On a Monday in January, I was lecturing on "Christians and War" in Kinshasa. That lecture was punctuated by machine gun fire, mortar explosions and rocket bomb blasts from across the river--reminders of the civil war occurring in Brazzaville, a city only five miles away on the other side of the Congo River.

Kinshasa, a city of more than five million, was functional, but barely. Even paved main streets had large potholes, making speed limit signs unnecessary. There were no buses. Telephones, for the few who had them, sometimes worked, but often did not. More than once, I had to prepare my lessons by candlelight because the electricity had gone off.

I spent six weeks teaching in a school of 40 students who were in their late 20s-40s. About half of my upper-division class of 16 were Mennonite or Mennonite Brethren.

Following a message in Kintambo MB Church (attendance 100), the pastor gave an invitation to accept Christ. Two men in their 20s responded. They were later assigned a person to disciple them. Conversions are commonplace. In the US, the church loses 3,000 members a day, while in sub-Sahara Africa, which includes Congo, the church gains 16,000 a day.

Since there is no bus service, people in Kinshasa rely on "taxis". These "taxis" are usually beat-up cars, old vans or large cargo trucks with people packed in and some just hanging on. Students were sometimes late for classes because they had to wait up to two hours for a ride. When I preached at Batela MB Church, the pastor was late for the 10 a.m. service even though he had been waiting at the roadside for a ride since 6 a.m. Despite such inconveniences, the churches I visited were almost filled, sometimes packed. In a Baptist church where I spoke, there were 500 people in the French-speaking service. This was followed by a service of similar size in the Lingala language and then by a small English-speaking service.

Jean-Claude, one of the students in my class, married with three children, has helped plant a church in Belgium. Jean-Baptist, from the Central African Republic, was pastoring a church in the city. Dieudonne, Suza, Muller, John Massebi, Emanuel and Sublime have aspirations of being missionaries to the Batwas (pygmies), the Batakas in the region, to the Muslims, and to such places as Spain, Brazil and Papua New Guinea.

The youth I met had a zest for learning. One of the best things I did on this self-funded trip was to take along my son-in-law Rick Bartlett, who works with Youth for Christ in England. He lectured on the theology of youth work and faith formation. We spoke on daily radio with translations into either French, Lingala or Arabic. The Mennonite "intellectuals" from the university also interacted well with Neil Blough, a visiting Mennonite professor from Paris, who spoke about anabaptism and the current European Mennonite scene.

Jehoiachim, 50, an MB with a family to support, had left nursing and was preparing for ministry. I found it hard to accept his gift of peanuts, mangos and bananas since I knew his family had little.

The unemployment rate in Kinshasa is around 90%. That people survive is a miracle. A hamburger in Kinshasa costs 20 Congo francs ($7.00 US)--and that is without french fries and a drink!

The downtown has Chinese and Indian restaurants--good places to make contacts. At The Palm Tree Restaurant, I listened to Leonard, a Mennonite, talk about the credit union that he heads. The next evening, this time over Chinese food, I rejoiced with a Canadian MB, who was in Kinshasa for the fourth time in two years, to set up a Christian bank.

At an upscale restaurant (for Kinshasa), the TV was showing a Christian program--not an uncommon sight since the Christian influence in the city is strong. The cross-denominational witness is impressive. Evangelical churches are organizing to sponsor their own TV program. A crowd of 80,000 gathered on New Year's Eve at the Protestant "Cathedral" for a praise service to God for sparing the city during the August 1998 rebel attack. Baptist and Assembly churches, even African Independent churches, welcomed us and invited us to preach and lecture.

I saw trucks in Kinshasa unloading scores of refugees--women and children from Brazzaville with only small bundles of clothes to claim as possessions. Refugees came to our door, and in broken English told of the horrors of war, of 13- and 14-year-old soldiers, of a pastor and evangelist killed, and (the most gruesome) of the shooting down in cold blood of 19 people meeting together in a house for prayer. A one point, a pastor, jarred, devastated and exhausted, was offered a couch in the house where I was staying so that he could get some sleep. He had fled to Kinshasa to urge the Christians there to pray.

We were told we were safe, but a stray shell from across the river broke through the window of an MB home down the hill from us. A 13-year-old neighbour boy inside was killed. The son in that home was hit in the leg by shrapnel and taken to hospital. Later, I met his mother, wan and worried. As I sat on the veranda on a Sunday afternoon, I was angered by the shelling I heard in the distance.

"What should I tell the people back home?" I asked.

One student replied, "Thank those in the West for missionaries." Another said: "It is high time that Mennonite Brethren bring the gospel to Muslims. If you think of missions, take account of our aspirations in Africa for missions. Partnership should focus on youth; we were encouraged by Youth Mission International." Another worried about the virus of secularism (as he put it) infecting North American churches.

Congolese, I sensed, feel isolated from the international community, and Congolese Christians reach out for contact with other Christians. For that reason, the visit by the singing group Esengo in 1997 (members of which I met) was most significant. The several-day visit this year of a seven-member French-speaking European delegation, which included Annie Brosseau, editor of Le Lien in Quebec, was most joyfully received. As was the visit by Steven Nelson and Arthur Harder of Africa Inter-Mennonite Mission and their promise to seek help for building church roofs.

A question jokingly asked me on our way from the airport into the city keeps ringing in my mind: "Are we brothers?"--Elmer A. Martens

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