Pray for the Pygmy Peoples of Congo.
DRC Congo and other Central African countries have the unique People Group of Pygmies.
The term “Pygmy” refers to various ethnic groups, primarily found in Central Africa, who share the characteristic of unusually short average height. While the term is sometimes considered derogatory, as it focuses on a physical trait, it remains widely used, especially in reference to the African Pygmies of the Congo Basin.
Pygmy, in anthropology is a member of any human group whose adult males grow to less than 59 inches (150 cm) in average height.
Many Pygmy communities maintain a traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, deeply connected to the rainforest. They often exchange forest products with neighboring farming communities for cultivated goods. Their beliefs include a creator god and animism, revering nature and its spirits. African Pygmies are known for their complex vocal music and typically live in small, egalitarian bands.
Challenges and threats.
Pygmies have historically faced discrimination and exploitation. Their traditional way of life is threatened by deforestation, logging, mining, and conservation efforts. They have also experienced violence, displacement, and limited access to essential services like healthcare, education, and legal protection.
The Pygmy peoples in Congo, long despised and exploited by the Bantu majority, are becoming very responsive to the good news after long resistance and suspicion. They have been enslaved, poorly compensated for hard labour and even hunted, killed and eaten by militia fighters for the alleged magical properties of their flesh.
Ministries among Pygmy People.
Ministries such as Mission Evangélique du Pygmée en Afrique, the Covenant Church, Baptists and Presbyterians (as well as others) defend these Baka peoples and help to evangelize and disciple them. Justice and advocacy as well as literacy training, oral teaching and church planting are all much needed.
Pray for the maturing of this movement, provision of adequate, spiritual leadership and emergence of a truly indigenous Pygmy Church.
The Assemblies of God has some work among the Pygmies and according to a report some Pastors access them through boats and motorbikes to distribute Bibles.
Pray for Other Ministries in DRC Congo.
According to the Operation World, the Democratic Republic of Congo is a failed state by any measure of the term. The lands under this name have no centralized government, no connectedness between the vast and far-flung regions, almost no functioning infrastructure and no single language or culture to unite its many diverse peoples.
The Christian Church is an essential entity for rebuilding the DRC.
It remains the only viable national social structure to survive and retain some credibility. Its role in rebuilding the nation is crucial.
Christian help ministries will be essential for the foreseeable future due to the destruction of recent years. The government nationalization of hospitals and schools in the 1970s was a disaster. Churches and missions work hard to maintain and restore them, but the demands for funding and personnel are staggering.
Pray specifically for:
- Health Services. A large number of major and smaller hospitals – too many to list – are run by networks such as Interchurch Medical Assistance
- Baptists, Adventists, Community of Disciples of Christ, WEC and others. Intercommunity/mission hospitals, such as Centre Médical Evangélique at Nyankunde in the northeast, are both a good testimony and an essential ministry. Expatriate personnel are in constant demand.
- The school system suffers, with plummeting enrolment, negligible financing, lack of educational resources and a shortage of good teachers.
- Poverty and lack of opportunity constrain many families from sending their children to school.
It is a minor miracle that the education system continues to function at all. - Thank God for the educational ministries of the Catholic Church and increasingly Protestant churches, without which an entire generation may have gone without education.
- Around five million children still go without schooling today. Pray that churches and missions may use the immense opportunities for the gospel in the desperately needy education system.
- Transportation. The breakdown in surface transportation adds to the strategic importance of the seven agencies with aviation programmes (the largest of which is MAF, with eight aircraft in the DRC). Pray for safety in flying over trackless forests and swamps, provision of fuel, finance and personnel.
- Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) is committed to supporting ministries of healing, reconciliation and Biblical community development, as well as Congolese missionaries who are taking the Gospel to refugees along the country’s northern border.
Pentecostal Work in DRC Congo.
The Assemblies of God and other Pentecostal Organizations are working in DRC.
According to The World AG Fellowship, there are 3 Assemblies of God works in DRC:
Please Pray for their Leaders, pastors, and Churches.
- Communauté Assemblées de Dieu – Kinshasa.
Pasteur MAVINGA Masiala Eric - Congo Assemblies of God Fellowship (CAGF)
Rev. Dr. CIZUNGU M Gérard
Surintendant Général. - Assemblies of God – Kisangani
Pasteur Reuben Nongoyo Sungu
‘How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?
Romans 10:14-15
And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?
As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”
Thank You for Praying for DRC Congo!
Sources:
Operation World.
Britannica.
Science.org.
WAGF Fellowship.
Pics by: Wikipedia.
Missionary Aviation Fellowship.
KaliTimber.com