With the Church partnership between Dortmund and Bolenge, we are now entering a new phase. In November 2020, we had our first meeting with partners from Dortmund and Bolenge – via the digital platform Zoom. From now on, we want to meet regularly so that we can take advantage of the opportunities offered by digitization. From now on, we will use this blog to post updates of our partnership works: small stories and reports of projects, visits and ecumenical exchange can be found here. We are looking forward to your comments and questions.

Who are we?

Dortmund: The Evangelical Church in Dortmund, with around 200.000 members, is the largest circuit of the Evangelical Church of Westphalia. It was formed at the beginning of 2014 from the former three Dortmund ecclesiastical circles and the church circle of Lünen. In the 28 congregations of the ecclesiastical circle and the over communal services, 175 pastors are there for the people. The church circle Dortmund belongs to the Evangelical Church of Westphalia. It is part of the written church and also offers numerous social services for the citizens of the cities as a legal entity of joint services of the parishes in Dortmund, Lünen and Selm.

Bolenge: The Eglise du Christ au Congo / Communauté des Disciples du Christ au Congo became autonomous in 1964. It has its headquarters in Mbandaka, at the Province of the Equator. The CDCC has departments for evangelism, education, health care and development. The church is actively working towards financial self-reliance at the local level. It is involved in the struggle against HIV/AIDS and in promoting peace, democracy and the respect of human rights.

Since 1985, the Church of Dortmund and the Church District Bolenge are partners. One main outcome of this partnership is the ambulance boat, which travels several times a year to ensure basic health care for remote villages in the district of Bolenge which can only be reached by boat. Dr.Bosolo has been leading the ambulance boat since 2011. Over 200,000 people with limited access to health care live on rivers such as Congo and Ubangi.