mostly at the dream stage. They have made and fired the bricks, have collected rocks for the foundation, and have acquired the land concession, but that's were the project is stalled. That is where most of the locally initiated projects are stalled. (This is where we argue for coming along side local initiatives, rather than delivering canned solutions from outside.)

That evening Mary shows up with Elephant and the boat crew. Mary is a breath of fresh air, a quiet leader, but the recognized leader of the boat team. Even though we all know that the issues of gender equality are a long way from being solved or even addressed, it is possible for a woman to rise to a position of recognized leadership. The difference, however, is that a woman truly earns the spot, where more often than not, an incompetent man is given the position. Mary has earned it, and is respected. She will be our chief of mission while on the boat.

The next morning we are on the boat and headed for the village of Katobwe, where we will enter the Congo River. I'm pumped because the boat crew has seen elephants along the river on the way to pick us up, and Mulongo assures me the there are hippos in the river in the area.

Bob

On the Lualaba (Congo River)

(Actually, back-posting from Lubumbashi)

Press Release: Bob Walters named DCM for North Katanga

Walters next to the Friendly Planet boat "The Indiana" in Mulongo, DR Congo 

Kamina, Democratic Republic of the Congo

Bishop Ntambo Nkulu Ntanda has named the Rev. Bob Walters the Director of Connectional Ministries for the North Katanga Episcopal Area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Bishop Mike Coyner of Indiana has made the enabling appointment making Walters, elder of the Indiana Conference, available to North Katanga.

North Katanga , which includes the North Katanga, Tanganyika, and Tanzania Conferences, is one of the fastest growing areas of the United Methodist Church. It is also one of the poorest with malaria, cholera, typhoid, and HIV/AIDS epidemic. Many of its districts have survived the recent horrific war in eastern Congo and are struggling to recover. United Methodist pastors and lay leaders behaved heroically during the war and are now in place to lead in the recovery. North Katanga will have 66 delegates at this year’s General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida, the largest delegation attending. 2010 was the centennial year of Methodism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Walters has spent the last three years traveling by bicycle and river boat throughout the remote districts of the North Katanga and Tanganyika Conferences visiting in villages ravaged by the war and making an evaluation of mission stations that had had resident missionaries before the war. These tours were done as a part of Friendly Planet Missiology’s work in North Katanga.

Walters’ time will be split between the DRCongo and the U.S. While in the DRC, he will continue to work with districts in connecting them with the vision and strategies of the Episcopal Area. While in the U.S., he will be interpreting the progress and struggles of the United Methodist Church in North Katanga to general agencies and partner conferences.

Bishop Ntambo has a vision of North Katanga moving from a mission project of American United Methodists to a full partnership, including reversing North Katanga’s financial relationship with the rest of the world. Both the Bishop and Walters agree that there is sufficient natural resources in the DRCongo that the people should not be this poor. They also agree that the United Methodist Church is positioned to provide the leadership necessary for this transitional development.

“This will take 50 years to accomplish,” the Bishop said, “and I won’t be here to see that, but we must start now.” Walters said, “We have a large cadre of next generation leaders trained at the UM Seminary at Mulungwishi, Africa University, St. Paul Seminary in Kansas City, and now, Kamina Methodist University. Our task is to make good use of this great pool of talent.”

Walters will continue as President of Friendly Planet Missiology. Taylor Walters Denyer will be stepping up to head the global operations of FPM and Joseph Mulongo Ndala will head the Congolese operations.

Kamina

Kamina from Wings of the Morning plane, 2011

You go to London to see the Queen.
You go to Kamina to see the Bishop.
Sometimes the Queen isn't in London.
Sometimes the Bishop isn't in Kamina.

We're here, but the Bishop is still tied up in Lubumbashi.
Don't know how long we will wait for his return. Have a boat to catch in Kizanga.

In God's great fun of making me eat my words, the UMCOR Director of Missions for DRC was in Kamina today, staying in the next room at the guest house. Nice guy. From Kenya. His office is in Lubumbashi and he promised to take me out for a beer when I get back down there. (He's Catholic.) I'll put all this in The Book, but short story: I've made some good friends in the most out of the way places. (Did I ever tell you of the Liberian, whom I first met in Lubumbashi, that I ran into at the Foreign Coorespondents Club in Pnom Penh in 2005 on my birthday?)

It was raining this morning, so we got a late start, but had a full day of visiting in two districts: Kamina Cite and Kaminaville. If you were to drop into Kamina fresh from the U.S., you would be impressed by the needs here. However, coming out of the bush, this place looks pretty good. Most of the projects are what I would call next generation: health centers that desparately need expansion, 20 year old construction that needs renewed, schools that need to be added on to, wells and pumps that need to placed closer to the need. (Kamina has pumps all over the place.) This is the place that threw Dr. Paul, the Minister of the Health Zone in Mulongo, into a rant directed at me. "UMCOR calls us all to Kamina to tell how important good water is and they dig wells all over Kamina, but they don't come to Mulongo!" (Dr. Paul is also a good friend now.)

The great disappointment of the day was that I was told that Kamina Methodist University's distance learning program was operational, so I could Facetime Teri in Plainfield. The wireless guy still needs to set up the wireless. Bumbed beyond belief. Going to go to the Vodacom office Monday and see if they can install some of their software on my Macbook Air.

Tomorrow is Kipendano (United Methodist Women) Day. Therefore, I get to go enjoy a lot of great singing and dancing and expect to hear a good sermon from one of our women leaders. Last year in Mulongo I heard an excellent sermon delivered with passion and humor by an 80 year old woman. BTW I'm paying much more attention to the ancient ones here, the ones who have lived through it all. They didn't know David Livingstone, but many of them remember Bishop Booth. They don't move so fast, but they are a tough as old leather.

Bob
Kamina