A Tale of Three Siblings

A letter from John and Gwenda Fletcher serving in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

March 2015

Dear Friends,

Nineteen-year-old Kasenga Mbala gets up early every morning to start the fire on which she will prepare breakfast for herself and her two younger brothers. After breakfast, if it’s a school day, Kasenga will head to Bibanga Secondary School, where she is a senior. Bibanga Secondary School, built in the early 1960s, is the first Presbyterian secondary school built in East Kasai. Like most schools in Congo, it struggles with decrepit buildings, under-qualified teachers and a lack of textbooks/teaching materials.  But in its heyday it was the best-reputed secondary school in the province.

If it is the weekend, Kasenga will set to work making and then baking in an ersatz oven the small rolls and breads she sells to provide a living for herself and her brothers.  On a good weekend Kasenga will earn about $4. Twice a month her brothers, Muloyi (age 16) and Mukenda (age 14) contribute to the family income by pushing a bicycle loaded with four 100-pound sacks of charcoal 70 miles from their home village of Bibanga to the large city of Mbuji Mayi. After expenses (purchase of the charcoal, rent for the bike, “fees” at the police barrier) their profit will be around $2 per sack—$8 for five days of very hard labor.

Kasenga, Mukenda and Muloyi

Kasenga and her brothers were orphaned 11 years ago.  For a number of years they were cared for by their maternal grandmother, but a few years ago their grandmother moved to another village, leaving the three children behind. Since then they have been on their own.  I don’t know the circumstances under which the grandmother left.  I inquired gently when interviewing Kasenga, but she said she didn’t know. I later asked her principal why the grandmother had left without the children and he also said he didn’t know.  In Congo the reply “I don’t know” generally means “I don’t want to say,” and pursuing it further would have been culturally inappropriate, so I can’t explain why the children were abandoned.  Sad to say, such stories of hardship are not unusual in Congo.  What is unusual is the determination these three kids have to get an education. School fees, supplies, uniforms and shoes cost around $85 per student per year.  Muloyi and Mukenda are both in 9th grade. When they make their charcoal-selling trips they have to miss days at school, and Muloyi, who should be in 10th grade, is having to repeat 9th because of low scores last year. Kasenga will graduate this June and have a secondary school diploma—if she can come up with the $50 necessary to sit for national exams. Her dream is to be a doctor.  When asked what motivates her to stay in school in spite of the challenges of keeping the family afloat, she says, “When one is educated, one is respected.  I want to be able to do something with my life and not have to just marry someone.”

A “Muyanda” transporting three bags of charcoal

The boys say it is too soon to think about what they want to do when they graduate from secondary school, but they both know they don’t want to have to work as transporters the rest of their lives.  The Tshiluba name for a person who pushes bike loads of goods from one place to another is “Muyanda,” which literally means “One who steers,” but the term has now come to be slang for “One who has nothing left to lose.”

I have no idea if Kasenga will be able to pay for her national exams and graduate, or if the boys will be able to stay in school when it is such a struggle to afford uniforms, supplies and fees, let alone to survive.  The world is filled with students who, like the Mbala siblings, struggle against seemingly insurmountable obstacles, most of which, in one way or another, are rooted in poverty. One of PC(USA) World Mission’s three Critical Global Initiatives is “Addressing the Root Causes of Global Poverty,” and the first campaign in that initiative is to provide quality education for 1 million children by 2020. Many of you are already involved in this campaign through your indispensable partnership with the Congolese Presbyterian Church (CPC) in its efforts to improve access and quality in its 787 primary and secondary schools.  Thank you for all you do for CPC education and for making it possible for Gwenda to accompany the CPC in this process.  If you aren’t already involved or if you’d like to learn more about how World Mission is addressing the root causes of poverty through its education campaign, visit pcusa.org/global-poverty and consider how God might be calling you to join the movement to provide a hope and a future to a million children just like Kasenga, Muloyi and Mukenda.

Blessings,

John and Gwenda Fletcher

The 2015 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 146, 147