Could you or your church partner with the Diocese of Goma?

Could you put a roof on one of our rural parishes once the congregation has laid the foundation and built the walls? Could your church help open a health centre where people currently have to walk 5km to get to the nearest health professional? Could you contribute to the funding needed to train the chaplains in our 109 schools?  Could your church support training in conflict-resolution in every parish? Could you buy the land on which we want to plant one of 50 new churches? Or build a house for one of our archdeacons?

From within the UK please visit the Stewardship giving page for the Diocese of Goma.

From outside the UK please visit the Diocese of Goma TrustBridge page.

For a downloadable PDF version of this overview to share with churches and other individuals click here

We are a new diocese, founded on 20 November 2016. Our first bishop, Bishop Désiré Mukanirwa, was a man of great vision with a particular concern for peace-building, evangelism and the margnialised. He died of Covid in July 2020 aged 52 and since October 2020 Martin Gordon, a CMS UK missionary, has led the diocese, first as Vicar General and then Bishop from 23 April 2023.

The diocese is in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the Anglican Church was first planted 125 years ago by an Ugandan missionary and where it remains strongest. It is twice the size of Belgium with around 4 million people. We have 10,000 believers in 60 parishes served by 70 clergy and 40 evangelists. We also have 109 schools teaching 24,000 pupils, a fledgling university and 2 Bible Schools training 30 future church leaders.

The archdeaconries are hugely varied

Goma - the city of Goma has more than half of the population of the diocese. It has grown from ½ million in 2002 to over 2 million and is one of the 10 fastest growing cities in the world. It is divided into the city proper with more middle-class parishes, and the area around Mount Nyiragongo with volcanic rock making even subsistence farming challenging.

Masisi - our 2 archdeaconries in Masisi are in mainly Kinyarwanda-speaking areas, rich in agriculture (milk, potatoes) and in minerals (coltan, cobalt) and very poor in education. Illiteracy is high. Only a handful of our clergy in Masisi have been to Bible College, or even finished secondary school.

Rutshuru – our 3 archdeaconries border Uganda and it is here we find Virunga National Park with its famous gorillas. Large swathes are occupied by the M23 rebel group, with our believers regularly having to flee into the forest. Because of the conflict in eastern Congo since 1994 over 20 Anglican parishes have been abandoned.

Walikale – The territory of Walikale itself is the size of Belgium, It is a fertile and peaceful, if slightly inaccessible area. It’s really a missionary archdeaconry and we have just commissioned 9 evangelists who have planted churches and have 10 more students in training ready for church-planting.

Photos. L-R. A portable Bible school in Walikale, baptisms in Lake Kivu, with the choice of the newly planted church in Buhene.

Vision and funding priorities

Our unrestricted general funds amount to around £20,000 each year, which we use for some core staff salaries, our annual audit, legal, office and vehicle costs, diocesan meetings and some parish and clergy support. But, for much of our evangelism, parish development and training we rely on external funds.

Four areas of our vision for the next 5 years where external financial support can have the greatest impact are.

Evangelism – Our vision over the next 5 years is to plant at least 50 new churches across the diocese. And we’ve made a great start. Funding can help with training evangelists, evangelism campaigns, buying land and building churches.

Buying land and building churches – As we renovate old church buildings and build new ones, our vision is that every parish has its own land (and legal documents), church building and a pastor’s house. The diocese acquires the land (anywhere between a couple of goats and £15,000 depending on location) and the local believers to lay the foundations, to build the walls and provide the furniture. The Diocese then helps them with the roof which costs between £1500 and £2000.

Training – For various reasons such as poor education, hurried ordinations or simply lack of resources - we have an urgent need of training and retraining our clergy and staff in a number of priority areas: preaching, parish management, chaplaincy, conflict-resolution, Sunday school ministry, marriage and resource-mobilisation.

Books and Bibles – we have the aim of massively increasing the number of believers in our churches who have their own Bibles and prayer books, as well as continuing to provide all theology students with a bundle of essential books when they graduate.

Photos. L-R. Training for church leaders, Madame Louise of the Mother’s Union, beating swords into ploughshares with the Catholic Bishop of Goma.

Partnership with the Diocese of Goma

Could you or your church partner with the Diocese of Goma?

£1,000 – would buy 200 prayer books OR 100 Bibles OR provide 25 students with a book bundle

£2,000 - would fund an evangelism training school for 50 students culminating in an evangelism campaign OR provide the roof for a church

£4,000 - would buy land for a new rural church complete with documents OR provide in-depth training and materials in a specific ministry area (children, youth, women, chaplaincy) across all 7 archdeaconries

£8,000 - would buy land for a church in an urban area, complete with documents

Larger capital projects – Two immediate larger-scale priorities are to firstly to build a health centre in Bujari, north of Goma, where there are thousands of displaced people, complete with maternity ward and children’s care services. Secondly, to rebuild our diocesan offices on existing land with space for 60 staff and meeting rooms for the rapidly growing staff team.

If you are interested in exploring a partnership with the Diocese of Goma, we’d love to hear from you.

Get in touch here.

September 2024

Photos. L-R. Our church in Ruthsuru before its roof, Our parish of Kanyanja destroyed by the volcano in 2021, ordination vows.