And Souls Were Added to the Church Daily

There are approximately 700 Message churches in Kinshasa, DR Congo and a church of 600 is considered a small one.

I looked up the definition of a mega-church and it’s one considered to be 2,000 or more. But yet, here in the 3rd world country of DR Congo a church of 2,000 is not unusual even amongst denominations.

Driving down the street we saw this banner with Bro. Branham’s picture on it. I’m not sure of what it said since it was written in French, but part of it was “Jesus Christ the same, yesterday, today, and forever.”

We were taken to a lovely restaurant where we met up with the other Americans, as well as some Congolese that had come for the wedding. I was very happy to see Sis. Sandy who is also from Arizona and after this we kept together. 🙂

The restaurant had a buffet where they served traditional Congolese food.

It’s different than American food but still good but I did avoid anything that I was unsure of – like fish heads.

We made a stop at one of the local pastors there, Bro. Dioka, who has a church of 12,000. We visited his church on Sunday and I’ll share some pictures and video of our time there. But this day we went to the church he is currently building.

It was simply incredible. It’s being built to hold 20,000 people and as far as we understood, they are receiving no help from America but it is all being built from the tithes and offerings of their own church. Isn’t that a wonderful testimony? How many organizations have you heard of that are always asking for more and more money and so much of your donations ends up going to administration costs? And yet, in the poorest country in the world, God has provided.

There are going to be 2 balconies that completely wrap around the building.

The areas under the main floor of the church will be offices and I’m not sure what else. They also have a baptistery down here which will have cameras on it so it can be viewed on their screen projectors for all to see in the church building.

The concrete floors are not being poured with a traditional concrete truck like you would see in the States. The concrete is mixed on-site and then being hauled to the church on a utility vehicle that has a little bed on it.

I’m looking a little wilted. This is after our 32 hours of travelling. Do you wonder how we could possibly travel for 32 hours going to Africa? Looking for a budget flight is how you do it. :/

The pastor of the church, Bro. Dioka, is standing to the left of Russell. Next to him, in the dark navy shirt, is Abel our good friend and  is simply the best interpreter I’ve ever heard when someone is preaching. Very gifted in that area. In the red shirt, behind Abel and Bro. Dioka, is Bro. Dioka’s youngest son.

The building from the exterior.

They also have a school they operate with 4,000 students and 200 teachers. {gulp! that’s a big responsibility}

This is the metal shop along with its teacher.

Some of the students.

 Next we were able to tour their printing operation.

These are hand carved.

The man (Bro. Dioka) with a heart for his people.

These bikes are given to those that take the Message books out to the villages.

And Day 1 ended.

We went to our hotel room and I was so happy to see the nice accomodations! {emphasis on that} I don’t mind having rough accomodations but I don’t like to have any unwanted visitors staying with me and I didn’t have to worry about it at all at this place.