Apostolic and government partners further expansion in the DRC

Alice Douglas writes from South Africa:
The UK churches and other individuals raised the tremendous amount of £12,000 to purchase a church plot in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The plot that we viewed in April 2008 was no longer available, in fact, there are now houses built there. However, Pastor Damien Ndonga had gone plot hunting! He found that land within a five mile radius of Kinshasa city was at a premium and also had greatly increased in price.

However, God worked a great miracle. The husband of one of the ladies who attends the church is one of the advisors to the Prime Minister of the DRC. He said to his wife –“Why do you not offer Pastor Ndonga one of the plots that we own?” She agreed. The asking price for the plot was £12,000 but the man said, “Ivor and Alice together with the people in the UK want to sow a seed in my city – tell them to give us only £9,000 and I will donate £3000” You can imagine our joy with this news. We met the couple, signed legal documents etc and prayed with them.

You may remember that one of the main reasons for asking you to help us purchase a plot was because the Kinshasa church people were moving ‘from pillar to post’ for a number of years. They now have their own ground and Ivor met with the building committee, one of whom is an architectural engineer! They are planning a three year project to build a church. Because we saved £3000, Pastor Damien is able to buy a tent for £1400 and we left the balance of £1600 to enable Damien to travel into three of the regions within the interior of the Congo where we have churches. He will spend two weeks in each of these Regions, one of them is called Ilebo, an area where many pygmies are found.

Another reason for Ivor’s visit was to meet up with Albert and Michel. We had met them during the Apostolic European Conference at Switzerland in September 2008. The DRC was formerly a Belgian colony. We are beginning to find a common purpose. Albert and Michel are very impressed with Damien and this meeting was a major milestone in visioning together. Before us on the table was a large map of the Congo. We laid our hands on the map and prayed in faith for this vast central African nation. The presence of God filled the room and we not only prayed but wept together as we considered the many needs, not only of the country but of the respective leaders within the Apostolic Fellowship in the DRC