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Passion about poverty leads United Methodist to work in Congo

Dec. 20, 2005	 News media contact:   Kathy  Gilbert * (615) 7425470*
Nashville {708}

NOTE: Photographs, audio and a related commentary are available at
http://umns.umc.org <http://umns.umc.org/> . Editors using this report
after the holidays may delete the graphs about Christmas near the
bottom.

By Kathy L. Gilbert

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) - Early in her life, Taylor Walters was seized
by a passion to understand poverty.

Now, at age 26, she is seeing and experiencing it firsthand in the
Democratic Republic of the Congo as assistant to United Methodist Bishop
Ntambo Nkulu, who leads the United Methodist Church's North Katanga
Annual (regional) Conference.

"Right now there is a slow hemorrhage on my savings account," she says,
laughing, as she talks about how she is managing to live in the Congo
without a salary. She went to Africa last March both as a volunteer in
mission and as a missionary from Indianapolis Metro Ministries, which is
the mission arm of the Indianapolis East and West Districts in the South
Indiana Conference.

She returned home to Indiana in September and plans to go back to the
Congo in January. During her time home, she is visiting churches to
speak about her experiences and raise funds to finance her return trip.
She made a trip to Nashville to visit United Methodist Communications.

"I think God has been preparing me for this for a long time," she says.
Her father, the Rev. Bob Walters, went with a team of pastors to the
Congo while Taylor was in middle school. That is when he met and became
friends with Nkulu. "My father talked about Congo constantly during my
teenage years."

Nkulu's daughter lived with the Walters when Taylor was in high school.
Between her sophomore and junior year in high school, Taylor was able to
make her first trip to the Congo.

"It was a tremendous experience for me," she says. "...That was when I
felt the call for international ministry. I really just had a passion to
understand poverty and the division of poverty and wealth in the world."

Community development

In addition to being the bishop's assistant, Walters is coordinator of
the development department for the North Kantaga Conference.

"We focus on what are the most productive things we can do with no
operating budget," she says. "They sell seeds in the community in order
to buy paper and pens for the office ... that's what I mean by no
operating budget."

The team has come up with 12 themes of community development - one for
each month. Topics include AIDS awareness, nutrition, gardening
techniques and responsible parenting.

"We created a manuscript that includes Scripture, so pastors could
include it in their sermons if they want to," she says. For six months,
the team has been leading seminars at least once a week in different
United Methodist churches on that month's theme.

"The hope is that eventually we can polish this manuscript and get it
printed so that at an annual conference - maybe this year - they can be
distributed to all the pastors in the conference," she says.

Pastors play an important role in Kamina, Walters explains. "A pastor in
the Congo, especially North Katanga, is more than just a pastor. The
pastor's job is to be the community developer."

Sources of education are few, and the pastor often becomes the primary
educator in the community, she says. "It is the pastor who teaches
nutrition, it is the pastor who teaches AIDS awareness and all those
other things. It is a huge task. I really hope we are able to do an
increasingly better job at supporting these pastors."

Walters has also helped the conference establish a Web site,
www.northkatangaumc.org. A Canadian company set up an Internet café
and has brought the World Wide Web to Kamina, she says.

"We don't get many outside visitors to North Katanga. Now people can go
to learn about all the projects; they can see all our programs and get
an idea of everything we have going on."

The church in North Katanga is "growing by leaps and bounds," she says.
"It is huge; we cannot keep up with the growth." Often there are too
many people to fit into the buildings, and they are lined up outside,
looking through the windows, she says.

"Even when we don't have the funds to build a church, the people will
still just build mud-brick churches and thatch roofs just so they can
have a place to gather."

In a country that has known such pain and suffering, she says there is a
hunger for good news.

Kamina Children's Home

Though the Kamina Children's Home is not officially part of her
portfolio, it is a big part of her life.

"These children are just wonderful and brilliant," she says. "I am so
impressed by their maturity and how well they have been raised."

During the war, more than 3 million people were killed and Kamina became
saturated with displaced people. Orphans, never a problem before,
suddenly became a big problem, she explains.

"Just like in the United States, when one is orphaned, the extended
family takes in the child. The community became supersaturated; the
families kept taking in these children until it got to the point that
they just couldn't feed them anymore."

The United Methodist Church, along with local leaders, created an
external feeding program to help the families feed the children. When it
became apparent that some children were homeless, the church established
a home. Currently, the church feeds 300 children in the external program
and houses 48 children.

A dorm was created last year with funds from the Bishops' Hope for the
Children of Africa appeal. The dorm has room for 160 children but only
enough funds to feed 48 children, she says.

Walters emphasizes this is not the type of orphanage where the children
are trying to be placed in homes.

"This really is a family," she says. "They have been adopted; they have
been adopted by the United Methodist Church."

Imagine the impact these children will have on the future of the Congo,
Walters says.

"Imagine the wonderful impact this will have on the region when you take
that many kids and give them the best - nutritious food, good schooling
all the way through, and a stable and loving environment. I am so
excited about that."

Giving back

When she speaks to churches, Walters uses the illustration of the rich
man who asked Jesus how to get into heaven.

"He was a good guy and he had a good life," she says. He had followed
all the rules, but when Jesus told him to sell everything and give it to
the poor, "he was just too scared."

Walters says most people, including her at times, are too scared to
appreciate the gift Jesus is offering.

"We get this strange idea that if we follow the call, we are being
suckered into a life of suffering - that if we answer that call we are
going to live a life of sacrifice. But if we follow that voice that is
pestering us, we are really about to go on a tremendous ride.  I took
this leap of faith, and I have never felt this alive."

When asked what her wish is for Christmas this year, she laughs and
says, "My selfish Christmas wish is for people to go to
www.taylorinafrica.org and sign up and be a monthly donor."

But it really isn't about money, she says. "Money helps, but it is
really about relationships and support."

Walters says the Congo needs to feel the presence of United Methodists
in the United States.

"The people in Congo are smart; they have their acts together in so many
ways. The war has knocked them over, but they are starting again. Just
to have someone say, 'I believe in you, I believe you can start over, I
believe you can rebuild,' that is so important."

*Gilbert is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in
Nashville, Tenn.

News media contact: Kathy L. Gilbert, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470
or newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org <http://umns.umc.org/>

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