Kyle & Katrina Williams Headed to Kikongo

The Latest from Kyle & Katrina Williams, New IM Missionaries Headed to Kikongo (from the Northwest!)

Here’s a bit of the latest news from the Williams: 
“In March an anonymous individual set up a matching fund of $20,000 and we were hoping that we could get this matched in 6 weeks. Because of our wonderful partners this gift was matched in just 4 weeks. Then to top this when the new Spring Matching campaign rolled out we received $20,000 on the first day. Your excitement for us to finally get off the ground has been such a great encouragment. In just March and April 75% of our start up cost has come in….Now to make our August departure we just need about 20 sustaining partners and the last 10% or so of our start up cost.” More news from the Williams’ IM website may be found here.

Plan to attend the Williams’ Commissioning Service, August 9, 2015 at First Baptist Church, Everett

“Because of the goodness and sacrificial giving of so many we are in a place to plan our Commissioning Service. This will be facilitated by the Board of IM, our home church, First Baptist Church and us. We would like to open this as an invitation to any one who would like to be there to participate in commissioning us for service in the DR Congo.   The service will be held at FBC, 1616 Pacific Ave, Everett, WA 98201. There are plenty of hotels in the area and the possibility of other housing if interested.” 

Kyle and Katrina Williams, from Everett, Washington, have been appointed to serve in partnership with the Baptist Community of Congo at the Pastoral Institute of Kikongo. They will assist with the training of pastors and their spouses in theology, literacy and church and rural development. Kyle has recently finished a Master's of Science at Central Washington University where he focused on racism and its driving mechanism and techniques to overcome it. Katrina is a photographer and graphic artist. Together they have worked summers at a family commercial fishing site in Alaska and are homeschooling their four children.

Congo remains one of the most tribally diverse nations on the planet, and this tribalism can effect people's desire to love their neighboring tribe. Kyle hopes to implement his thesis topic, implicit bias toward the other (treating people differently but thinking you don't), into the pastoral training in order to allow future pastors more tools and information about carrying out the second greatest commandment.