Bishop visits Kentucky

There are no paved roads, running water or electricity in Bishop Nicolas Djomo’s isolated diocese in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Amid dense equatorial forests and extreme poverty, schools and doctors are rare. Malaria and dehydration regularly kill children. War has filled orphanages. Life expectancy for men is about 46 years.

A weak and divided Kinshasa government — and a tiny, overstretched United Nations peacekeeping force — provide little help in the remote Tshumbe area.

"There is a lot of suffering," Djomo told dozens of students at Presentation Academy during one of several Louisville appearances yesterday.

The bishop is visiting the United States to raise money and awareness in hopes of continuing to provide some of what the Congolese government does not — schools, bridges, health care, small-scale agricultural assistance, food and clothing.

Such projects are partly funded by Catholic Relief Services, a U.S.-based international aid organization.

About $8,000, for example, will pay to build a modest school with wood-plank benches for students. About $25 funds a child’s annual tuition and supplies, he said.

Louisvillian Laura Dills, who works in Africa for Catholic Relief Services, helped bring Djomo to the city.