wfn.org | United Methodist executive to meet with Congo's president

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 21, 2001   News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-21-31-71B{287}

NEW YORK (UMNS) - The chief executive of the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries will meet with Joseph Kabila, president of the Democratic
Republic of Congo, to discuss how the church can help heal the physical and
spiritual wounds of war in that African country.

Kabila issued an invitation to the Rev. Randolph Nugent to attend several
meetings over a three-day period, beginning June 23 or 24. Part of the
discussion will involve the denomination's spiritual presence and
involvement in the efforts to bring about lasting peace in Congo.

Kabila's father, Laurent Kabila, became president of what was then Zaire in
1997 after driving longtime dictator Mobutu Sese Seko from power. Laurent
Kabila was still attempting to achieve peace with other rebel forces when he
was assassinated on Jan. 16. Joseph Kabila then became president at the age
of 29.

In his invitation, Kabila noted Nugent's leadership of a global mission
agency that recruits, trains and assigns more than 2,000 missionaries
worldwide, including 35 for the Congo. Last year, the United Methodist
Church's annual (regional) conferences contributed nearly $2 million to
support projects and missionaries in the Congo, according to Nugent.

The Board of Global Ministries also brought an ecumenical group of religious
leaders from the Congo, led by United Methodist Bishop Onema Fama of Central
Congo, to the United States last year to address a special U.N. session on
war in the African country.

Onema and the Congo's other two United Methodist bishops, Ntambo Nukulu
Ntanda and Katembo Kainda, received the board's Millennium Fund Africa
Peacemakers Award for their efforts in the peacemaking process.

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United Methodist News Service
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