Congo Peace Updates
- Category: Congo Peace Blog
Dear Friends of Congo Peace,
Thank you for helping to make Spirit of Congo a success. We are grateful to all of you for your support!
We hope you enjoyed learning about how much has been accomplished in the South Kivu area and how Congo Peace is supporting ongoing reconciliation work. But there is still much work to do! The people of the Congo need your prayers, advocacy, and volunteer skills, as well as your donations.
As of this morning, we have raised over $33,000 for this fundraiser- our first annual fundraising event. Hallelujah! These funds will go directly to benefit the people in East Congo. While this incredible demonstration of support is significant, we are still short of our goal to fund the ministry for 2024.
We are still accepting gifts for this campaign through our website at CongoPeace.org/give and by check mailed to Congo Peace at P.O. Box 232, Issaquah WA 98027. We are also able to accept donations from IRAs or donor-advised funds. Donations are tax deductible to the extent allowed by law. We hope you will consider us in your giving throughout the year.
You will receive periodic updates about our progress and how your dollars are making a difference through our newsletter and on CongoPeace.org. Thank you again for your kindness, your friendship, and your support.
Lastly, we would appreciate your feedback by clicking and completing this brief survey so we can improve the event for next time.
Congo Peace Board of Directors
"With God's power working in us, God can do much, much more than anything we can ask or imagine!" [Ephesians 3:20]
- Category: Congo Peace Blog
Have you ever wondered how to shape a generation of peacemakers who have grown up in the heart of a hate-filled war zone? Congo Peace believes that with God's help, generations of tribal animosity can be healed and that hostile groups can move from a divided past to a shared future of stability and peace.
Inspired by the moving and often tragic life stories of many refugees in their New Hope community, Bellevue Presbyterian Church (BelPres) in Bellevue, WA, has committed to work for reconciliation in Minembwe, East Congo. Over the last few years, the BelPres community has faithfully provided for emergency life-saving aid, supported reconciliation seminars to bring healing to warring tribes, and offered opportunities for vocational and entrepreneurial training. Through these efforts, many critical needs have been met and inspired many diverse communities, but we have observed that the root problem –the source of so much tribal animosity in this region– is broken spirits and poverty.
- Category: General
Learn Together. Live Together.
A vocational training center and boarding school rises on recently purchased property near Bukavu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), thanks to our generous donors. It will be a place where young men and women from all tribes can learn together while they live together, eventually working together on common goals and entrepreneurial enterprises.
The mission of Congo Peace, formerly New Hope Congo, is to break the vicious cycle of poverty and violence by fostering economic opportunity and stability, guided by Christ’s reconciling love, in addition to providing emergency relief when needed.
- Category: General
Congo Peace, formerly New Hope Congo, is growing! Visit us often to learn more about how we are helping to break the vicious cycle of poverty and violence in the Minembwe region and beyond in the South Kivu province in the DRC.
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- Category: Food and Farming
Can we expect spiritual fruit from preaching and teaching forgiveness and reconciliation while the body remains hungry and malnourished?
Our answer is ‘NO, it would be like sowing seed upon rocks’. Congo Peace addresses both the spiritual and the physical needs at the same time.
The Belllevue Presbyterian (BelPres) congregation, based in Belleuve, WA, generously donated $307,000 in May 2021 for this ministry. This amount was divided equally between reconciliation work and hunger relief. The half for food relief - $153,000 - was fully expended in June 2022 and has accomplished much in providing food relief for young children, pregnant and nursing women, vulnerable and displaced adults, and two seasons of expanded agricultural crops.
- Category: Construction
Hallelujah! The Community Hall in Minembwe in East Congo is now essentially complete and useable.
One year ago - May 2021 - saw groundbreaking and the first work on the building underway, thanks to a grant from the Bel Pres Legacy Foundation. Over the months, other donations helped finish the building. Materials and labor have been locally sourced. There are some minor items yet to be finalized, like landscaping, but this does not prevent the building from being used for meetings, reconciliation, and community events. Importantly, the building can be secured now as the doors and barred windows have been installed.
- Category: General
Every day our hearts are broken as we witness the devastating destruction and displacement taking place in Ukraine. Yet over 3800 miles from Kyiv, in South Kivu, Congolese men, women, and children are bravely enduring similar daily tragedies. Though bombs from a superpower do not rain from the Congo sky, the havoc created by unchecked hostile tribal factions within the country results in the same devastation and loss. The people of both regions are engaged in a struggle to maintain hope in the face of great adversity. As followers of Jesus, we long to make a difference!
- Category: Congo Peace Blog
Dear BelPres family and friends,
We are excited to share how your donations are bringing health and hope in East Congo. THANK YOU for your amazing generosity with the congregation’s gift last May of over $300,000 to help with food relief and reconciliation efforts in this war-torn region. Together we have made a difference thanks to the dedicated work of the multi-tribal Congolese reconciliation team on the ground. Our unique multi-tribal approach is bringing hope and reconciliation to hostile tribes. All tribes are treated equally, and all are represented on the leadership team.