A new day has dawned at Kikongo! For those of you who have followed our lives during the past three years, you know that this has been our most difficult term as missionaries in the Congo.

Typhoon Koppu (Lando) hit the northern area of the island of Luzon very early on the morning of Sunday, Oct. 18. That was the official beginning, but the entire island had seen heavy rainfall since Friday

Mia is an ethnic Shan girl, and a survivor of labor trafficking and sexual assault. She was abandoned by her family and grew up with a distant relative on the Thai/Burma border. Forced to work in an orange tree orchard throughout her childhood, Mia never attended school.

It has been a long time since I sent you greetings last time from Yokohama. I am sorry for being way behind in communication. I’d like to update you with my new work content, which is such a learning experience to me!

After being missionaries in the D.R. Congo for nearly thirty years, we are really being stretched now! Over sixty years ago, the Kikongo pastoral training school was established to train rural pastoral leadership. We have been involved with this school for twenty years.

It has been an extremely busy summer. Whew! There was the last push to finalize the lay pastor training program and get it to the printer. Then there was a month of intensive research and writing (in French, not my best language) the brief history of the CBCO Baptist women’s organization here, prepared for their 50th anniversary celebrations.