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Lewes Presbyterian Church, in an ongoing effort to help those who are trying to help themselves, has provided business grants totaling more than $20,000 to Democratic Republic of Congo’s Lungandu Parish in the village of Kananga.
Friday, Oct. 3, Adrian Scott, Colyn Wertz, Marie Cenat, Jeannine White, and Joe Witoski returned from a month-long visit to the country – happy about progress made and enthusiastic about the future.
In 2004 church member Irene Witoski was among the group from Lewes who broke ground for a school that today has 850 students in grades 1 through 6 and 17 teachers.
Although she didn’t make the trip this year, Witoski, 63, said one purpose of the trip was to follow-up on progress – check schoolbooks, supplies, students and teachers and see how new enterprises were going.
Witoski’s husband Joe, 56, went in 2006 and again this year, following up on the school’s progress, drinking water system improvements and several new church- backed enterprises.
Witoski said six Lewes church members serve on the mission committee, which reviews program proposals to determine those most likely to succeed and worthy of funding.
Grants provided in the past couple of years have created real jobs with income, improved primary and secondary food sources, and have given the community reasons to hope for a brighter future.
Witoski said before receiving start-up money, entrepreneurs are required to develop detailed business plans. Once in business they must provide financial reports every six months.
She said only a single request for money to start a business is allowed.
“If the business plan is good, they know how much their expenses are going to be. They have to give 10 percent to the church, pay themselves a salary, and reinvest the rest in the company,” she said.
Moringa tree – a life sustainer
“The moringa tree is the most nutritious tree on the face of the Earth,” said Joe Witoski. He said the tree grows to a height of 15 to 18 feet and can provide a high percentage of a human’s daily nutritional needs.
“The leaves are dried and they make a powder out of them that is added to whatever food they’re eating,” he said.
The church donated $7,000 for the moringa tree business. Irene said the program has higher costs than other church-backed businesses because tree growers require special training and do extra work.
“We had to buy them bicycles to get them back and forth to the site where they got the training. They also had to canvass the area and gather statistics on how many people are in each family. Even if a family needs the extra nutrition from the tree, they might not want to participate,” said Irene. She said trainers are paid, and there are also costs to followup on the program’s effectiveness.
“The moringa program has long-range impact on the entire community, not just the people in that church,” Irene said.
Scott said moringa leaves are also brewed to make a nutritious tea and are also cooked whole and mixed with other leafy greens. The Lewes group planted 175 moringa trees during the visit last year.
“The amazing thing is that in only one year almost every family we visited had a moringa tree,” said Scott, 56, a Beebe Medical Center nurse who first visited the country during a 2006 mission.
The trees are self-propagating in that they produce a sizeable pod, which is full of seeds that can be planted to grow more trees.
Growing Congolese chickens
“They’re very adept over there. We met with a Congolese agronomist, and he made sure that the proper chicken vaccines were ordered and given. The chickens were ordered from out of country to get new stock,” Witoski said.
He said 200 birds arrived during their visit and a month later, 197 were still alive.
A concrete floor was poured in an existing building, a water source for the birds was installed and an outside area wired off for outdoor access.
“We bought two months worth of feed and the wire. That set them up and came to $700,” Witoski said. He said the total cost of setting up the operation came to about $3,000 – all donated by Lewes Presbyterian Church members.
Because nutritional deficiency is prevalent in Congo, Witoski said chicken growing and moringa cultivation are the most critical businesses because they provide protein sources that local diets otherwise would lack.
“It’s moringa No. 1 and poultry No. 2. Most of the malnutrition seen over there is protein deficiency,” Joe said.
Sewing for profit
“It’s the most successful business they’ve started,” Joe said of the sewing business, which received a $3,500 grant to purchase sewing machines, fabric, threads and other items needed to begin production.
“And now they’ve also gotten into tie-dye, which they’re using for their sewing,” said Scott.
Irene Witoski said one of the first sewing projects was an unsuccessful effort to make apparel for the U.S. market.
“It just didn’t work. They didn’t have the right fabrics and they were putting colors together that not in a million years would anybody here wear,” she said.
This year the Lewes group delivered sewing patterns for table runners, placemats, aprons and similar items.
“They’re things that don’t need to be sized, and the color doesn’t make that much difference. It seems to be a more practical way for them to make money,” Irene Witoski said.
The sewing business has also successfully landed local contracts that could keep it busy for some time.
“Their first contract was to make uniforms for the children in the school. Almost every student wears a uniform and they were priced so that parents could afford to buy them,” Joe Witoski said.
He said a second school with about 200 students opened nearby and the sewing business also won that uniform contract.
“All totaled they have about $2,000 in the bank right now,” Witoski said.
Carpentry apprentice business
Started with $2,000 provided by the church, young men who can’t afford to continue their education can enter a two-year apprentice carpentry program where they learn a marketable skill.
“When they leave the program, they take basic carpentry tools with them. When they go out to work, they’re supposed to donate to the church 10 percent of whatever they make on the jobs they do,” Irene Witoski said.
All work by apprentice carpenters is done entirely by hand – without aid of power tools, Witoski said.
Bread – The staff of life
The bakery business turned into a popular place to work – maybe too popular. It started with about $3,500, used to build three wood-fired brick ovens and to purchase flour, corn and other supplies.
“If you were to taste that bread, it would be just like going to downtown Philadelphia and getting a roll,” Joe said.
But he said it seemed that nearly every woman in the village was baking bread, and with the market flooded, sales were going flat.
“We really stressed with them that they need to have something unique that only they can make,” he said.
The baking enterprise has now diversified with some bakers producing muffins using recipes supplied by Irene. Plans call for other bakers to produce pretzels.
Motivated nursing volunteers
After reading two years ago about Lewes Presbyterian Church’s missions to Congo, Colyn Wertz and Marie Cenat wanted to take part.
The women are nurses, coworkers at Harrison Senior Living of Georgetown.
Wertz, 58, is a member of Midway Assembly of God Church on Route 1. She had never flown before making the more than 14,000-mile round-trip journey with stopovers in Paris and Congo’s capitol, Kinshasa.
“When I was 9, the church had missionaries from Ghana. I said when I grow up I want to do what they do,” Wertz said.
Cenat, 28, a native of Haiti, is fluent in Congo’s national language – French. She’s a member of First Haitian Church of God in Blades.
Irene said Cenat’s language skills not only saved the mission money but also made getting things done quicker and easier.
Wertz enjoyed the trip, but, said she did experience difficult moments.
“There are starving children that can barely sit up. Marie and I went to a clinic and saw one little boy, he was 12, who had meningitis. We found out he had passed away later that evening,” she said.
“My big surprise was the neighborhood near the clinic in Kinshasa – the trash and dirt. I thought things would have been different in the capital, but no,” said Cenat.
Nevertheless, Cenat, like her fellow missionaries, wouldn’t hesitate to return to the country and help people who – despite hardships many living here can’t imagine – continue to embrace life with a positive outlook.
“There’s more poverty in areas of the country than many people could imagine – it’s absolutely horrible. And yet they smile and yell ‘bonjour’ like they don’t have a worry in the world,” Wertz said.
Lewes Presbyterian Church is already planning its continuing missions to the Democratic Republic of Congo.
For information call the church, 133 Kings Highway, at 302-645-5345, or visit www.lewespresbyterianchurch.org.
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