The church planting efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo continue to grow thanks to the efforts of many pastors and leaders to implement oral Bible storytelling in the native languages.

JESUS Film teams have helped to plant churches in many rural areas of the DRC. As churches are planted, the teams focus on discipleship to help the new members learn the Word of God. However, getting Bibles printed in local languages is difficult. While there are four national languages, it is estimated that there are over 200 different languages actively in use in the country.

Over the last two years, the JESUS Film field coordinator Nzola Dieumerci has been encouraging the church planters to make oral Bible storytelling in the local languages to be the primary focus for discipleship development. 

In January 2022, Nzola traveled to Kisangani, DRC, to complete orality training and officially install Depa Babulaka as the Africa Central Field orality coordinator. 

“[We had] a great time during our orality training at Kisangani,” Zola said. “Kisangani is in the Tshopo district in the DRC. I had the privilege to lead the training alongside two others for three days, from January 17-19, 2022, with 40 participants in the training.”

According to Nzola, they had an exciting time together, helping equip talented Christian men and women of all ages. During the time, they discovered how they can share the church’s Articles of Faith and how to disciple children, young people, and women. In one church, the Sunday school lesson on orality was led by a woman and another one by a child.

“It was amazing to see how children could respond to the questions by using signs or symbols,” Nzola said. 

They ended the training by “distributing the recording set for local stories to the Tshopo district, and [developing] a 3-month plan according to the zones where the participants came from.

--Church of the Nazarene Africa