Population

102 million

The community

Nearly 10 times the size of the UK, the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) is a diverse country with 215 spoken languages, 79% of which are without a Bible. Huge parts of the country are covered by rainforest, which is home to endangered species, including gorillas. Africa’s second longest river, the Congo, flows through the DRC and is an important transport route in a country where road travel can be difficult.

The need

For decades, people in northeast DRC have endured poverty and violence, as armed groups have attacked villages and towns in the region. They have also faced the challenge of multiple outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus. They are mostly subsistence farmers. The communities are more than a thousand miles from the DRC’s capital, Kinshasa. The only Scripture that is available is not in their spoken language, and Christians long to have access to God’s word in the language they can understand, to bring encouragement and build up their faith.

The project

The goal is to reach 3.6 million people in 44 communities in the insecure northeast with God’s life-transforming words. The first steps of translation in each community are Bible storytelling workshops, alongside work to develop an in-depth understanding of the languages – most of which have never been written down.