By the Rev Francois Sieberhagen, UBS Africa Area Media Consultant

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — The River Congo is a spectacular sight as it winds its way majestically through the heart of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Apart from its great beauty, it is also vital to the country’s economy. For the many people who live in tiny villages scattered along its banks, it is a source of food and the means by which they manage to trade with other communities. And now the Bible Society of the Democratic Republic of Congo, too, is looking to exploit this natural transport thoroughfare in order to spread God’s Word more widely to the country’s 60 million residents.

“Our country is the third-largest in Africa but the roads are poor and have taken their toll on our truck,” says General Secretary the Rev Christophe Kongo Kote. “We are looking to replace the truck, but we also need to find alternative ways of reaching people with the Bible.

“We can get our stock to our regional depots, but it’s there that the problem begins. What we need here is something like the Bible Society of Brazil’s Light of the Amazon project: a Bible boat that can serve the thousands of communities all along the banks of the river. That’s my dream.”

Given the country’s serious economic and social difficulties – it still slowly recovering from regional conflict which left 1.8 million people internally displaced and caused 300,000 refugees to flee to surrounding countries – the fact that the Bible Society manages to sell more than 120,000 Bibles a year is “through grace alone,” according to Mr Kongo Kote. But if his dream becomes reality, then a whole new section of the population will be brought into direct contact with God’s Word: with a boat, the Bible Society would be able to reach people living along more than 4,800 kms (3,000 miles) of riverbank who eke out a meagre living by selling goods such as second-hand clothes. In many cases, families rely on their children, too, to supplement their income, thus depriving them of even a basic education.

Recognising that literacy levels are relatively low in communities where education is a luxury, both along the banks of the River Congo and in the country’s towns and cities, it is not only printed Bibles that the Bible Society is seeking to supply.

“We must reach these desperate people with appropriate materials in formats that they can use,” says Mr Kongo Kote. “This includes the videos and the Talking Bible that we have started to distribute and hopefully will distribute a lot of in the future.”