Back to School! Kinshasa

Traditionally in Congo, photo protocol is solemn faces, but these girls are ready to smile… “We get to go to school!”

The beginning of school is a particular challenge for Congolese children. Primary education is free, but that doesn’t mean that everyone can attend: uniforms and school supplies are required and they don’t grow on trees.

Each year the many women of FEBA who have some school-aged children may name two to receive uniforms and supplies. FEBA would like to be able to help all the children, but that is not possible. This year there were 189! There could be hundreds more, but that is 189 more than there would have been without FEBA!

The kids are excited! Now they hold a passport to one more year of education. One year at a time… They are glad for each additional opportunity. Eventually, they will get there…

Back to School! Goma

Community Charity School (CCS) teachers are very grateful for paper and pens and pencils to distribute to the children or use in teaching.

Exercises the first day of school!!

CCS: a New Printer!

Teaching or learning is a big challenge when you must write everything by hand. This is complicated by not having textbooks, so all material has to be laboriously written out on a black-board and then copied into notebooks (with many possibilities for little mistakes to creep in).

The previous copier/ printer at CCS was stolen by M23 in 2025. Now they have a new printer to go with the new laptop (that is the whole computer dept) bought last spring. YAY!!!

New Houses!

Thanks to the Hayes family, the village of Munene near Uvira is gradually coming back to full life. Floods in 2022 destroyed over 150 homes; rebuilding has gone slowly but surely.

Each year more houses have been added, in a partnership of local labor to create sundried bricks and do the actual work, and financial support for items like cement or roofing which must be purchased.

See the first walls of a new house, bricks on a foundation of local stones held together with cement from the nearest big town, Uvira. The work has advanced greatly since these photos were made, but communications with villagers have been cut off by on-going military activity, so a full report is still to come.

THANK YOU, Hayes Family!!!

Continuing Challenges

East:  M23 and their Rwandan supporters still control much of the east, presenting constant challenges to daily life and communications. Mysterious fires recently killed a number of children in a school in occupied Bukavu. The only good news is that the Ebola epidemic is beginning to come under control, after costing thousands of lives. We are so grateful that CCS has not lost any teachers or students.

West: Kinshasa’s traffic gridlock continues to make any activity a day-long project, just to buy needed supplies. The on-going fuel crisis combined with Ebola means that anything brought by sea cargo in the Atlantic port has almost disappeared from shelves; as merchants try to find overland routes through east Africa, prices go through the ceiling.

       More and more members of FEBA or their families are sick, and deaths continue to rise. The son of one FEBA leader died but his mother was too ill to take charge of the funeral. The death of the husband an elderly member has left her to care for all the family alone; she has been the star of the microloan program (she received an award at the inauguration celebration in 2023), but her health and strength are diminishing – though not her faithful determination! FEBA helps all those it can, even when that aid must be small. Despite the dreadful traffic, members of the leadership go to visit each of the bereaved or seriously ill, to pray and encourage as they deliver the assistance in person. Presence is part of the tradition of ministry.