Congo (Kinshasa) Branch Report

[Parale]

Congo (Kinshasa) Branch Report

 

Published 28 July 2023

 

https://www.jw.org/en/library/videos/#en/mediaitems/Reports/pub-jwb-105_10_VIDEO

 

TRANSCRIPT: Congo (Kinshasa) Branch Report

Congo (Kinshasa) Branch Report Klaus Hifinger, Congo (Kinshasa) Branch Committee Congo is certainly not among the most popular travel destinations for tourists around the world, but it is definitely a preaching paradise. In general, very few people have reservations to discuss their personal spiritual convictions with strangers. In addition, Jehovah’s Witnesses are well-known for their high moral standards and their consistent Bible education. It is not uncommon for non-Witness parents to even solicit the services of a Witness Bible teacher in order to help their children become better persons and improve their performance in school. As a result, the number of Bible studies is about three times the number of active Witnesses. And Memorial attendance figures amount to almost five times the number of publishers. As you can imagine, in a country where Internet connections are pretty unstable in urban areas and almost unavailable in more remote places, it was a tremendous challenge for the friends to adapt to the alternative COVID-19 meeting and preaching methods. Our branch benefited from many additional arrangements that have been kindly put in place to assist these brothers and sisters to keep up-to-date with spiritual food and stay active in the ministry, such as the JW satellite TV channel, the JW Box network, and pre-recorded public talks broadcast on local radio stations. In addition, publishers came up with some very practical alternative preaching methods themselves. For example, in a rural congregation called Mpeshi deep in the interior, the news of a worldwide pandemic costing hundreds of thousands of lives hadn’t been perceived as more than background noise. Still, a temporary special pioneer called Emmanuel was determined to apply theocratic COVID-19 instructions. But how could he continue to conduct his Bible studies in a place with no Internet coverage and with students who don’t even possess smartphones? This is what he came up with: As his house has a main entrance and a back door, he advised his Bible students to come one by one and enter through the back door, which he left open — each one with his own chair not touching anything in the room — and sit down next to the closed door leading to the living room. Emmanuel himself used the main door, sat on the other side of that closed door in the living room, and conducted his studies, so to speak, behind a closed door. So let’s go back to the urban areas. Here government-imposed COVID-19 restrictions had a great impact on thousands of our self-employed brothers and sisters who overnight were cut off from their already meagre sources of income. Our branch was authorised to provide about 3,000 tons of staple food for more than 200,000 beneficiaries [3,000 tons x 2,000 lbs = 6,000,000 lbs / 200,000 = 30 lbs or 13.6 kilograms each]. One hundred thirteen Disaster Relief Committees distributed this humanitarian aid in only four months. As food trucks pulled up at Kingdom Hall properties and later hundreds of individuals left with care packages, many onlookers were deeply impressed. Once more, they realised how different Jehovah’s organisation is from all the other religious entities around them. While many pastors and preachers urged their church members to help them financially during the pandemic, the Witnesses distributed free goods to needy ones in their community. Definitely “the fields” — in Congo — “are white for harvesting,” [John 4:35] and the reapers rejoice.

[Parale]

For those wishing to print out the transcript - below is a PDF, formatted to be printed as an A5 booklet using A4 paper, or simply full-size on A4 paper, if you like a larger text size

 

Congo (Kinshasa) Branch Report.pdf

 

 

[Parale]

Congo (Kinshasa) is also known as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and was formerly known as Zaire.

 

Jehovah's Witnesses Around the World: Democratic Republic of Congo

• https://www.jw.org/en/jehovahs-witnesses/worldwide/CD/

 

The branch report above mentions an experience of a brother in the Mpeshi Congregation, I believe it is this congregation:

• https://apps.jw.org/ui/E/meeting-search.html#/weekly-meetings/share?id=B68D1C21-5680-463D-870E-E88BE3D0C662
• https://goo.gl/maps/dwHWateSv9YaqS5u5

 

Below is a seven-year summary of theocratic activity in Congo, from the Annual Reports: