First Baptist Church of Columbus, MS has adpoted the Taabwa people. What does that mean? It means that our church will be praying for them that our Lord, Jesus Christ, will put a burden on our hearts for these people and that we will somehow, whether through sponsorship, sending supplies, or even going on mission trips with people from our church, help the Taabwa people.

Getting to know them...

The Taabwa (Tabwa) people live in the heart of Africa. They live mainly on the southwestern shores of Lake Tanganyika, on the high grassy plateaus of the Marungu massif in extreme southeastern area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly called Zaire). Some also live in northeastern part of Zambia and along the Luapula River. Tabwa speak a Bantu language. The Tabwa number 200,000. Traditionally, Tabwa people made their living from hunting and smelting to make iron object. Today many are subsistence farmers, cultivating millet, manioc, cassava, beans, and corn, but they live primarily off fishing and hunting. The Tabwa worshipped ancestors, whose statues were the property of the lineage chiefs and sorcerers; these carried “medications” in their ears or in small cavities at the top of their heads. The Tabwa traditionally were animists who worshipped the spirits of ancestors and of nature, who lived in trees and rocks.

The Taabwa live in the red area on the map below:

I received an email from a missionary who is in the Congo and has just returned from their area. Here are some of his pictures:

Please begin to pray for these people.
Pray that God would:
Burden us to reach them for Jesus
Open doors for ministry amoung them
Send a group of us to them