Adventists Reach Out in the Largest French-speaking City in the World

With a population of 17 million, Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), is the largest French-speaking city in the world. According to JoshuaProject.com, the DRC, with a population of 111.2 million, is 93.5 percent Christian. Another 4.3 percent follow ethnic religions, 1.7 percent Islam, 0.4 percent Hinduism, and 0.1 percent is unknown.

Despite its Christian majority, the Seventh-day Adventist membership is still significantly low. In West Congo Field, where Kinshasa is located, there are 30,264 Adventist church members, which is just 0.002 percent of the population in Kinshasa. In Kinshasa we can assume that 1 to 2 people out of every 1,000 are Adventist. Train Them 2 Fish (TT2F), a lay ministry based in Kinshasa, has innovatively entered the city and is expanding its mission to other Francophone African countries.

According to Thomas Ongasa, the founder and president of this Kinshasa-based international ministry, TT2F exists “to share God’s love by practicing Christ’s method alone.” Their main goal is to reach the French-speaking countries of Africa for Jesus. To reach their goal, TT2F focuses on providing practical skills-supported income-generating training, free health care using mobile clinic, and education support to financially challenged children and orphans. For income-generating training, TT2F provides professional farming capacity building, quality seeds assistance, seed funds to local people so that they can share the good news of God’s love and grace with their respective communities.

⁠TT2F was established to address the massive missionary need by raising up an army of lay missionary entrepreneurs and tentmakers specifically focused on Francophone Africa. Of the 321 million speakers of French in the world, 61.8 percent (or 198.4 million) are in Africa, according to France Diplomacy. This makes Africa the largest French-speaking mission field in the world.

A Self-supporting Ministry

Ongasa was impressed with the idea of establishing a self-supporting ministry when he was working as an ordained minister in the DRC. He realized that there was just too much work and very few workers to spread the gospel.

His vision seemed strange to many at first, but as he prayed about it, he became convinced that this is what God wanted him to do. The limited number of trained pastors offered an opportunity to approach mission from a creative way. Although some people were skeptical about the future of TT2F at the beginning, today many missions and conferences in the DRC are hiring TT2F-trained lay missionaries as full-time pastors. This is significantly helping address the mission needs of the church in Francophone Africa.

TT2F has had quite some impressive successes in recent times. The ministry recently conducted Bible studies to more than 15,000 people in Kinshasa, distributed 10,000 Bibles, and built three new churches there. Furthermore, TT2F conducted free health-care services, including dental care, to thousands of patients in Kinshasa, especially to university students. They have opened a new training center in Kinshasa, planted three new companies in Brazzaville (the capital city of the Republic of the Congo, the neighboring country), and one more in Kpalimé (in the Togolese Republic).  

University Outreach

The newest project that TT2F launched this year is an outreach initiative in public colleges and universities in Kinshasa. With this, according to Ongasa, “we have three major challenges with the university outreach: human resource/full-time Bible workers to collect study guides from students, limited printed materials (study guides and French Bibles to give to graduates), and the high need given that the city of Kinshasa alone has 82 accredited colleges and universities”.

Currently, TT2F is working only with two universities and one college. The student population is about 80,000 just for these three institutions, and most students want to study the Bible and get Bibles at the end.

Seventy percent of the population of DRC is young and open to the gospel. Young people are receptive to the gospel, especially in Kinshasa. The DRC government supports religious freedom. Interestingly, the country’s parliament recently introduced a new law allowing all workers to be free on Saturdays. This is an opportunity to introduce the Sabbath truth. TT2F needs prayers, help with Bible study guides, and volunteers who can provide Bible studies on various campuses.

Sidewalk Evangelism

The Sabbath School and Personal Ministries Department of the General Conference launched the Sidewalk Evangelism (SWE) initiative, a simple method of reaching out to people who are open to the gospel. This method follows four steps: pray, mingle, invite, and study. TT2F bought the method and gave it a new breath to reach out to Kinshasa.

TT2F trains medical missionaries (community primary-care dentists and nurses), who provide free health care in different communities of Kinshasa. They pitch tents at highly concentrated areas of the city (including university campuses) and then invite people to study the Bible. Graduates are given certificates and Bibles, and in the end some are being baptized and trained to get involved in the same practice.

Since July 2023, more than 15,000 people have been studying the Bible in Kinshasa. Volunteers have distributed more than 6,000 Bibles, and as of December 2024 more than 1,200 have been baptized.

Inspired by the great Reformation movement launched by Martin Luther in a university setting, TT2F decided to focus the SWE initiative on university communities in Kinshasa by providing dental care, entrepreneurship workshops, and Bible study programs. The ministry has ample resources, including a container filled with 10,000 French Bibles and study guides for 20,000 students.

“We aim to train university students how to become start-ups while still studying, then create a missionary movement out of local universities to reach out to other communities,” leaders behind the initiative said. “It is what we call Discipleship 4 Universities.”

Train Them 2 Fish is a nonprofit supporting ministry and is not operated by the corporate Seventh-day Adventist Church.