A Letter From Senior Pastor Martin Schlomer

Dear friends and members of Elim,

Thank you for your incredible support for the Congo Vision Team, and for attending the banquet just a few weeks ago. Your willingness to give up a night to come and hear about our vision, pray for and financially support the team, is an incredible encouragement.

Please continue to pray that God will direct each step we take in this effort. While our departure date of July 17 seems a ways off, the time is rapidly approaching.

I also want to make you aware that Kevin Kompelien will be at Elim this Sunday, March 4. Kevin is former pastor of a large Evangelical Free church in San Jose, CA. He is currently the director for all of EFCA missions in Africa and will be an important member of our vision team in July. He has just returned from the Congo and will share what he sees God doing there. In addition to preaching at the 8:15 and 11:00 services, he will have a Q&A time during the Adult Education hour at 9:45. I want to encourage you to come and hear about the incredible things God is doing in Africa. Kevin is a very engaging communicator who shares God’s heart for the sick and oppressed.

Again, thank you! I believe that your support is a “fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God” (Phil. 4.18). May He richly bless you as we partner together to be the hands, feet and words of Christ.

God bless,

Martin Schlomer

The Latest Report From TouchGlobal

There are many partners within the Evangelical Free Church of the Congo. For instance, we have a women's ministry which is involved in the AIDS program and helping GlobalFingerprints.

This ministry is led by Kossa Ahundambi, and has its own board which meets quarterly. Every two years, they have a general assembly.

Mrs. Kossa visits all 27 regions regularly to see how the ministry is progressing. Some regions are making good progress. In their annual activity, each region plans some days to visit people in hospitals and prisons. The women also plan a special day to pray for widows. They collect money and other gifts, like food, to give to the widows. The ministry also trains women in different work skills. The ministry board has a guest house and the women in the different regions farm and raise pigs, goats, and cows.

The most important thing the women involved in this ministry do is make clothes. Mrs. Kossa and Pastor Selenga's wife went to Kinshasa to be trained how to dye fabrics to make beautiful patterns and colors. When American visitors come here, they like to buy these clothes which are typically African to take back to the US. [EDITOR'S NOTE: If you might be interested in pre-ordering some of these fabrics or clothes, talk with one of the team members!]

The women's ministry also helps the AIDS program by sewing school uniforms for the 250 orphans in the GlobalFingerprints program. During the uniform distribution ceremony, visitors from the U.S. were invited. It was a great meeting between orphans and visitors. The women have also made backpacks for the orphans from kits sent by Christian women in the U.S.

Most of the time, women come two days a week from local churches to knit clothes and to learn how to sew. There are not enough sewing machines for everyone, but they are doing their best so that each one can learn.

As we care for orphans and those suffering from HIV/AIDS, we are happy to work together with this women's ministry. And they are happy to be a part of caring for these children.

Contributed by Mandaba Kosse, February 2007

Program Update

We are in our fourth month of sponsoring 250 children! Some of you have received a letter, inviting you to participate in our test group of sponsors. Thank you so much if you have responded and are now part of GlobalFingerprints!

If you are still waiting to sponsor, and have not yet received a letter of invitation, we ask for your prayers and patience. We are slowly adding to our program, so as not to overwhelm the Congolese staff. We continue to work with them in establishing an adequate financial system. It is a huge job to follow these children and care for them, and we desire that everything be in place before adding more children to the program.

We have wonderful Congolese staff! Continue to pray for the coordinator, Pastor Deolo, as he directs the HIV/AIDS programs in the Congolese Evangelical Free Church. We need special funding for translation of AIDS materials into French and Lingala, as well as further training for Pastor Deolo in World Relief's program for mobilizing the Church to care for those affected by HIV/AIDS.

If you would like to make a special donation for these efforts, please mark your donation for "translation or AIDS training" and send it to:

EFCA TouchGlobal
402 Kishwaukee
Rockford, IL 61104

Update on Mohamat

Remember Mohamat from our last letter, the young boy who had broken his leg? He is healing well, and should be released soon from Tandala Hospital. In our recent visit to the Congo, we were able to visit him. Praise God for his healing, and pray now for his heart and mind to understand the love of Jesus!

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GlobalFingerprints is a ministry of EFCA TouchGlobal. Visit TouchGlobal at http://www.touchglobal.org/ for information on how lives are touched and hope is found, across the country, around the world, every day.

To SUBSCRIBE to the GlobalFingerprints newsletter, please send an e-mail with the word "Subscribe" in the body to GlobalFingerprints-request@moodle.efca.org.

Banquet Report ... Congo Video ... Trip Details

We have a great report from last Saturday's Congo fund-raising banquet: More than $3,700 was raised toward the vision trip this coming July!

We are thankful for the generosity of Elim's friends and members, and for the way all of you have embraced this short-term mission with your whole hearts.

Also, we have just uploaded a revised copy of the Elim Congo Vision Trip preview video. This is very similar to the video we showed last Saturday evening:



For your information, here are the current details about the trip:

Three team members (Pastor Martin Schlomer, Dr. Cal Kierum, and Linda McCoy) plan to leave Seattle on July 17 and return July 31. Their flight will take them to Kinshasa (on the western edge of the Democratic Republic of Congo), and from there they will take a small plane to Gemena (in the northwestern portion). They will work in Gemena and at a Free Church-supported hospital called "Tandala" until their flight back to Kinshasa, then home.

Stay tuned to this site for more information as it develops!