Report from Mama Rebecca Widows’ Fund

The main priorities of the Mama Rebecca Widows’ Fund project are providing nourishment, clothing, and caregiving. Lack of funds has limited the widow project to providing a breakfast in the morning and a meal at midday. They have been able to provide the women with uniforms but they have not been able to provide additional care or clothing.

Global Ministries has been in partnership with the Community of Disciples of Christ of the Congo (CDCC) since 1899. One of the historic mission stations of the CDCC is in the remote rural area of Lotumbe. In May of 2007, a Lotumbe village elder named Mama Rebecca Mbunga died. She was the widow of Pastor Bokomboji Pierre and had mentored missionaries and Congolese Disciples throughout Congo’s Equatorial Province. She lived well into her 90s in her neatly kept mud home where some of her most cherished items were photos of her Disciples family and she staunchly paid heed to the talking drum every Sunday when it tapped out its “call to meeting” message.

In honor of Mama Rebecca, the CDCC and FLO (a Lotumbe-based women’s community development organization) set up a special fund in her name. Donations to this fund help initiate income-generating projects that support pastors’ and elders’ widows like Mama Rebecca who struggle to make ends meet on less than $1 a day. These women do not receive care or support from their families. They are abandoned, often without shelter.

The main priorities of the Mama Rebecca Widows’ Fund project are providing nourishment, clothing, and caregiving. Lack of funds has limited the widow project to providing a breakfast in the morning and a meal at midday. They have been able to provide the women with uniforms but they have not been able to provide additional care or clothing.

A shelter has been constructed where the vulnerable women can stay for 8 to 16 hours a day to rest. The widows also have access to a micro-credit loan program for income-generation projects. FLO also held a training for the widows for planting gardens in the most beneficial ways based on the lessons learned from an experimental community garden.

Additional funds continue to serve the needs of the widows and reach additional widows who are otherwise left without support.

Project information can be found here: http://globalministries.org/africa/projects/mama-rebecca-widows-fund.html