This afternoon I returned from a two-day trip to Nsona Mpangu, one of the early church stations in lower Congo. A casual conversation with Bill Clemmer last week turned into a free ride along with the rural health program truck to Bas-Congo, dropping off family planning materials and health program calendars. It gave me a chance to check up on a project that American Baptists have just agreed to help.

They have a remarkable resource: a diversion dam built in the 1930s and an old vertical shaft water turbine nearly as old. Despite discouraging words from experts who encouraged them to buy only the latest technology with money they don't have, they have refurbished the old turbine, cleaned out the diversion canal, and reinstalled a three-kilometer transmission line. All the work has been done by volunteers or supported by local contributions.

In December, the World Relief and Development Committee (One Great Hour of Sharing) agreed to lend a hand to the project. They allocated $9,000 for the most expensive items still remaining: two transmission line transformers, utility switching and control panels, and related accessories.

Mr. Batete, president of the church development committee and chairmen of the group overseeing the electricity project, and I walked the entire three kilometer line (from turbine house to divisional center at the edge of the church center) and it looks to be intact and serviceable.

The committee has continued to organize community workdays to clean out the penstock canal. This carries water from the dam to the turbine house four hundred meters downstream. Even though work still needs to be done, water flow is good enough to fill the turbine chamber to a 1.5m depth. Local people say that this flow can be sustained even during dry season.

The turbine, speed governing mechanisms, and generator all seem to be serviceable but the water-cooling system for the governor and power transfer gearing still needs to be cleaned out and reassembled. They ran the turbine for a few minutes. Indeed it produces electricity. Transmitting this electricity to the center day in and day out is the next big challenge.

The project proposal calls for the purchase of two, three-phase transformers. One raises the voltage from 240 volts to 6600 volts. The other brings it back down to regular 240 volts for distribution to various consumers. High voltage transmission loses a smaller percentage of power over long distances.

The electricity committee manages the project for the church center. They will send Mr. Batete to Matadi next week to see if the governor is willing to arrange for Nsona Mpangu to receive heavily discounted transmission line. This is large dimension bare wire ideally suited to the long distance from turbine to the church center. I hope that WRD funding will help the church center to leverage some government assistance for electrification of the Nsona Mpangu area. If the church can show that a small project is feasible, the government may be willing to invest in larger project serving a greater number of people.

Phase one of the project will electrify the hospital, one secondary school, guesthouse and wood working workshop. Then as people from the center see that electricity is reliable, lines will be cobbled together for the various schools, offices and houses of the church center. This will take time.

For those of you who take electricity for granted, try turning off your main breaker switch for a day. It will give you a little sense of how the people at Nsona Mpangu live. But the future will be different. Little by little they are building the system themselves. Even the One Great Hour of Sharing gift will be treated as working capital. Fees collected will go into a replacement fund for the equipment purchased, ensuring that the project can continue. Eventually the electricity will serve the three other schools, a handful of small businesses serving area farmers, and the scattered houses of people who work in Nsona Mpangu.

Thank you to all the folks who contribute to the One Great Hour of Sharing. This is a tremendous boost to the people of Nsona Mpangu. With God's grace it may be the opening to a more prosperous future. We pray particularly that it will be a point of attraction for competent and dedicated Christians who come and serve in the hospital and school complexes of the church center. Hopefully another report in six months can show the changes.

Ed