Member safe after cargo plane craches into marketplace

By Jack Brunet

Mrs. Bamongo, wife of a church translator in Kinshasa, Zaire, was unharmed in December when a cargo plane crashed into a crowded marketplace in Kinshasa near the Ndolo airport killing about 380 people.

Mrs. Bamongo sells various items in the Simbazikita market, where most of the sellers are women and children. Mrs. Bamongo left her display table five minutes before the crash.

Apparently the point of impact was on her table. Unfortunately many people died, but members are thankful that God protected Mrs. Bamongo. We are still waiting to be sure no one in the congregation was injured.

On Jan. 1 a bus crashed into a ravine in Kinshasa killing 72 of the 75 passengers. Among those spared were a Christian minister and Cecile Dimanga, 20, a daughter of Mr. Disashi, one of our members.

Juvennal Rutimirwa, one of our Rwandan members who had been a refugee in Goma, Zaire, died of complications from bronchopneumonia and an ulcer of the liver.

The civil war that made news in Rwanda carries on in Burundi. Soldiers have burned homes, and a few hundred people have died every day throughout the country.

Among the homes burned was the home of Wenceslas Kawenubusa. Mr. Kawenubusa and 15 family members are staying in a shed near a prospective member in another area.

A phone call I made to members in Bujumbura, Burundi, was interrupted because of grenade blasts in the market outside the post office and telecommunications building. The members escaped uninjured.

Please pray for our members in Africa. Please also pray for us ministers who travel there. I leave at the end of January for Kinshasa, and I also plan to fly to Goma, Zaire, to visit our Rwandan refugees. Carlos Tavares, a local church elder in Lisbon, Portugal, will travel to Angola in February.