wfn.org | Germans help Congolese find missionary home in Liberia

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Feb. 12, 2002 News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-31-71BP{052}

NOTE: Photographs are available with this report.		

By United Methodist News Service

With the help of United Methodists in Germany, a Congolese family unable to
return to their native country is beginning missionary service in Liberia.

Wala Dodee Olangi Mungombe, a medical doctor, and Katehe Pierre Mungombe, a
civil engineer, were commissioned as missionaries in December by the United
Methodist Board of Global Ministries. On Feb. 3, Lindenkirche, their home
church in Wittenau, Berlin, and the local United Methodist district had
their own sending ceremony for the Mungombes, who hope to leave Germany for
Liberia by March 15, once final paperwork has cleared for their two
children.

Their assignment at Ganta Hospital in Liberia marks three years of effort
and cooperation between their pastor, the Rev. Heinrich Meinhardt, and
several United Methodist agencies. "We hope within a few weeks we really
will have a happy ending for all of them," Meinhardt told United Methodist
News Service in a Feb. 11 telephone interview.

The story starts with Pierre, a native of Wembo-Nyama in the Democratic
Republic of Congo. After earning a degree in humanities from College Owamba
Koto in Tshumbe, he studied construction engineering at the Institute of
Building and Public Works at what was then called the National University of
Zaire in Kinshasa. He later received a scholarship to the Institute of
Engineering in Baku, Azerbaijan - still a part of the Soviet Union at the
time - and earned a master's degree.

Because of his political involvement in what was then Zaire, Pierre did not
return to Africa after completing his studies in Azerbaijan in 1987,
Meinhardt said. Instead, he moved to West Berlin and, with the help of the
United Methodist congregation, got a scholarship to the Technical University
there. His wife joined him in 1989.

Dodee also earned her undergraduate degree from College Owamba Koto and
completed her medical studies at the Universite Marien Ngouabi in
Brazzaville, Congo. In Berlin, she worked as a nursing assistant in the
Bethesda Nursing Home.

"They have always been active members in our church," Meinhardt noted.
However, the family had not been able to obtain formal immigrant status in
Germany, he added.

Because of the political situation, returning to the Congo is not a good
option for Pierre. "Some of his colleagues who had gone back to the Congo
disappeared," the pastor said. "They never learned anything about them. So
he was quite afraid."

Training at both the Board of Global Ministries' Mission Resource Center in
Atlanta and a Methodist center in England has prepared the couple for their
missionary assignment in Liberia. Their German congregation raised US$900
during the Feb. 3 sending event to support Ganta Hospital.

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United Methodist News Service
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