The Complications of Shipping Within Congo

Congo is a vast country. However, apart from a small coastline in Bas-Congo, the country is landlocked. Most large shipments arrive at the port of Matadi. There is a single-line railway and one paved road between Matadi and the capital, a distance of about 200 miles [300 km].

Branches in Europe sent to the Congo branch some four-wheel-drive trucks, which have been put to excellent use for shipping and construction purposes. Since 1999, a Bethel depot has operated in Matadi. This has been a great help because literature can be unloaded directly from the ships and stored at the depot until a truck from the branch comes to take it to Kinshasa.

In the 1980’s, it was still possible to make trips right across the country from Kinshasa to Lubumbashi, stopping at the missionary-home depots at Kananga and Mbuji-Mayi. Though a jet could fly between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi in about two hours, a loaded truck needed two weeks to make the journey! As the years went by, however, the roads worsened to the point of being impassable. While there are thousands of miles of navigable rivers, the boats that go up-country from Kinshasa are not reliable. Besides these difficulties, political unrest persists in some areas, which further limits the radius around Kinshasa that vehicles from Bethel can reach. The best way to ship literature from the branch to distant points is by airfreight.

Other branches have cooperated to supply literature to the brothers. The branch in Cameroon trucks publications through the Central African Republic and into the north of Congo. The Rwanda and Kenya branches help to service eastern parts of the country. Congregations in some areas of the south receive their literature from South Africa and Zambia.

[Pictures on page 237]

Sturdy vehicles are used to transport literature over the country’s difficult roads