More About the Congo Mission

By the time this newsletter is published and sent out, my mission partner and good friend Pastor Stéphane Kalonji will have returned from this year’s Congo Mission trip. With his return, the countdown to next mission trip has begun. Next July, as the Lord wills it, I will travel with my friend and brother in Christ to Kinshasa and embark on a three-week mission to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and minister to the people of the Bas-Congo region.
I am most anxious to return and see my friends in the cities of Boma, Tshela, and Matadi. These are people who have taken me in and treated me as one of their own. We share meals together, fellowship and a fairly good amount of laughter as we do the work of the gospel together.
One more aspect of next year’s trip is that Pastor Kaonji and I have invited someone new to go along with us. St. Jacob’s newest friend, Pastor Mathew Magera, who visited us with his youth group in July is prayerfully discerning our invitation to accompany us to Congo and work along side us as we engage Jesus’s Great Commission to make disciples. As a part of this invitation, I hope to travel to Zion Lutheran Church in Pittsburgh to provide information for his congregation. I expect this trip will occur in early September, perhaps as early as Labor Day Weekend.
Please pray for Pastor Mathew as he considers becoming one of our Congo Mission International Missionaries. I can truly attest to the fact that once one has met the people of the Bas-Congo region and shared life together with them, they will be a part of that person’s life forever.
In the coming months, I will ask our church family, our auxiliaries, and friends to once again support our missional effort by hosting fund raising events and sharing information concerning the Congo Mission within the greater Chapin community. The amount of funding it takes to complete our mission efforts each year can seem somewhat daunting, but God has and always will provide the means for his missionaries to extend the Gospel of Jesus Christ into the world. Until then, thank you for your continued thoughts, prayers, and support on behalf of our brothers and sisters in Christ who live in a land so far away. I assure you; they pray for us continually that God would bless us in our ministry and proclamation of the Gospel. To God be the glory, Pastor David