We met Pastor Fred on our first visit to Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) nearly eight years ago. He and Pastor Jeremiah, founder and leader of Congo for Christ (CCC), are friends from their time together as students at Nairobi Bible College. Pastor Fred serves as the founder and senior Pastor of African Evangelical Christian Churches. He oversees twenty-seven churches scattered throughout several territories. Impressed by his dedication and humble spirit, we have had a desire to help Pastor Fred since we first met him. Pastor Fred has funding from another source to provide for the care of the thirty three children at the orphanage under his supervision but has struggled to pay school expenses for all of the children. We began a sponsorship program to help with the school expenses and several of you sponsor one or more of these orphans with a $12 monthly education sponsorship. In 2014 Pastor Fred was able to establish a school near the orphanage in Fizi Territory. This school is called “Complexe Scolaire Bustani” or Garden School. In 2015 Pastor Fred explained that most of the 364 students attending the school are from very poor families and can only pay very small amounts for school fees. In order to help the school the parents of the students got together and constructed 31,000 bricks out of mud and straw. Pastor Fred requested our assistance in funding an oven to fire the bricks, which we were able to provide. The bricks are still waiting to be used. The school continues to operate even though the facilities they are using are very modest and not able to withstand the elements. The school not only currently serves 364 primary students, but it is also used in the afternoon and evening for secondary school which is equivalent to high school in America. There are currently 198 secondary students. It is our desire to provide encouragement to help these parents and teachers through funding the foundation of a new school building. The foundation will be about $10,000 with the entire building costing about $35,000. Every donation to this project is a gift of love investing in a brighter future for so many precious children in DRC.
