Small church with a heart for mission cares for vulnerable children in Congo

San Gabriel Presbyterian Church raises needed scholarship money

by Kathy Melvin | Presbyterian News Service

Bashima Kayembe, 84, is raising her grandchildren — Patrice, 15, and Marceline, 13. She turned to Presbyterian Church in Congo to help with school fees. Christi Boyd

LOUISVILLE — San Gabriel Presbyterian Church in Georgetown, Texas, has long supported the work of mission co-workers Jeff and Christi Boyd in the Democratic Republic of Congo.  But when the Boyds visited their church and they heard about Congolese children like Serge, they knew they could do more, even with limited resources.

Serge is one of many children cared for through Presbyterian ministries in Congo. His family sent him away to live on the street, accusing him of being a sorcerer. He survived in the local marketplace until he was rescued by Presbyterian ministries.

Now he is one of the children supported by funds raised by San Gabriel. Moved to action, the church of 200 in Mission Presbytery with a huge heart for mission has raised nearly $10,000 to send Serge and other vulnerable children to school. The cost for each child is $120 a year.

“Our Mission Committee felt that we needed to do more for international children’s support,” said George Hejtmanek, mission elder. “We saw a huge opportunity to help orphaned and vulnerable children for a relatively modest amount of money as we began to understand how educational support could also influence their extended families to give them homes.  We became even more excited, and ultimately, our congregation felt the same way. Supporting local churches trying to address these concerns with Jeff and Christi Boyd there to oversee the program was also appealing to us.”

Barbara Hejtmanek, a member of San Gabriel’s mission committee, stands in front of the banner they created for the project. Photo provided

The San Gabriel mission committee presented the project to the congregation at one of the “Mission Sundays” (an extended Minute for Mission). Pastor Bill Pederson supported it with his sermon as well. The Boyds sent impactful photos and stories, and they created a large poster to hang in in the church narthex near the entrance to highlight the program and to show progress.

“The response was really great,” he said. “We set a ‘stretch goal’ of 30 scholarships (at $120 average) for our congregation. Instead, we raised $9,375 to cover 78 scholarships! Almost everyone wanted to contribute something, including visitors and family members who heard about it.”

Since the early days of Presbyterian mission in Congo, the Church and its partners have ministered to vulnerable children. Two orphanages were initially established; however, learning from its own experience and the experiences of others around the world, the Presbyterian Church in Congo (CPC) has in recent years shifted away from orphanages in favor of more community-based ministries.

For rejected children like Serge, who end up living on the streets, the Congolese church runs a few halfway homes. These centers were set up to offer the children temporary shelter, nurture and education while searching for their biological parents or relatives with the ultimate goal of mediating reconciliation and reuniting families.

It took some time, but Serge is now back with his family, enrolled in school and hoping to finish his education.

It requires a deliberate effort to make this happen and prevent a transitional center from becoming a more permanent residence. Halfway homes need around-the-clock staffing, which drives up operational expenses. And while all the centers receive contributions from congregations in their vicinity, two of the centers receive the bulk of their funds from U.S. congregations.

“Assisting families to help these kids attend school seems to make a real difference as to whether a family member feels they can take a child in,” said Christi Boyd. “The relative may be a grandmother, aunt or uncle. Too often they cannot afford to pay the required school fees. This assistance makes an important difference.”

Bashima Kayembe, 84, is raising her grandchildren. Patrice is 15 and Marceline is 13. Bashima’s son, the children’s father, died when Patrice was two years old and his sister was six months old. After the death of her husband, the mother abandoned the two children, taking their twin siblings with her. She soon remarried. The grandmother has worked to raise the children by selling cassava (something like a sweet potato) in the marketplace but has not been able to earn enough money to send the children to school. She turned the Presbyterian Church in Congo for help. Thanks to the partnership between CPC and PC(USA), the church has been able to sponsor the children. Despite his young age, Patrice has already taken his high school exams and hopes to continue to the university with the goal of becoming an architect.

Christi Boyd has travel to East Kasai and Katanga, where she has seen the efforts by women’s groups in local congregations to raise money or collectively undertake income-generating activities to meet nutritional, medical and educational needs of orphans taken in by relatives or other by families in their community. The projects they run vary from kitchen gardens, palm nut tree plantations and poultry farms, to the manufacture of cisterns to catch and sell rainwater, and the construction of apartments for rent. In principle, the initiatives are self-supporting and require little to no outside support.

“Our ability to support the ministries depends on gifts from congregations like San Gabriel and some individual contributions,” said Boyd. “Some give a one-time gift, although we are also very grateful for those who give each year or even more frequently. Realizing that we’re unable to provide school fees for every child in need, we prioritize those who we have supported but who have not yet completed their basic education cycle. We want to prevent situations where we help a child part of the way, but they are not able to finish primary or secondary school on their own.”

Those wishing to join San Gabriel in supporting the vulnerable children of Congo, can send checks to:
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)
P.O. Box 643700
Pittsburgh, PA 15264-3700
On the memo line of the check, please write E051625 Congo OVC scholarships.