Village Trip to Bas-Congo

On Friday 13th, 2012, we set out to go to a village in Bas-Congo to show the movie "The Passion of the Christ". Every year we have shown the movie to hundreds of people and we have seen many giving their lives to Jesus as we have an altar call at the end of the movie.
This year we decided to go to a village in Bas-Congo, where there is no electricity, no opportunity for them to see any kind of film. The location and name of the village we did not know. We just chose to go in a specific region, find a village of descent size, stop and show the movie. Ten of us, in two vehicles loaded with all the equipment needed, left Kinshasa for Bas-Congo under a very hot sun.
At our arrival in the village we found, we started noticing a change in the weather. Yes not long after, the rain started...we could not show the movie! Willy one of the faithful ministers of our church with one of the local young men set up the screen in case the rain would stop. While we were setting up, a group of 3 ministers of the church went to neighboring villages to tell people about the movie. When they came back they were all wet, we got in the vehicles for shelter and waited, and waited...When I realized that it seems that we will not have the chance to show the film, I decided to set up the sound system in the back of one vehicle, sing songs and then preach the gospel giving a chance at the end for those who want to receive Jesus to do so from their home. The sound system could be heard in 2 other neighboring villages.
I decided after a moment of singing to go out in the rain (light rain) to praise and worship God. I was followed by my faithful wife, and later by some of the ministers we came out with, and finally the whole service was held as people came out to sing with us, the gospel was preached by pastor Charlie who came with us, we prayed over people and God was glorified. It was truly a glorious night.
Tired after this wonderful time, we realized we did not set up our tent, worst we did not know how to do it. It was the first time for me to camp out, especially to have to set up camp. With the help of our three kids, we were able to set up the tent.
In the morning after the morning public prayer, we received people coming from the other villages who heard the message the night before and wanted also to come for prayer. I preached that morning before going to baptized people in the nearby river.
Remember the young man that helped Willy set up the screen? His name is Simon, he was so hungry for God that he was always there. He received Jesus, got baptized and will come to our church in Kinshasa next Sunday. Simon will help us leading a cell group in that village. He will come to the church in Kinshasa for training and will help us with any future projects we might have in that village.

We have decided to help the locals with their crops. As we pray with them, we want also to help provide seeds, and if possible some kind of technical support.
When we arrived in the village, we parked across a structure made with palm branches that serves as a 'church'. When we asked for the pastor, we were told that he was traveling. We asked for those who work with him, they too were not available. We learned later that night that the 'church' was for the god of the blacks, a local religion centered on traditional beliefs rejecting Christianity saying it is the religion of white people. We have heard of these people becoming violent toward Christians. We could see the oppression of this religion over the people. They heard the gospel, but preferred to stay home or far off because they did not want to be seen. We saw people who wanted to be baptized but did not come forward. One of the person who got baptized did not say a thing to anyone. She just came along with us. When she felt that it was her turn, she just stepped forward to be baptized.
In the morning we had the visit of one of the leaders of the 'church' of the god of blacks. He was not happy, he advised us to contact them in the future for any activity we would like to do in that village. We also had the visit of members of the family of the chief of, Kikeba, the village, the traditional authority in the village. They were happy to see us, but they also advised us to have their approval before doing anything.
Thank God for Simon, he is the person that will make sure that all this is taken care of in the future.
We came back to Kinshasa as planned, came from the fresh air of the country, to the pollution and a special 40 minutes reality check stuck in traffic. It has been a glorious weekend. No movie, but the gospel! The movie will be for another time in Kikeba.