October 2002

Dear Family, Friends, and Mission Associates,

The welcome rainy season has come again to the Kasai and there is an attitude of expectation in the countryside. There is a profusion of beautiful "spring" flowers, and ripened mangoes and avocados fall from overloaded tree branches. Broods of newly hatched chicks and their mothers scurry off the footpaths with the approach of bicycles, and excited children with new copy books and pencils throng the roads on their way to and from school.

For two years we have been witnesses to the life, culture, people, and the churches of the Kasai. Participating with other Congolese doctors, administrators, and employees in the activities of the Christian Medical Institute of the Kasai, I (Bill) have learned many things about myself and the Congo. I have struggled with two new languages and learned to satisfactorily communicate meaningfully and compassionately with patients and their families.

Recently we have read some good books written about the Congo and are becoming more appreciative of the difficult but hopeful new realities facing the independent Congolese Presbyterian Community.

We'd recommend: King Leopold’s Ghost, by Adam Hochschild, 1998; In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz, by Michela Wrong, 2001; and William Sheppard: Congo’s African-American Livingstone, by William E. Phipps, 2002. Sheppard was one of the two first Presbyterian missionaries to Congo in 1890.

Our mission partners, the Good Shepherd Hospital and the Congolese Presbyterian Community, need God’s steadfast love, grace and mercy. Please keep their leaders in your daily prayers. They must and will have to find their own mission calling and way.

Pondering and struggling to find an appropriate participatory Christian witness in all of this has been a real challenge for me. Sue and I have found truth and direction for our lives here in the short, but very personal letter of James in the New Testament. I especially appreciate the passages in chapter two regarding measuring real Christian faith by observing the deeds of the faithful.

Last week on three separate days, our HIV/AIDS team (Presbyterian pastors Kabue and Mukendi and I) traveled 250 kilometers over difficult rural savannah "roads" to three secondary schools. We gave our two-hour HIV/AIDS education and awareness program to over 1,250 adolescents. En route and at these meetings, we distributed the fourth edition of a quarterly HIV/AIDS informational double-sided broadsheet to over 1,800 persons. These are written by Pastor Kabue, in Tshiluba for rural area recipients and in French for the city participants.

Our program also has a one-hour radio broadcast each week. Last week the broadcast was a live discussion of young married church couples regarding the importance of fidelity within the marriage relationship. This past Tuesday, Pastor Kabue was interviewed on the local United Nations peace-keeping forces radio station in the city of Kananga regarding ways to prevent and avoid exposure to HIV. The initiative, planning, and carrying out of these programs has been the work of these two pastors, both of whom also have responsibility for their own two churches. When I saw what they were doing because they felt called to respond to the AIDS epidemic here, I began working with them. We formed an oversight and management committee, which is in partnership with IMCK, the Presbyterian Church, and the Mennonite Church. There is now a wider vision of the possibilities for educating people at the local parish and community level about HIV and AIDS. There is much interest being expressed by local high schools and parishes to participate in the HIV/AIDS education-awareness program.

With generous help and support by many of you, we have developed some needed resources for transportation, some program expenses, and money for soccer balls to give to participating parish pastors. This helps attract adolescents to participate in the local community-church sponsored education-awareness programs.

Wishing for you, during the holiday season and in the year to follow, the assurances of God's love, hope, joy, and peace.

Bill and Sue Sager
Good Shepherd Hospital - IMCK
Tshikaji, Kasai Occidental
Democratic Republic of Congo

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 29