A letter from John and Gwenda Fletcher
October 2017
Write to John Fletcher
Write to Gwenda Fletcher
Individuals: Give online to E200529 for John and Gwenda Fletcher’s sending and support
Congregations: Give to D501278 for John and Gwenda Fletcher’s sending and support
Churches are asked to send donations through your congregation’s normal receiving site (this is usually your presbytery).
Dear Friends,
The US will observe a day of Thanksgiving in November. While Congo as a nation doesn’t have a specific day for giving thanks, many people here are grateful for what the individuals, churches, presbyteries and synods of the PC(USA) have done for them through their support of the Congolese Presbyterian Church’s (CPC) education ministries. Here are just two examples of the kinds of things you are making possible:
Tshibola Ntambue
Tshibola Ntambue attended the CPC’s Afterschool Program in Computers and English for High School Girls when she was in 11th grade. Her father died while she was young, and her mother, who sells charcoal for a living, struggled to pay Tshibola’s school fees. The Computer and English program, which is financed through donations from US Presbyterians, is free to participants, so when Tshibola was selected to participate, she was able to do so without adding to her mother’s financial burdens. After graduating from high school, Tshibola applied for a very competitive job with Caritas (a Catholic aid organization). The applicants all had to pass competency tests in English and computer skills followed by an interview in English. Tshibola outscored all of the other candidates and today is happily and gainfully employed as a clerk for Caritas. She is responsible for recording and compiling all information related to the children served in the organization’s children’s programs. With the salary she earns, she is able to help her mother make ends meet and, what she is most proud of, she is able to pay the school fees for her younger brother.
Lusamba Primary School 2nd grade classroom BEFORE
Lusamba Primary School 2nd grade classroom AFTER
Bakambamba Tshisungu, a sixth-grade student, spoke for the entire student body when she said, “I am so happy because our classrooms are well built, we are seated at desks and we study well. We want to study like the kids in the city, and now we do. We thank our partners because we study in a good school and we have latrines.”
Second-grade teacher Badibanga Kabasele expressed his gratitude, saying, “We thank our partners very much. Now that the children are seated at desks, they listen better and the blackboards make such a difference. The classroom is very light now and not so hot. The joy in us is very large.”
And principal Kanyanga Kanyanga Henri spoke of both the difference to students and staff and the wider impact this new building is having: “Life has changed in this village because of this school. The children and teachers come on time. Rain doesn’t end school now and the sun’s heat doesn’t make us hot. Before, there were sometimes snakes in the classrooms. We don’t have to spend school time searching for building materials in the forest. Parents are happy to send their children to this school. Now the parents want to educate their children. This will change the village.”
Tshibola is just one of 200 girls whose lives have been impacted by the CPC’s After School Program in Computers and English for High School Girls, and Lusamba Primary School is just one of the eight schools that have so far received a new building. US Presbyterians, through Build Congo Schools (BCS), the education-focused branch of the PC(USA) Congo Mission Network, collaborate with the CPC on these and many other education projects. In September, a new group of 40 girls enrolled in this years’ Computer and English Program. And two weeks ago, construction started on the ninth new school building. Thank you to all who support BCS/CPC projects. If you’d like to learn about some of the other things BCS and the CPC are doing, check out the BCS website at: buildcongoschools.org.
As always, we are grateful for your prayers, support and partnership with us here in Congo. This past year has been a difficult one, and while things are currently calmer than they had been, there is a great deal of uneasiness hanging over the country as we draw nearer to the time when elections may or may not take place. We don’t know what will happen, but we “hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”
Blessings,
John & Gwenda
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