Friends,
Now that The United Methodist Church's long postponed General Conference has finally reached its end, the FPM team can focus on what comes next, and that is the construction of a women's dormitory at the El Dorado Nursing School in Mulongo, DR Congo (click here for Google Maps location). 

2024 Fundraising Priority
The El Dorado Nursing School—the only medical school in its region—has been a tremendous success since its opening over 15 years ago. Not only has it trained nurses and midwives who now manage a network of village clinics, thanks to El Dorado's women's scholarship program, female nurses have gone from being nearly nonexistent to leading a sizable network of healthcare centers.

One of the main challenges our female students face, however, is finding safe and affordable housing within commuting distance from the school. As our student numbers swell, the problem increases. Hence the need for a women's dormitory complex on campus. 

Projected Dorm Construction Expenses:
In 2024, construction engineer David Wakungelani was brought in to calculate the overall projected expenses for the building of a dormitory that could house 48 female students. Based on current material and transport costs, he concluded that it would take $145,026 to fully finish (including electrical) the project. By subtracting in-kind contributions of the students and local church (sand, stones, bricks, etc.), Rev. Joseph Mulongo believes the two buildings could be completed for under $69,000. We hope to complete the first dormitory in 2024.

Our 2024 goal is to raise $35,000 for the first wing (housing 24 students) and to be able to continue to offer scholarships to all the school’s female students. 

Women’s Dormitories:

• $3,000: Sponsor the construction and full furnishing of one dorm room for two students 
• $100: Contribute eight bags of cement (yes, it is that expensive to get cement to Mulongo)
• $30: Contribute one roofing sheet

Women’s Scholarships:

• $500 and $200 annual scholarships

Click to read more about the nursing school and its history.

We now have electricity at the El Dorado Nursing School!

Friends,

Happy New Year!

What is new to report in the life and work of our team? Rev. Joseph Mulongo graduated from United Theological Seminary in Ohio!  He returned home to North Katanga just in time to tackle the herculean task of simultaneously serving on the the international committee responsible for all the logistics of General Conference (GC)—the quadrennial gathering of United Methodist leaders from around the globe—while overseeing the North Katanga and Tanganyika Conferences’ delegations to GC. This included helping over fifty people apply and interview for visa appointments (forms, flights, hotels, transport, correspondence) and this year will require him to shepherd these delegations in pre-conference briefings, traveling to North Carolina in April, meeting with American partners, and making the voyages back to their congregations.

Once we get on the other side of GC, Joseph will be able to focus on discerning and envisioning where FPM is heading next. That isn’t to say that FPM wasn’t active in 2023. We continue to be faithful friends to our vast network of current and emerging community leaders with our words (we love the technological miracle of WhatsApp) and actions. Our scholarship program provided funds to women studying the El Dorado Nursing school and youth the Kamina Children’s Home as well as supplemental assistance to clergy nominated for scholarships to Africa University and other theological institutions. We also sent grants for solar panels and disaster reconstruction/relief. This is in addition to the many grants and relief funds our team members helped obtain through our partners that were sent via the UMC’s general agencies or directly to the conference treasurer’s office. One of these initiatives that Rev. Joseph is leading is to bring RACHEL servers (offline digital libraries) to our communities, starting with the Mulongo Nursing School.    

In other news, the Rev. Dr. Taylor Denyer (FPM Board President) was recruited by the Methodist Theological School in Ohio to teach a six-month online intensive Methodist Studies course last year for a cohort of clergy from other denominations transferring into the West Ohio Conference. You can be sure she used this opportunity to speak about the importance of Methodist missiology, connectionalism, and the North Katanga–West Ohio partnership! She is already scheduled to teach additional Methodist Studies courses for MTSO and has been asked to develop a new class on Decolonizing Missions for next school year.

What will 2024 bring? For leaders in The United Methodist Church, this is an especially big question. Many of our partners have been holding their breaths in more ways than one since 2020 (when this April’s GC was originally scheduled to be held), as we foresee major institutional restructuring will occur, impacting budgets and jobs. Hence there has been a lot of talk about “when we get on the other side.”

We look forward to discovering what comes next together.

The FPM Family

P.S. If you are interested in reading prophetic essays about decolonizing American Methodism, check out this new book: Methodism and American Empire. Taylor contributed a chapter on how the ongoing battles for control over the UMC in the USA have done deep harm to the UMC in Africa by funding proxy wars across the continent.

 Friends,
 
Happy New Year!  Below are 2022 updates from our FPM family:
 
Rev. Joseph Mulongo spent most of 2022 stateside as a full-time student at United Theological Seminary in Ohio. When he is not studying or serving in a de facto associate pastor role at Grace UMC in Franklin, Indiana, he is remotely directing the El Dorado Nursing School in Mulongo and other FPM-funded initiatives as well as building/strengthening friendships between Indiana/ Ohio and North Katanga.
 
One of Joseph’s many recent accomplishments was to set up the nursing school with a RACHEL offline digital library server, giving students and faculty access to thousands of textbooks in French and English. Bishop Mande reports that government representatives were amazed upon their recent visit to the school to find a superbly managed high-tech nursing school in such a remote location! Another important initiative made possible by Joseph’s time in the USA was in the area of water purification. Having completed a training program in Kentucky with WaterStep, Joseph spent this past winter break training the board of the nursing school new accessible methods for creating safe drinking water and how to navigate the RACHEL library.  
 
Rev. Daniel Mumba, FPM’s Congo-based treasurer (and North Katanga Conference’s general treasurer), stepped up in 2022 as our lead financial oversight person, a big job with Joseph’s temporary absence.
 
Rev. Dr. Taylor Denyer and Dr. Kate Koppy (editor on Biking Bob’s first book), with the contributions of Joseph, Daniel, Jacky, Shabana, and others, collaborated to finish and publish Bob’s final book, Pastors, Chiefs, and Warlords: The Ministry of Being With through Wipf&Stock. It is now available through all major booksellers.
 
For those who have read Bob’s books, you’ll be interested to know that Shabana Banza is now on the ordination track and is studying at a seminary in Osijek, Croatia. His dream is to help lead the pastor training initiatives in Tanganyika upon his return. Rev. Jacky Mwayuma is also doing well, and she sends her love and greetings from Tanganyika.
 
As for Taylor, she and her family moved mid-summer to New Delhi, India. She has been getting to know the Methodist community there while continuing to write, preach, teach online grad and doctoral-level courses, and work remotely as Bishop Mande’s Gal Friday.
 
Although Rev. Lana Robyne's stint as a full-time volunteer in Congo has ended (she is now back serving in the Illinois-Great Rivers Conference), she continues to work on raising funds for the theological training school the Tanganyika Conference dreams of launching.  
 
With Taylor and Mumba wearing double appointment hats (FPM and North Katanga Area office), much of our fundraising work now involves grants and grassroots fundraising in Congo that are sent via the bishop’s office. This has taken some pressure off the fundraising side of FPM and allowed us to focus on teaching as well as step more into a bridge/safety net role. When, for example, North Katanga pastors are awarded scholarships to Africa University that don’t cover the full costs of a being a student, instead of them watching that dream slip through their fingers, FPM steps in with supplemental scholarships for bus fare, money for food and soap, and other essentials. When a tragedy strikes at the conference children’s home or to a church leader (sadly there were two cases of serious motorcycle accidents this past winter), FPM has been able to step in when the conference account was tapped out.
 
Speaking of the youth at the Kamina Children’s Home, they aren’t children anymore. We now have fifteen in community colleges and vocational programs and four recent college graduates in job search mode. As the flow of donations to their designated account are unpredictable and never enough to cover all the needs, FPM continues to frequently step in to pay school fees, purchase equipment, and quickly provide emergency loans from our undesignated funds, as promised contributions from partner conferences can take many weeks to arrive.

Once again, on behalf of the entire FPM family: Thank you for being our friend.  

Taylor,
​FPM President

Greetings Friends,

FPM's Executive Director Rev. Joseph Mulongo spent most of 2022 stateside, as a full-time student at United Theological Seminary, and he used this opportunity to explore new technologies that would be game-changing back home. Two of the organizations he found in this search were WaterStep  and WorldPossible. After receiving training in their innovations (water purification methods and a digital library server for communities living off the grid), Joseph spent this past winter break in Mulongo, where he trained the board of the El Dorado Nursing School in what he at learned and set up in the nursing school's new digital library with the RACHEL server. Bishop Mande reports that when regional and national-level government officials visited the school soon after, they were blown away at finding such a well-managed and high-tech school in such a remote location. How could it be that one of the best nursing schools in the country is located in the village of Mulongo? They may be bewildered, but the FPM team knows the secret to the school's success.

For more photos see: 

Your friend,
​
Taylor

​Friends,
 
Another emotion-filled year has passed, and we begin 2022 with hope for the future.
 
Throughout the challenges created by the pandemic, FPM has strived to be faithful to our friends across the globe. We give thanks to everyone who has supported this effort by contributing their time, talents, and/or financial resources. Below are some of the tangible manifestations of these friendships.
 
This past year we celebrated the official full completion and dedication of Milltown church in Kabimba (Tanganyika Conference), made significant headway on the construction of the new church being built next to the nursing school in Mulongo (the community has named it Bob Walters Memorial), and began work on the foundations for a dormitory for women nursing students, who face extra challenges finding safe and affordable lodgings during their studies.

​The FPM scholarship fund, while regrettably smaller this year, awarded a number of university scholarships to scouts, female nursing students, clergy, and orphaned youth. The program has been so successful at increasing the number of women nurses in the region that the growth in female applicants has far outpaced the number of scholarships currently available. Speaking of the nursing school, it received a government inspection in 2021 and was praised for being one of best organized and well-built schools in the entire province! You can learn more about the school’s history at this link.   
 
Thanks to an outpouring of financial support, our old boat, The Indiana, which was destroyed in a storm, was replaced in early 2021 with a new and much larger boat, which was immediately put to use transporting delegates to district and conference gatherings, hauling construction supplies to congregations in the Mwanza districts, and taking life-saving medicines to villages unreachable by truck during the cholera outbreak. 
 
We also remain in regular communication with the youth at the UMC children’s home in Kamina. No longer children, these youth and young adults are attending community colleges and vocational schools, with an increasing number transitioning into independent living. FPM continues to help pay their exams fees and purchase laptops and other equipment, such as carpentry tools and sewing machines, for their studies. We are delighted to have FPM board member Rev. Daniel Mumba there in Kamina keeping tabs on them and celebrate that I (Taylor) as well as Kelly (who spent much of her childhood at the home) were both able to spend time reconnecting with the youth over the summer. It will be bittersweet when a few years from now the last of the youth will leave the nest and the structures at the home—which was created during the war—will be repurposed for other ministries. 
 
Much has also happened in the FPM family these past twelve months. Below are some of the highlights.
 
Our program director Rev. Joseph Mulongo has had the daunting responsibility of overseeing the FPM funded initiatives whilst serving as the Director of Connectional Ministries for the North Katanga Episcopal Area and making tough decisions in his role on the UMC’s General Conference planning commission. If all goes to plan, he will be moving to Indiana later this month, hosted by and serving at the UMC’s Franklin Grace congregation while being a fulltime student at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. Once he gets settled, he would be happy to speak at gatherings about the work of church leaders in the North Katanga and Tanganyika Conferences.
 
Rev. Daniel Mumba, who has long been part of the FPM family, officially joined the board of directors and will be taking over a number of Joseph’s responsibilities. You’ll learn more about Mumba when you read Bob’s book, Pastors, Chiefs, and Warlords: The Ministry of Being With.  
 
Our board member Rev. Lana Robyne took a leap of faith and spent most of the year volunteering in DR Congo, with Kalemie as her home base. She would be happy to speak via video chat (or, when possible, in person) with your congregation about what she has learned and the initiatives you can support. She would especially like to talk about the efforts being made to give clergy in the Tanganyika Conference access to additional training, since many have not had the opportunity to complete a full seminary program.
 
As for me, I had the wonderful surprise of being recruited to teach online at two different graduate schools in 2021. At the Methodist Theological School in Ohio, I have been filling in during Dr. Joon-Sik Park’s sabbatical, teaching their courses on mission and evangelism. At Bakke Graduate University, a school focused on equipping Christian leaders called to work in marginalized urban contexts, I am coaching graduate and doctoral students as they craft proposals for research that can spark transformation in their ministry settings. This has been in addition to serving as program coordinator of the Osijek Doctoral Colloquium, which is hosted by the Central and Eastern European Association of Mission Studies, and my support role on Bishop Mande’s administrative team. While none of these are officially FPM-branded activities, they are synergistic with our core goal of transforming understandings of mission and building a network of game-changing missiologists. 
  
2021 ended with much-anticipated good news: the manuscript that our co-founder “Biking Bob” Walters had nearly completed at his unexpected passing—a sequel to The Last Missionary--has been selected for publication by Wipf and Stock and is heading to the copy editor and typesetter this month. A huge thanks goes to Dr. Kate Koppy for all her work in turning what Bob left behind into a moving meditation that we are certain you will find both challenging and encouraging. 
 
What will 2022 bring? There are so many things we cannot predict, but one thing we are certain about is that being a good friend to those who feel forgotten and those who are healers, peacemakers, and dreamers is never a foolish investment of our time or money.  
 
Much Love and Happy New Year,
 
Taylor and the entire Friendly Planet family

Dear friends,
I am a volunteer missionary and United Methodist pastor appointed to the Tanganyika Conference in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). This is a conference in the eastern part of the DRC that has faced great difficulties recovering from horrific war earlier in this century as well as ongoing conflicts, disease and poorly equipped medical centers, limited/interrupted access to schools, and food insecurity. Today is my one-year anniversary of being here! I've spent this past year building relationships and making plans with church leaders. I am writing to share some of our initiatives and ask for your prayers and financial support.

Clergy Training Initiative
Our biggest goal for this next year is to organize training opportunities for pastors serving the Tanganyika Conference. Most of these pastors are paid $10/month or less. This means they do not have enough money to send their kids to school, buy a phone, or travel. Very few have had the opportunity to go to seminary or complete a formal theological and pastoral training program. If they are able to raise the money or get a scholarship to go to seminary, they must relocate to another conference or even another country for their studies.

Each year, either before or after annual conference, there are a few days set aside for workshops and seminars for our pastors. This is not enough. The bishop, the leadership of Tanganyika Conference, and I have a dream to develop a program for more significant pastor training with deeper theological education. We will start this year with a month of classes which will hopefully quickly expand into a 3-year institution or even an accredited seminary and university one day.

The leaders of this conference are anxious to start developing a program with what they have. They have church buildings where classes can take place. There are many pastors excited for training. We have educated and experienced pastors willing to volunteer some time for teaching and training for a stipend the first year. The teachers would at least need some support for their travel, food, and teaching materials. In addition, we will need money for transport, lodging, and food for students. Ideally, we will be able to provide a Bible, notebooks, some books and print-outs, and pens to the students. We may not be able to fund year-round classes for three years at this point, but even a month of classes would be a huge improvement.

Initiatives to Support
As Thanksgiving and Advent approach, I invite you and your congregation to pray for and financially assist the Tanganyika Annual Conference via its partnership with Friendly Planet Missiology.

1) Clergy Training Initiative:
a. 10 instructors’ stipends: $200 each = $2,000
b. 30 students food and lodging stipend - $200 each = $6,000
c. 40 teachers/students class materials - $50 each = $2000
d. The goal for funding in 2022 is $10,000.

2) Friendly Planet Missiology Center in Kalemie, DRC.
This soon-to-open center will provide a ministry space to house women-led projects, art programs for children, technology training for youth, and Bible studies.

a. $400/month for rent
b. $100/month for utilities
c. $150/month for internet
d. $150/month for supplies and programming.

3) Mulongo Nursing School Scholarships for Women from Tanganyika 
$300 for tuition/fees plus $250 living stipend per year per student

4) Farming initiative in Manono, DRC. 
Farming will fight food insecurity, provide jobs, and help feed the delegates at our next Annual Conference to be held in Manono in June. Any proceeds from the harvest will be re-invested in farming and agriculture education.
 Estimated cost: $1000 per season 

5) Sponsor a Volunteer Missionary
$1000/month would help cover my travel and living expenses and make it possible for me to remain in Congo longterm.

How to support these ministries:
1) Pray.
2) Stay in touch. You can reach me on WhatsApp. +1 765-586-0124
3) Donate with a check. This is old-fashioned but still the most cost-effective way to donate. Send it to FPM, attn. Teri Walters, 102 E Main St., Plainfield, IN.
4) Send a donation to FPM through a UMC congregation in the Indiana Conference. The congregation will get credit, although it may take longer to reach FPM's account.
5) Donate to FPM online through Venmo, Zelle, and PayPal. We find Venmo and Zelle are the most cost-effective and easiest for people who want to give on-line and give monthly.
6) Facebook fundraiser. Donations through Facebook are also tax-exempt and especially nice on special days like Giving Tuesday and birthday fundraisers.

We know money is especially tight these days, and people are exhausted from COVID. However, we have faith we can find enough generous donors to help us get started. We pray that you and your church or conference will be one of those donors and supporters.

In God’s grace,
Rev. Lana J. Robyne
Volunteer Missionary, Tanganyika Annual Conference in DRC

Friends,
​
The global pandemic of 2020 impacted us all in ways small and large. Many of us lost loved ones and/or our own health.  Even for those spared the direct hit of the virus, we found our long-planned trips and gatherings canceled, took financial hits, and were once again reminded of the world’s interconnectedness and the unjust inequalities in it.  

Throughout this crisis, FPM leaders remained faithful to the friendships we have nurtured for well over a decade by doing what we have done from the beginning—prioritizing listening to and encouraging one another and being highly strategic about how we use our financial resources to maximize their impact. 

January 2020, which feels like a lifetime away, started out with an infusion of fresh energy and ambitious goals as three new dynamic leaders joined FPM’s Board of Directors: Freddy Kitwa (in charge of coordinating FPM projects in the Tanganyika Conference), Kenny Smallhorn (FPM/Purdue bike tour alumnus), and Rev. Jacqueline Mwayuma (yes, the very same Mama Jackie who Bob Walters sets out to visit in The Last Missionary and finally reaches in the book’s sequel, which we promise really is nearly ready for publication).  

In February, FPM secretary Rev. Lana Robyne was busy packing her bags preparing for her new life serving in a fulltime appointment in the United Methodist Church’s Tanganyika Conference. She had scheduled a brief stop in Slovenia to visit yours truly on her way down. When the airports suddenly closed, Lana became our extended pandemic houseguest, giving us over three months to deepen our friendship and reflect together on what mission God was calling her into in Tanganyika. Lana is now finally in Kalemie and is already in conversation with conference leaders and FPM members on the ground about how her gifts can best be used to strengthen ministries there. 

In August, we celebrated the publication of Decolonizing Mission Partnerships   in the American Society of Missiology’s monograph series. This doctoral thesis is the second published book on missiology that is the fruit of the work of FPM.  

In October, we shared with our Facebook followers that our beloved riverboat, The Indiana, had been destroyed in a storm. Thanks to a generous outpouring of contributions, we were able to raise enough to begin to build a new and larger boat to continue this vital transportation ministry. We hope to have it registered and in use in early 2021.

As always, FPM has continued to provide merit-based and financial-need scholarships thanks to designated and undesignated gifts from friends like you. This year’s scholarship recipients included women studying at the nursing school in Mulongo and orphaned youth raised at the UMC’s home in Kamina. We also provided laptops to two clergy who had to take all their first semester courses at Africa University online due to the shutdown.

While pandemic movement restrictions temporarily halted construction efforts in DR Congo, much progress was made on a number of FPM supported new builds and renovations. A photo album created by Freddy shows the highlights of this work in Tanganyika , and Lana’s report on her recent visit to Kabimba provides an inspiring narrative of how a growing congregation in Tanganyika was able to build a larger and sturdier sanctuary thanks to the final bequeath of a dying congregation in Indiana.

​As we say goodbye to 2020, we pray that the lessons we have learned from it will lead us into a better 2021 and beyond.     

Wishing you good health and deep friendships,

Taylor
FPM President

Since pictures can speak louder than words, FPM board member and Tanganyika Conference liaison Freddy Kitwa has created a photo album of FPM supported construction projects in Tanganyika 2019-2020 (note: Funding for these projects came from multiple local and connectional sources. FPM's strives to step in with grants and other support when local leadership just needs one last boost to reach their goal)