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Then we needed more financing to be a bigger help to the great need in the Congo. One of our faithful friends in Europe got his business partners in South Africa to meet us. They were touched by our project and together gave us a very generous donation and are sponsoring our tickets. With their help we can get so much more done there. God bless them as well as all of you who are helping us in this project and we know He will as He promised in His word: “He that has pity upon the poor lends unto the Lord; and that which he has given will he pay him again” Pro. 19:17.

Thank God we could also find somebody in Kinshasa who is willing to give us a place to stay where we can even cook, which is a real blessing since food and lodging are both very expensive there. At the same time we were looking for a way to get literature into the country, especially the “Activated” magazines, the first 9 issues of which contain a basic foundation course for Christians, and a few other issues with helpful articles on up-to-date questions of life. We are looking for a way to get these in on a regular basis and that has to be a miracle to get around very high transport, customs and handling charges. The Lord is good and finally opened a door for us. We would like to ask you to keep this in your prayers as well as the whole project, especially for peaceful elections in June, their first ever since Congo’s independence, so that they can live in peace and the economy gets going to make it easier for people to find jobs and survive. Thank you very much!

The goal for our trip, the two main objectives: 1. we would like to help the children’s Home in Kisenso with some immediate food supplies and hopefully find a way to grow food themselves so that they can cover at least some of their basic needs by themselves. 2. Strengthen our group of Bible students so that they can continue to carry on the work we started there in 2004 and help spread the message in the Congo as far and wide as possible.

In the meantime our local work here grew and we found it especially inspiring and fruitful to get out faith and character building educational materials in the schools, which was developed by our colleagues especially for Africa and is getting very good responses. At the same time we had the chance to share the message of God’s love and salvation, especially now for the Easter time, with over 2000 children and we invited them to our special little prayer which we like to pray with people everywhere (see the prayer at the end of the attachment “What is Easter”).  This is still possible here in a predominantly Christian country with not just nominal but active Christians.

The projects of our local mission continued well with supplying regular food for the soup kitchen and giving free eye check ups in the settlement schools and finding sponsors for those kids who need glasses.

Thank you for all your help and prayers, which we need for our ongoing projects especially now for this coming trip to the Congo. We pray for you too and wish you all a very HAPPY EASTER time remembering the greatest victory of all times which came out of a seeming defeat.

One such example is Khayelitsha, the biggest slum area in Cape Town with about 800 000 black people living mostly in shacks, stretching about 10 km long and 5 km wide. About 80 % of these people are jobless and alcohol, drugs, prostitution, AIDS, criminality etc are rampant in these informal settlements.

Our team here is helping in the schools of two of the squatter camps with free eye tests for the children and is trying to get them as many free glasses as possible, which they cannot afford otherwise. They also bring food to a local soup kitchen which cares for the homeless people. We visit the University and help the students who have no goals and need new motivation. People here as everywhere else need spiritual help and support to gain new strength and to approach life with new vigor. We also want to - similar to Mexico - visit hospitals to give comfort to the needy and pray for the sick as well as distribute good educational and character building material to the children in the slums to give them a good foundation for their future lives.

The highlight in the humanitarian sector which we would like to achieve is to make a trip to the Congo as soon as possible as our assistance there is urgently required.
We would like to share with you two excerpts of emails which we received from Kinshasa just a few days ago; they speak for themselves.

Pastor Theophile wrote us: "… The situation of children in Kisenso isn't good, food situation is even worse. When you were here, we had 150 children (orphans), since you left, 52 died because of lack of food. Now, we have 98 children. Some of them (37 children) try to go to school but they don't have possibilities to continue studies because school in Congo is too expensive for them."

Another friend of ours there wrote us and explained how important it is to pray for the situation: "… We hope very much, that God will answer all these prayers and will show mercy to this country. He already did just that so many times, like on June 30th (2005, where elections were supposed to happen and got postponed). Unrest was planned and predicted.  Many foreigners had already left  the country. And NOTHING happened! God protects this city in an unexplainable way. Please pray with us for the coming year, which will be decisive with the coming elections. At the end of next June everything should be over."

Thank you for your prayers for the situation in Congo. Our thanks goes also to those of you who are actively helping through your donations to change the sad situation of the poor children there. We appreciate your help very much and wish you a very HAPPY CHRISTMAS and His blessings for the coming NEW YEAR,

Since March we are sending out regular emails to all our friends in English, French and German and we pray that you enjoy these beautiful stories and thought provoking, faith building articles. Following are some highlights of reactions we received from different people to these emails:

Köln ”We met each other on the train and I’m reading your materials with much interest and am learning very much from it. I have a personal question. I …want to search for a new way to discover what life is really all about. …I would just like to be there for others and find myself. I’m looking forward to an answer and say thank you ...”
Basel (after experiencing business crisis) “…thank you from my heart for your texts. I can use them very much right now as I’m going through a rough stage. In spite of it or maybe because of this difficult time I can experience the power of God even more.”
Rosenheim Mother: “I like to read the Vitamins for the Heart very much!” Daughter: “I also like to read the texts you are sending out very much and always give Mommy and Daddy a print-out.”
Kinshasa ”…I'm very happy for the e-mails that you're sending me and I read them all. I'll try to print some if possible. Everything is well here except some problems. We're afraid but I hope you all pray for me.”

As far as our work in Mexico, the ongoing projects continued well. We visited the hospitals, distributed aid to the poor and educational materials for children from underprivileged families. This year we will distribute more than ever, so far 4800 books & 400 CDs for children and 400 Activated magazines for their families.

Even though we liked the work in Mexico we couldn't shake the call for Africa and the great need there. The question was just where we should go since Lenka cannot handle the tropical heat after her operations. After going back and forth quite a bit we came to the conclusion that South Africa would probably be the best place for us. From there we would also like to make trips to Congo if the situation there and our finances permit it. We have found a new team in Capetown which is interested in helping us to make these trips and is happy that we want to come and help them with their work.

After spending some time visiting our families and relatives we are at the moment based at our association in Rheurdt. From there Wolfgang was able to participate for one week in the World Youth Day in Köln with our missionary friends from the surrounding countries. We met many searching young people from all over the world and distributed 14.000 pieces of literature which offer answers to their questions about life and faith and the first positive responses from this very inspiring time are already coming in.
Soon Wolfgang will go on his yearly tour through South Germany to visit as many of you as possible and try to call all the others.

The situation in Congo continues to be very volatile with the postponed elections. Pastor Theophile sent us heartbreaking news about the orphans in Kinshasa, Kisenso (see Newsletter 14). Here is an excerpt of one of his emails about it: "...The situation of children at Kisenso isn't good because the food became too expensive, some of them died and we had to bury them last week, you can continue to pray for them please... "

We would like to help them but need your prayers and your support. In order for us to be able to better plan this and other projects in South Africa we want to ask you to please send us your donations on a regular basis. Even 10 Euros a month or whatever the Lord puts on your heart will be a big help. We know He will bless you for it as He promised: "Give and it shall be given unto you…" Thank you very much!