Realities for Pastors of the Mitwaba District

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UPDATE: In a shocking development to this story, missionary Taylor Walters Denyer reports on Facebook as of March 21:

I just received word from (district superintendent) Joseph Mulongo that the pastor whose photograph we featured in yesterday's blog about the plight of pastors in Mitwaba has died due to the very issues discussed in the blog post. Rev. Mulongo is trying to find out where his wife and children are now.

I am told that Rev. Ngoy Kisula was a seminary graduate who served for many years in the North Katanga and Tanganyika Conferences. He faced many hardships in his appointment, and this took a great toll on his heath. His biological family decided to take him from his appointment to seek medical treatment. He died in a village close to Manono.

Ms. Denyer adds that she thinks the story should be shared with "the general church," meaning The United Methodist Church around the world.

This blog is a response to a special request by the editor of UM Insight. Thanks, Cynthia Astle, for following our work and asking for this customized blog post. Just for you (and your readers).

What's happening in the Mitwaba District of the North Katanga Conference in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and why is it important to the General Church?

As most readers now know, the people of eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo have suffered through the greatest (in lives lost) humanitarian disaster since WWII, a conflict mostly unreported as the world's front pages covered 9/11, Iraq, Afghanistan, and even other African conflicts. That was 1995 to 2005. The war has heated up again as Rwandan backed rebels have taken cities in the east.

For us in the Katanga Province, this has meant that UN Peacekeeping troops have repositioned to the north and Congolese government troops are not strong enough to control the mountainous area that includes our Mitwaba District. A local militia group called the Mai Mai have taken over La Route Rouge which runs north from Lubumbashi to Mulongo and then to Manono. This is the route we use to travel on bicycle to Mulongo. (Our alternate route is also threatened by Mai Mai.)

While the chief root cause of the war(s) is the great wealth of minerals in the mountains, including coltan, which is essential to the making of consumer electronics and eastern Congo has 80% of the coltan reserves of the world, making the war an invasion for greed, not a civil war, the Mai Mai have their roots in a secessionist movement from the 1960s, and does constitute more of an internal civil war. Confused? You should be.

Obeying the orders of the Bishop, I have not gone up the Red Road this trip. The wisdom is that an American traveling in that area, especially on a bicycle, is inviting trouble for himself and anyone traveling with him. However, Joseph Mulongo has made the trip twice already this year, and his reports are not pretty. The Mai Mai use terror as their primary weapon and the villages have been vacated as people flee into the bush. There they starve and die of disease.

On his last trip down the Red Road, just last week, Mulongo was able to greet the United Methodist pastor at Kyolo, a village just north of Mitwaba, at the foot of the mountain. The Mai Mai had executed a government soldier there and dumped the body between the parsonage and the church.

This pastor recently graduated from the Theology School at Kamina Methodist University, an institution that FPM is thrilled to endorse. He's young, full of passion for the Gospel, well trained, and now appointed to a village where his family lives in starvation, disease, and fear. And up and down the Red Road, we have pastors and their families serving heroically, and dying.

Here's the point Mulongo made to me: We educate these young, passionate pastors in places like KMU, Mulungwishi, and Africa University, and then send them into the war zone with nothing to support them. While we are huge supporters of these fine schools, we cannot remain silent on what happens to these brave pastors once they graduate.

Why is this a General Church issue? Sure, it's sad, and we ought to send help, but how is it an issue for discussion at the General Church level? (Joseph Mulongo serves on the Commission on General Conference.)

Here's why, at least why I think that it is. As The United Methodist Church struggles to come to grips with the great growth of the Church in Africa, there are some basic assumptions of our structure that haven't yet been challenged. In this case, the assumption that every bishop in America makes when appointing a pastor to go serve in a community, that the community will support that pastor. Sure, there are arguments over salary levels, but the assumption is that the community will financially support the pastor, not the conference.

So far, the discussion has only gone as far as the fact that central conferences (and some US conferences) don't pay into the episcopal fund. Sorry folks, I don't give a rip about how our bishops get paid, or even if they do get paid. I care about that pastor in the Mitwaba District who is giving his life in the service of the Gospel.

Here's the other thing, and this comes from our spending three years traveling by bicycle and river boat in the North Katanga and Tanganyika conferences seeing the real world of the fastest growing part of The United Methodist Church and the suffering of the pastors, teachers, nurses, and their families. These brave servants of Christ work for us, but you wouldn't know it. They are out there on their own.

In the meantime, we raise millions of dollars for mosquito nets and water wells. Now, I'm all for nets and wells, but not if that means abandoning these, our colleagues, our brothers and sisters, in favor of more popular, more sexy, more commercially sellable promotions.

Sorry, I went to ranting again. This is just too raw right now. However, as rational missiologists, I believe that we have done the investigative work that proves that a well trained, well supported, strategically placed United Methodist pastor, nurse, or teacher will do far more good toward eradicating killer diseases than any program now being  pushed by the UMC. Well supported, they will lead the community to clean water and good health.

And one more thing. No one is a better peace maker than a well trained, well supported United Methodist pastor. The best strategy for peace in the Mitwaba District is to get some support to our pastors.

Thanks for listening. I'll try to be less passionate next time.

Lighting myself on fire to get your attention,

Bob

Instant feedback from FPNews readers taught me that I had left the impression that I believe that the answer is salary support. That kind of scheme has failed in the past; the funds get syphoned off before getting to the local level. (This accusation is not just directed at African leaders; Americans are just as guilty of paying the top dogs first.) What I am advocating, and apparently not well, is that we take advantage of the finest leadership network you would want to have on your side and strategize around their work. In other words, own the itineracy as a legitimate strategic structure. Still not making sense? Load a truck full of food and supplies and run it up the Red Road for relief of our pastors, nurses, and educators.