The Republic of the Congo (RC) is a fragile country that suffered through a war in 1997. Economically, the country seems to have somewhat recovered from that tragedy. The economy seems as strong now as it was before the fighting. Socially, the country is still much divided along tribal and linguistic lines, primarily divided among three major groups. This social division continues to cause problems.

Religiously, many people are searching for religion after many years when religion was not encouraged. The churches are growing and the EDCC is working to establish themselves among the Lingala-speaking population of the RC. The growing church is still relatively small with about 2,000 members in the country.

The EDCC is growing rapidly, mainly in the Cuvette and Likouala Regions. Communication between these regions and the church headquarters in Brazzaville is very difficult and at times it takes weeks for information to go from Brazzaville to theses places and vice versa. Only between Brazzaville and Pointe Noire is there easy communication because there are telephones and e-mail in both of these cities. Between Brazzaville or Pointe Noire and other parts of the RC it is difficult to communicate without a short-wave radio. Otherwise, many times the events mentioned in the communications have passed or action was needed weeks before the information actually arrived to the destination. The operation of the EDCC is greatly hampered because of the lack of communication. Right now it is impossible to communicate urgent information between the different church regions.

Short-wave radios will efficiently help solve the communication problem within the EDCC. Short-wave radios, antennas, solar panels, batteries, and related equipment necessary to install short-wave radio communication can be obtained in Brazzaville. Funds must be obtained to buy the materials and send them to the Cuvette and Likouala Regions to be installed. A base station also needs to be installed in the church headquarters in Brazzaville. A technician needs to be trained to install and help maintain this equipment. The total cost estimated for this essential communication update comes to $7,500.