For Seventh-day Adventists, Africa is one of the fastest growing continents. Yet, while rejoicing continues, the challenge remains: how to sustain growth and keep up with natural demands of the faith community searching for homes for the mushrooming congr
For Seventh-day Adventists, Africa is one of the fastest growing continents. Yet, while rejoicing continues, the challenge remains: how to sustain growth and keep up with natural demands of the faith community searching for homes for the mushrooming congregations. The situation is exacerbated by the results of tribal strife, political conflicts and wars.
When in 1994 the Rwanda civil war spilled over into Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, the church, as a part of the society suffered its effects. The outcome of the war for Christian churches, among them Seventh-day Adventists, meant that no church was spared.
Driving through the countryside reveals the destruction, which perhaps is most visibly evidenced by the empty shells of church buildings.
“You need to see it. We were at [various] sites and saw the need,” recalls Geoffrey Mbwana, president of the newly established East-Central Africa Division, or region, of the Adventist Church.
Speaking from the headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya, Mbwana describes his recent visit to Congo. “Our church members, and they are many, don’t have a place to worship. You see, some of those churches were broken down, were burned down, and yet you still have the people who are committed to worshiping their Lord. Some of us are enjoying attending beautiful churches, but these people have no place to worship.”
For new church leadership in Africa, a church-building program in Congo provides an extra challenge, topped perhaps by the needs of the fast-growing membership in central Africa. Today, there are more than 500,000 believers who make up the Seventh-day Adventist faith community in Congo.
The church has schools, dispensaries, clinics and other centers, many of which were started before the war and nearly all have been destroyed or halted in their completion. Congo has been affected more than any other place, church leaders explain. For the church in Africa, Congo has the largest concentration of membership.
“All these places need new church homes,” Mbwana says.
The Congo church restoration is being placed at the top of their priorities by the Nairobi church leadership. We can do no more than listen and respond to the cries of our laity, they readily acknowledge. For Pastor Mbwana, the designation of April 12 as a fundraising day for a reconstruction of Congo churches, means that Adventists in many countries will recognize the acute predicament of the Congo believers.
While recognizing many church-building needs of the region, the plan, according to Jules K. K. Lumbu, communication director of the East Central Africa church headquarters, consists primarily of rebuilding four prominent sanctuaries that would house large congregations. One is located in the capital of Kinshasa, another in Kisangani; two are university churches, one operated by the church and another at a public university.
The church in the Adventist University of Lukanga stands out. After worshiping in a classroom for quite some time, the students, together with the faculty, collected funds to build a church by themselves, but after putting up the walls, the construction was interrupted by the war. Today, they worship in a shell of a church.
Noah Kasereka Musema, vice president of the East Central Africa region, used to oversee the church’s administration in East Congo, and explains why he supports this project. “We were attracted by this local initiative. These are students who have collected money, and the staff and faculty were also involved. They came out to build this church, because they were worshiping in a classroom. So when we [visited], we were really amazed and attracted by this local initiative.”
Musasia Mukulambizia, the local church president from East North Congo, says that whether in war, or peacetime, Adventist churches have been considered in many places as centers of hope for the whole community. “Even during the war we realized that the work of God cannot stop and needed to go forward. We did not despair,” says Pastor Mukulambizia.
In the capital city of Kinshasa, Seventh-day Adventists are unanimous in their resolve to establish a “truly representative church here.” Lumbu explains that the place in which they worship cannot match their vision.
“Kinshasa is a huge city. The population is somewhere between 8 million and 10 million people. There are new baptisms there. The church was first built in 1960, and it was small. A room of 50 square meters was quickly outgrown by a congregation of 600. They began a building program and the war halted the project,” he explains.
The Congo conflict left scores of shattered lives. The roads were destroyed. But throughout the country believers still came to prayer meetings and worshipped in partly damaged halls.
Today, the Adventist church in Kisangani, Congo’s third largest city, which has one of the churches designated for reconstruction, attracts as many as 800 people. Musasia is ready to comment that “in a war situation, people develop a sense for comfort, and many hope for a better life to come. In spite of the war, the church membership increased by the thousands who were baptized.”
“The church is growing, because it is attractive,” he explains.
“The church is well organized on all levels, and that is very attractive for the people. When you visit churches, you sense that there [exists] a friendly relationship between the church members, and between the leaders and the church members. There is love [in the church] and this makes the church very attractive. And there is also the truth that we preach.”
On any given Sabbath, the Congo churches are full—in many places overflowing with standing room only. A visitor to the partly erected construction, with three walls and an unfinished corrugated metal roof, can’t help but note that the worshippers feet rest on a loose gravel floor, with heaps of broken stones ready to be turned into a cement floor. An unlikely playground for the children, whose singing can be heard in a yet to be completed room on the side of the church property.
Yet they call it their home and they come here to worship God with a hope that soon they will have all four walls and a roof, all turned into a representative sanctuary. After all, Lumbu says, it’s a capital city and they dream to have a church they can be proud of.
