Covenant News

Congo Church Elects New Leadership

GBADOLITE, CONGO (January 25, 2004) - Rev. Sanguma Mossai has been elected president of the Covenant Church of Congo (CEUM) and pastor Mawe Sema has been elected first vice president as the General Assembly for the denomination ended meetings last Friday.

Rev. Sanguma replaces Gbuda Luyada, who has been president of the CEUM for the past 12 years.

Pastor Sanguma received his secondary school training at Karawa and Gemena and completed his undergraduate theological studies at Goyongo Bible Institute. He attended North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago from 1988-90 where he received a Master of Arts in Theological Studies degree.

Rev. Sanguma recently returned to Congo from the United States after earning a Ph.D. in Missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary's School of World Mission in Pasadena, California. In addition to his work as president, Rev. Sanguma will be a professor at Protestant University of Congo, located in Kinshasa. Pastor Sanguma is known by many Covenanters who attended last year's Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church where he was honored for being the first child of the CEUM to earn a doctorate degree.

Peter Ekstrand, World Mission region coordinator for Africa and a longtime missionary, describes Rev. Sanguma as "a gifted and very capable man which whom I have worked for many years. Thank you for praying for the CEUM through this meeting and these elections. Now we ask for your prayers for the upcoming transition of leadership and all the accompanying decisions that need to be made."

Rev. Sema had previously been coordinator of education for CEUM. Along with his administrative duties for the CEUM (he also heads the Life of the Church department), he serves as professor at Goyongo Seminary in Goyongo. Pastor Sema replaces Kafi Nubea, who served 12 years as first vice president. The CEUM also elected a second vice president, Rev. Elenga, who will head the CEUM's Biblical and Theological Education Department.

Timothy Mambo, a MBA student at North Park Theological Seminary, is a longtime friend of Rev. Sanguma, having grown up with him in Karawa. He also served in a close working relationship with Rev. Sema during recent years. Mambo had served previously as coordinator of development and director of technical services for the CEUM. He said that the choice of the new president and first vice president is a good one.

"I think this team is going to be a good one," Mambo said. "They are hard workers and honest workers and they are really people who say something and see that what they have said gets done. Besides that, they are 'go getters,' and if they want something to get done they will do their best to make sure it gets done right."

In a report of the General Assembly, Congo country coordinator Keith Gustafson noted that the CEUM will have a new administrative configuration. In 2000, it decided to combine administrative duties into two departments. At the recent General Assembly, it was decided to have four departments: Christian Education, Christian Communication, Life of the Church and Biblical and Theological Education.

The CEUM currently has 1,200 local congregations and 156,000 members, according to the most recent statistics provided by the Covenant Missionary Prayer calendar. For more information about the work in the CEUM, call Covenant World Mission at 773-907-3316.

Printable version of this page.