Central African Republic

LPGM started with a strong connection to the small, land locked country of the Central African Republic (C.A.R.). It is a tale of three Tims and of God’s glory in triumph over tragedy (see story below). LPGM has also been involved with projects in Tanzania and Madagascar, please see the sidebar for inspiring stories and examples of God’s blessings.

The following is excerpted from an article written by David L. Miller, published in the December 1993 edition of THE LUTHERAN:

It isn’t surprising that Tim Olson traveled to a remote African nation to build a church. The mark of a servant was on him from an early age. Even more telling – almost prophetic of his death – is the sermon he preached his senior year at St. Olaf College. The 1989 honors graduate reflected on a line from a hymn: “Take my will and make it thine. It shall be no longer mine.” “When God calls us to give us ourselves, he means it,” Tim said.

Deferring his entrance into graduate school for a year, Tim Olson traveled to Bangui in June 1991. He went as a servant, a volunteer, under contract with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America global mission unit to supervise the building of a church. An unexpected phone call from a stranger, Tim Dray, put to rest Olson’s doubts about working in Africa. In the late 1970’s Dray had worked on building projects in Cameroon for the former American Lutheran Church. Political conditions in the country were difficult. Poverty, high unemployment and a government that couldn’t pay its workers created unrest.

Yet evil did befall him. On November 27, 1991 Olson was returning to Bangui after visiting a game preserve and he was tragically killed.

In late November, Tim Dray, an architect, took the bus to his office in Minneapolis. As he rode, he read the newspaper over the shoulder of another passenger. “I caught headlines,” he said. “I saw one about a volunteer killed in the C.A.R.” Dray quickly remembered phoning Olson eight months before … Within six weeks Dray was working with Olson’s crew in Bangui.

“If no one had gone, the church would sit there, partially completed, a tragedy. And the world’s such a tragic place. It’s important for all of us to triumph over tragedy. It’s not significant that I did this. It’s significant that it was done.” It took Dray and the workers a year – until early January 1993 – to complete the church. “It’s a good story – tragic, but in the end good. Tim Olson is no longer here, and someday I won’t be here. But the church and that history will continue to be told.”

The story was told amid feasting, singing and 100-degree heat at a four hour worship service on January 3, 1993. Betty and Gordon Olson, and a group of family and friends, arrived in Bangui several days before the dedication. In a surprise to all, at this service, the local building chairman announced the church’s name – St. Timothy Lutheran Church of Bangui.