DECEMBER 2024
Jake and Jamie Boldig have returned from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It was a great first trip to the country we have dreamed of bringing Equipping Church Leaders East Africa (ECLEA) to for years. We accomplished much of what we came to do despite facing challenges that are to be expected in an exploratory trip such as this in a country suffering from war currently and for most of the past 30 years. We developed relationships with local coordinators, pastors, political leaders, refugee and military camps, potential supporters with resources, and formalized a partnership with Goma Baptist Seminary. (ECLEA works with numerous Protestant denominations).

After an issue with obtaining a Ugandan visa and redirecting our flight, we flew into Kigali, Rwanda to meet with Protais Nshoga, our Rwandan national coordinator, and picked up Stephen Sempala, our Ugandan national coordinator, from a bus stop an hour later. We then drove to a hotel in Gisenyi, a seaside town on the border with the DRC, where we met Pascal Azaza, who is a Congolese missionary to Arusha, Tanzania who has been trained by ECLEA and has an incredible amount of local contacts in Goma, along with his tender- hearted wife, Dorcas.

On our first day in Goma, we met Sylvestre Hangi who has been praying and writing to our Director, Jonathan Menn, for 5 years that ECLEA would be established in DRC. Pascal has been teaching ECLEA courses in DRC with his own resources for over 10 years, and his teaching our Biblical Stewardship course has had a massive impact on Sylvestre, his family, and his community. For example, Sylvestre s daughter, Sophie, started a business weaving baskets as a result, and his son, Azarias, coordinated our Goma conferences in partnership with Pascal.

We spent two days in our first training center in Mugunga district sharing the vision of ECLEA and teaching the book of Esther for nearly 60 pastors. Jake taught the course with Protais and Pascal assisting in translating. This was a great partnership as they were each able to engage directly in certain discussions and allow a moment for Jake to compose a carefully considered biblical explanation of positions. Much of our time was spent discussing pride. The pastors were hesitant to accept that pastors face the risk of pride, but we were able to provide countless biblical examples of heroes of the faith who fell into great sin as a result of pride. Some of the pastors were astonished to learn that the Pharisees could be priests and yet not truly have faith. At the same time, we made the case that we ought to primarily consider our own temptation to pride and need for strengthened faith. We shared the wisdom of 1 John and 1 Peter along with Jesus declaration that we are not the final judges; hence, we argued that we ought to graciously give our brothers and sisters the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the validity of their faith.
  
We can see God s sovereign hand in the process of selecting this group to accompany us. Each member brings a significant unique addition. Stephen has invaluable experience in planting ECLEA in Rwanda. Protais has an amazingly relevant testimony of forgiving the particular men face to face who slaughtered his mother and countless family members during the 1994 genocide and leading a reconciliation effort in Rwanda for over 20 years. This is powerful because the region we are in has experienced incredible amounts of rebel warfare against civilians ever since that genocide, and there has been another large flare up in the past couple years. Pascal and Dorcas are important because they are typically boisterous Congolese I cannot imagine being able to connect with and hold the attention of such a lively culture without their assistance. In addition, they have done extensive work in the refugee camps in the past decade which gives us direct access to the most vulnerable widows and orphans in the region.

After class the second day, we were able to visit an orphanage that one of Pascal s contacts, Noella, operates in Bulengo refugee camp, which houses over 100,000 (mostly Christian) Congolese in tents. They have been displaced by rebel warfare in their villages and the eruption of Mt Nyiragongo two years ago. Each member of our team was able to speak to hundreds of them with a microphone delivering a message of hope, reminding them that Christ chose to become a refugee in this world to save them and that all things happen to bring us closer to Him. We received generous donations from friends and church members at home of nearly $1,500, so were able to purchase a significant amount of food to feed the orphans who lined up patiently in a sea of children raising bowls celebrating the blessing while we spoke glorifying God. We spread this money out to three orphanages and one church neighboring a refugee camp. We did not discuss this with our training centers to prevent creating the distracting image that ECLEA is a humanitarian aid organization.
  
The second center we visited was in Majengo district. We had a smaller group of about 20 pastors there and we presented the vision of ECLEA briefly before Stephen and Protais taught the book of Jonah. There was great interest here in the nuance of how God often uses our sinful actions to orchestrate His plan and yet we are fully responsible for our actions. I recall a question about whether it would be ok to accept money from a non-Christian to help build their church. We applied 1 Corinthians 8 where Paul discusses eating meat sacrificed to fake gods to point out that a situation like this would be a matter of conscience and not causing your members to stumble into sin necessitating difficult conversations and prayerful consideration.

After class on the first day in Majengo center, we met with one of the four Members of Parliament from Goma to establish a relationship with the local government, which is important in a country where there is a lot of red tape and a security situation that we need to always be aware of. This MP is visiting Appleton in May, so we are excited to continue the relationship. After class the second day, we met with the Bishop Athanase who heads the Goma Baptist Seminary and formed a developing partnership where they will use our training materials and seek to use their extensive resources (including a first-rate print shop, recording studio, and translation experience) to expand our reach within DRC. His daughter, Happiness, manages a large orphanage that they run, which we also visited. We delivered a message to the kids that like Joseph, God has a good (and yet difficult) plan for our lives, but we must make wise decisions for the future and work hard each day.
On Saturday, we taught a one day course at the military camp in Katindo district for about 30 pastors. Our Rwandan member of the team, Protais, was advised not to attend due to tensions between DRC and Rwanda. He agreed but politics was unfortunately a stumbling block at this center. These pastors who are soldiers have fresh wounds in their hearts from this war. We were able to give what I felt was our most thorough vision casting explaining the types of books that we have created and how pastors can use them to improve their churches and sermons. Stephen taught an abbreviated course on the book of Ruth here, but politics became a distraction after a couple hours and the discussion got pretty heated towards the end of the class. Stephen offered to repent on behalf of our countries sins. This unexpectedly escalated tensions until one pastor declared that clearly it was a work of the Holy Spirit if a Ugandan would repent on behalf of his country, because I have never heard of that. This started to soften some hearts and then Pascal was able to lead the pastors to all pray with us after preaching a short message. This prayer time was powerful and seemed to soften more than a few hearts.

On Sunday, Jake and Jamie were able to visit a small church amongst a refugee camp to feed well over a hundred children. It was a special time where we shared a message with the kids about loving our enemy since all of us were made in the image of God. We also shared about the importance of being good stewards of resources. Then we made a small presentation about ECLEA to Bishop Athanase s large church before Protais delivered a powerful sermon on forgiveness and reconciliation focusing on the story of Joseph forgiving his brothers. Following the sermon, we were guests of honor at the seminary s graduation ceremony, even leading the march through town with an accompanying band. We ended our last night in Goma with an evening at Bishop Athanase s house to thank him for his official invitation and lending us a vehicle and his son as a driver for the week and briefly discussing a bit more about the potential for our partnership.
   
We had a lovely journey through Rwanda down to Bukavu on Monday and crossed the border and had a day of preparation on Tuesday after arriving. This time was a blessing for obtaining rest and doing some reflection as a group. On Wednesday, we began to present the vision of ECLEA. This center was assembled very recently, and this area truly represented an exploratory venture into an area we did not have firm roots in. The security situation in this area is much better though so we were freer to move about and learn. Bishop Samuel welcomed us to the area and assembled church leaders from the district and his church. We found it necessary to reiterate that our purpose is simply to teach pastors. We encountered some challenges such as a desire for a humanitarian partner and a misconception that we focus on training one church and all its leaders at one time. It was a great learning experience to be very clear and repeat ourselves many times (when accepting an initial invitation from a budding center) to share that we aim to teach pastors from different churches and denominations in each center and are not a humanitarian aid organization.

Protais taught our course on Forgiveness and Reconciliation in the afternoon Wednesday and on Thursday for about 30 pastors. He was able to use his testimony and visual demonstrations of how unforgiveness is a bitter root that works to destroy our physical and spiritual lives. He is the best person to teach this course anywhere, but his message is even more convicting in DRC during the current war as a Rwandan who miraculously survived the 1994 genocide and forgave (face to face) the men who took the life of many of his family members. There were many questions about how the church ought to go about forgiving leaders and members who sin publicly. We were able to briefly teach about the process of church discipline that Paul laid out for us and explain its purposes of protecting the church body and winning back unrepentant sinners. There was a deep hunger to have us back. We were also able to meet with the governors secretary and establish some relationships with other potential ECLEA leaders in South Kivu.
  
After training Thursday, we crossed the border and returned to Rwanda. We used parts of the long journey to Kigali to reflect on our efforts and discoveries on this trip. Then we spent a couple days with Protais in Kigali relaxing and learning about the history of Rwanda, the genocide, and the history of the ongoing conflict in the DRC. Finally, we flew home. Our return flight included an 8 hour stay in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where Ethiopian Airlines gave us a free hotel room and we enjoyed our favorite cuisine in its home country. The entire trip was a generous gift from God blessing us with time with the beautiful cultures that we love.

We now look forward to a year of planning the slow expansion of ECLEA within the Kivu region of DRC. We will send at least one ECLEA teacher each month to visit our existing centers and plant new ones. The Boldigs anticipate making another trip to the DRC within a year. If you would like to help us train pastors with monthly support, you can set that up with the donate link below! (All donations are used to translate training materials and host classes in East Africa). We praise God for this trip and thank you for your prayers and support!

In Christ,
Jake & Jamie Boldig

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