Dear Friends,
This week, please intercede with us for Dr. Daniel Baraka Nyamutale in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The second largest African nation by area, the DR Congo is home to nearly 112 million people. Around 96% of Congolese identify as Christians, while 2% practice traditional African religions and 2% follow Islam. After gaining independence from Belgium in 1960, the country was known as Zaire under General Mobutu Sese Seko’s rule (1971-1997) until after the First Congo War (1996-1997). The Second Congo War (1998-2003), which involved nine countries and 20 armed groups, left over five million people dead and displaced another two million. Two decades later, bloodshed continues as over 120 armed groups vie for control of natural resources and land in eastern Congo.
Baraka trains Christian leaders and missionaries through Ushindi Ministry, Shalom University of Bunia, and the Christian Training Center for Integral Mission of CECA-20 (Communauté Evangélique au Centre de l’Afrique). He graduated this spring with his PhD in Missiology from Shalom University of Bunia, which also participates in the Vital Sustainability Initiative. Baraka’s research is helping him to guide the Church’s engagement with the Islamic community in eastern Congo, where most of the country’s Muslims live. Baraka and his wife Carol Adabay have three daughters: Jemima Kobsinge (14), Hannah Banura (11), and Abigael Katusime (3).
Baraka shares the following message:
We thank God for your continued prayers for us, for our family and for my studies, which ended in March. Your prayers and support contributed enormously to this achievement.
Pray for Our Ministry
We ask for your prayers for our ministry, which consists of training Church leaders and missionaries. At the moment, we are doing this to a very limited extent at Shalom University of Bunia and at the Centre Chrétien de Formation pour la Mission Intégrale (Christian Training Center for Integral Mission) of CECA-20, the church that sent me to study.
We have also joined a missionary organization called Ushindi Ministry, which works to promote spiritual growth through encouraging, strengthening, equipping, and empowering local churches in Central Africa for indigenous mission initiatives, so that lives may be transformed through an intimate friendship with Jesus. We give part of our time to mobilizing churches for mission, training missionaries before they are sent to the mission fields, and contributing missiological reflections in service of this vision.
In view of the challenges faced by churches in evangelizing Muslims and accompanying Christians of Islamic origin, we are in the process of setting up an interdenominational structure to strengthen churches and provide support.
Pray for Our Country
Our country, the DR Congo, has been facing insecurity and killings in its eastern part for more than two decades. Let us pray to God to bless all the efforts being made at local, national, regional, and international levels to bring peace and to restore the state’s authority, which is the key to all development.
May God bless you,
Daniel Baraka Nyamutale