Just plant a Tree God will make it grow.

School boys and Bible Students with the newly Marrieds

When I first went to the Congo in 1967 I was Head Teacher and class teacher in the Teacher Training Institute of Kipushya.  There were over 80,000 pupils in the Mission Primary schools so we needed trained teachers urgently. In the Congo they have a Pedagogy stream in the High School system similar to the Manual Arts or the Science streams we have in Australia.

 After being married in the Congo, Esther, who was a nurse came to help me in the Institute as a teacher of Scripture and English. What a struggle for Aussies having to teach every day new lessons in French. Our Vocabulary had to grow very fast. The Students helped us with the Grammar especially the masculine and feminine of French.

A young student came to Esther with a real hunger to know God and His Word. Esther opened the Bible and told him that Jesus died for us to bring us back into right relationship with God. She explained how God’s anger had been turned away because of the Sacrifice of Jesus on the Cross. Eventually Ebondo committed his life to Jesus Christ and began to follow Him with all his heart. He was at that time probably 16 years of age.

About this time I planted a tree in front of the school to give some shade from the hot midday sun. It was small and about a metre tall.

         In 1992 Esther and I returned to the Congo for two years before we went to Guinea in West Africa.

One day a young man arrived at our back door. He asked me if I knew him. I answered, “No! But you look like Ebondo Sylvan whom I had not seen since the mid seventies, twenty years before. The young man was standing there with his wife. He explained.I am Ebondo Sylvan’s brother. When I was twelve you came to our village and preached under the big tree in the centre of the village. I gave my heart to the Lord that day and now I have come to Kipushya Mission to go to Bible School as I want to be a pastor. How amazing!

Ken and esther with the African Staff Members Lenge Charles, Mwamba Valerien and another.

School students with Ken. (Kikangal Stanislas and Mutombo Nestor my helpers).

Morning Assembly Before School in the Congo -  Singing Hymns from ‘Chants de Victoire’.

I remember clearly the day I went to their village. It was in the height of the Rainy season in the Congo. The clouds were low and menacing. The road to their village was long. It was seventy kilometres along two wheel tracks in the tall savannah grass. After teaching all morning and then driving for most of the afternoon I was exhausted by the time I reached the village. It was not a neatly laid-out place and the village main street was overgrown with weeds. I had gone there intending to buy manioc sticks and corn for the boarding school. There was only a small amount of food to be had and the manioc sticks were of a very poor quality.

Someone said, “Aren’t you going to preach to us?” I was a bit tired and grumpy by this stage but I reluctantly accepted saying, “If you call all the people under this big tree I will preach to them.” I preached for about 15-20 minutes, said a prayer and headed for home. I never thought that God had a young twelve year old in mind that day. Now twenty years later he was a married man heading for Bible School. Here he was standing in front of me.

You plant a tree and God will make it grow. In 1992 when I returned to Kipushya after ten years in Australia I saw this huge tree that was at least 70cms across the trunk. Remember I had planted a tree in the mid 1970s. Now there was this forest giant right there in the middle of the School parade ground. Plant a Tree. God will surely make it grow.