April Bates-Fearon, an excited team member of ELI, came as a storyteller at chapel to help the students resonate with the incredible Congolese children living in abject poverty in the slums in DR Congo! Very few children in the Congo go to school and if they do most only go to eighth grade. Yet at the ELI school in the Congo, children can go all the way to twelfth grade. As a high school student, they can pick a major in either business administration or pedagogy that will prepare them for finding employment once they graduate. Below, you will be able to hear the stories of three of these Congolese children adopted into the ELI family who came out stronger through adversity and persevered!
Catherine
Her dad died when she was three years old, her mother abandoned her so she could remarry, and Catherine was raised by her grandmother. Financially poor, at 14 years old, Catherine asked the ELI staff for $60 to build a stand to sell fruits and vegetables. They granted her request and after three years she can pay for her tuition to attend the ELI school and now is a senior in high school focusing on business. She will come back next year and support another orphan like herself to attend the ELI school. A remarkable story of resourcefulness and taking care of her ailing grandma and giving back to her family.
Ampa and Alimungu
When their mother died from an illness, the five children were passed onto the mother’s younger unmarried sister. She married and had four more children making a family of nine children. Then their dad died from an illness. Seven of the nine children were moved back to the rural village while Ampa and Alimungu stayed behind in the slums near the ELI school. They didn’t want to leave the ELI school their dad had supported so much. In meeting with the ELI staff, they began to sell eggs in the city and now are able to pay for their tuition to school as well as buy food for their family back in the village. They are deeply grateful to the ELI school and staff.
Ntakobajira
At seven years of age, Ntakobajiro’s mother became very sick and died within two weeks. With their dad being a drunkard, his eight brothers and sisters’ lives were changed completely, and they were forced to leave school and return to the fields to find food. Without food or money, their dad was forced to return to the city to find work with his two youngest children joining him of which Ntakobajiro was one. They were the poorest family in the poorest area in the poorest country. The ELI staff were touched and enrolled the two youngest in the ELI school paying their tuition and providing a meal per day. Now Ntakobajiro is a senior at the ELI school. He became a Christian, was baptized, and goes to church every Sunday. He shared that he will support someone to go to school the way they supported him.
April’s Conclusion
April went on to share that you don’t need to know someone to help. You may never go to the Congo to be willing to help. Your help may make the difference between someone living or dying as well as changing someone’s whole future who would have died of hunger. She went onto share that we do these things so that they might live and not die because our God is a God of life!
INFORMATION ABOUT EMPOWERING LIVES INTERNATIONAL
WHAT WE DO
GIVE A GIFT OF SUSTAINABILITY, KNOWLEDGE, HOPE AND HEALTH THAT WILL CONTINUE TO IMPACT LIVES FURTHER INTO THE FUTURE THAN YOU WILL EVER KNOW.
We aim to inspire and equip the poor to attain an economical base of self-reliance, family strength and Spirit-led generosity toward others.
Years of poverty have been slowly drying out the soil of hope in Africa. Millions live on less than a dollar a day, and abject poverty chokes out dreams and often life itself. Hunger, disease, alcoholism, spiritual emptiness and lack of knowledge move through the hearts and homes of countless villages and generations where struggling parents repeat the cycle of raising malnourished, uneducated children who hope for a better life.
The challenges, though great, are not as strong as the determination God provides to overcome them. Empowering Lives International is a Christian organization raised up to bring knowledge, care, spiritual transformation and empowerment in a holistic way to millions of suffering people – one life at a time.
Empowering the poor is a broad challenge and opportunity. Our ministry has expanded significantly and in recent years has also been refined for greater effectiveness. We invite you to join our family of worldwide partners as we bring empowerment to the poor through training and education, care for orphans and community investment.
A LONG HISTORY OF CHAOS AND VIOLENCE
The Democratic Republic of Congo, equal in size to the United States east of the Mississippi, is home to vast expanses of pristine rain forest, rare animal species and a large potential for wealth in the form of highly valuable minerals and natural resources. Yet, DR Congo is also one of the poorest, most chaotic nations on the planet, ruined by unrest that is estimated to have claimed millions of lives in the past 10 years, the world’s deadliest conflict since World War II. In many corners of the country, law, order, electricity and medicine are virtually nonexistent.
ELI began work in Bukavu, Congo in 2001 with focus on establishing micro enterprises projects and a village demonstration farm. In 2004 ELI teamed up with community members in the Keredi slum, once an internally displaced camp, to establish a Christian School now known as ELI Christian Academy. Here over 500 children attend from kindergarten through high school. Along with an education, ELI runs a feeding program for the students.
Following a landmark peace agreement and a tumultuous political transition backed by the world’s largest UN peacekeeping operation, the DRC held largely successful elections in 2006. However, elections were not a panacea to Congo’s ills; 45,000 people die each month, mostly from the crippling effects of widespread displacement in the country’s eastern provinces. Worse still, armed groups routinely commit acts of rape and sexual violence against Congolese women and girls. A recent but increasingly fragile ceasefire is the first step towards a lasting peace, but the threat of renewed conflict remains as an ongoing reality.
