wfn.org | Congo president looks to United Methodists to sustain spirit

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

June 29, 2001  News media contact: Linda Bloom·(212) 870-3803·New York
10-21-31-71B{298}

A UMNS Report
By Linda Bloom*

The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo is counting on the church
to sustain the spirit of his people, according to a United Methodist
official.

The Rev. Randolph Nugent, chief executive of the United Methodist Board of
Global Ministries, spent an afternoon in an "extraordinary meeting" with
Joseph Kabila in Kinshasa, Congo's capital. They discussed how the church
can assist the people of the African country with both the necessities of
life and efforts at peace and reconciliation.

Nugent and several members of his staff, along with United Methodist Bishop
Onema Fama of Central Congo and the Rev. Daniel Ngoy Mulunda-Nyanda, a
United Methodist with the All Africa Council of Churches, met with Kabila on
June 25. They also met with others from his administration and visited
church projects while in Congo June 22-27. Kabila had personally invited
Nugent to visit.

Congo is home to nearly 1 million United Methodists, overseen by three
bishops. The denomination as a whole contributed nearly $2 million last year
to support projects and missionaries there.

Nugent told United Methodist News Service that Kabila was "deeply
appreciative for the church's presence, and he invited the church because he
was concerned about the spirit of the people." In fact, he added, the
president was more interested in the church's involvement in maintaining
that spirit and its participation in the peace process than in any material
aid the denomination could give.

That concern about keeping the spirit of the people alive was shared by
other government officials, said Lorene Wilbur, a board executive on the
trip. Those officials did not expect the board to interact directly with the
government but rather with the people and churches, she explained.

Kabila is working to establish stability in a country that has nearly
disintegrated after years of dictatorship and war. Known as Zaire under the
30-plus year control of Mobutu Sese Seko, the country had suffered a deep
economic and social decline by the time his longtime foe, Laurent Kabila,
began a rebel movement to gain power. Kabila took control from Mobutu in
1997 and changed the country's name to the Democratic Republic of Congo in
his first official act.

But Congo's problems did not end, and by August 1998, Kabila was plagued by
battles with other rebel forces that received support from Burundi, Rwanda
and Uganda. In response, Kabila's troops received backing from Angola,
Zimbabwe and Namibia. Although a ceasefire was signed in 1999, it did not
hold, and conflicts were continuing when a bodyguard assassinated Kabila
last January.

His son, Joseph Kabila, now 30, replaced his father as president. Nugent
found him to be a "man with a deep spiritual commitment to life," concerned
about his people, but "not at all taken with his power."

He also found Kabila to be familiar with the work of the United Methodist
Church in Congo and said the president was "open to a global approach" to
putting the country back on track.

Although much of the church presence is in areas still under rebel control,
United Methodists have remained active, and the Board of Global Ministries
has been able to use native mission personnel to do its work. "We now have
Congolese in place to handle things locally," Nugent explained. "What a
blessing. They're doing an incredible job."

But the needs are massive. Kinshasa was designed for 400,000 people and
currently holds more than 6 million. Nugent and his staff visited a United
Methodist layperson working as a doctor in the largest hospital there. The
facility has no medicine and hardly any water. A refugee center in the city
run by the United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) can provide only a
small amount of food - not even subsistence level, according to Nugent.

"It's so clear that the country has just been devastated and yet at the same
time is so ready to move forward," Wilbur observed.

She described a visit to an orphanage built by funds from the United
Methodist Bishops' Initiative on Children and Poverty. Although the younger
children "greeted us with song," they remained quiet and somber during the
rest of the visit. The older children, meanwhile, performed a play showing
how the war had affected them. "It was the most moving experience of the
trip," she said.

As the only Protestant denomination with a presence throughout the country,
the United Methodist Church is in a position to help both with
reconciliation and reconstruction. In addition to dealing with immediate
food needs, Nugent would like to see a long-term focus on health care,
education and agricultural programs in Congo, along with an informational
component to get United Methodists around the world to be "more engaged in
the situation." In his opinion, "resources are available in our church to
address these matters."

Peace also remains a chief concern. While Nugent was in Kinshasa, the church
dedicated the "Dr. Randolph Nugent Hall for Peace and Reconciliation," where
representatives of the warring parties were to meet soon for further
negotiations.

Nugent and the Board of Global Ministries have supported the efforts of
interfaith church leaders in the Congo to move the peace process forward. In
January 2000, the agency hosted a visit of six religious leaders, including
Onema, in New York. The group attended a special session of the U.N.
Security Council about the situation in Congo.

El Hadji Mudilo-Wa-Molemba, head of Congo's Islamic community and part of
that New York delegation, was among the leaders greeting Nugent in return in
Kinshasa. "For him, to have an African-American come as the leader of the
(board) delegation was very meaningful," Wilbur said.
# # #
*Bloom is news director of United Methodist News Service's New York bureau.

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United Methodist News Service
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