by Emily Smith

God is in the business of writing good stories. After all, He gave us a book—one filled with stories within a story, spanning across generations and geography, His sovereign hand aligning the pieces of history and the steps of His children to tirelessly and lovingly reconcile His people with Himself.

A People Sent and a Nation Reached

The year is 1884—and Alliance founder A. B. Simpson is beginning his ministry out of New York City, responding to the Lord’s stirring of his heart to reach the marginalized with the good news of Jesus, which is for all people. Simpson prepares the very first Alliance missionaries to be sent, going out to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to reach the people of Africa with the gospel.

These inaugural Alliance missionaries followed the Lord’s call to the village of Maduda, nestled in the far western portion of the Congo. In this village, a prominent Alliance presence was established—these missionaries began reaching the Congolese with the good news, and schools were developed through funds sent by Alliance donors, providing Congolese children with education and missionaries with open doors to share the gospel.

Kithadi Kwimbi, Maduda, DRC

Among these first Congolese people to be reached by Alliance missionaries were the great-grandparents of Roger Ntoto—a French-speaking Congolese Alliance pastor now living, working, and ministering in Columbus, Ohio. Roger is a living testimony to the Word of God brought to Maduda—he is generational fruit, grown from the seeds of the very first Alliance missionaries’ faithful obedience.

Roger’s ancestors accepted and knew Jesus through the testimony of Alliance missionaries, and these same missionaries planted churches that grew abundantly all over his homeland. “If you go to our area, in all villages, they have a church . . . all villages,” Roger says. “It’s very beautiful. They did a tremendous job that you cannot believe.” Roger grew up inside of Alliance schools established by missionaries and holds his memories there with affection, even pointing all the way back to one Alliance teacher of his, Ms. Norma Hart, as the one who inspired him to pursue a career in teaching.

Following the end of his undergraduate studies in the Congo, Roger began to sense God’s call to the United States, particularly to study and further his educational opportunities. During this time of discerning his next steps, he continually sought the Lord in prayer, and God’s answer to him came twofold.

Raleigh, North Carolina, U.S.

God first spoke to Roger through a dream, “One month before I traveled, I had a dream. And the dream I had is, I cannot go to the U.S. before a man of God goes ahead of me to the work that I have to do.” So, Roger kept asking himself, Who is the man that has to go before me? After receiving this word from the Lord, Roger postponed his flight to the U.S., knowing that he could not rush the timing that God had called him to.

Aside from God’s voice through a dream, Roger also sensed His voice as he prayed, “Lord, I need You. Guide me. Show me what to do.” His transition to the U.S. came with a long, tiring journey—an abundance of change, culture shock, and a blurry vision for what the future held. But, amid preparing for such a prominent transition, he consistently heard God saying, Open your eyes and open your ears.

Upon landing in the U.S., Roger was greeted with an unexpected welcome at the airport—people he recognized from school and church growing up in the Congo, none of whom he knew had moved to the U.S., were awaiting his arrival, ready to welcome him to America! As soon as he was greeted by them, he heard God whisper, Do you see these people? And roger remembered God telling him to open his eyes.

After his flight, his airport welcoming committee brought him to a restaurant for lunch, and as he entered, he saw the restaurant was filled with waiters, cooks, and patrons—all Congolese. He realized that this plethora of Congolese people were also here to study and further their opportunities but were having to work tirelessly to earn enough money. Striking up conversation with these old acquaintances Roger began asking where they go to church. “They start laughing. ‘Mr. Roger, you don’t know anything about here. Life here is not easy. It’s hard. We came here to look for money. We don’t have time to go to church.'” After talking with them more, he discovered a culture of people working two to three jobs, without time for anything in their lives that wasn’t vital to their survival and success in the U.S.—here was a people who had spiritually fallen away after their journey to America.

After they conversed with Roger and dismissed his questions about church, Roger heard God whisper, Did you hear that? And he remembered God telling him to open his ears. Right in front of him were people who had walked away from God to pursue success and education in a new land. They left Me, and I want them back. Will you help Me? Roger heard God ask him. Doubts immediately began cropping up in Roger’s heart. He was in a brand-new country, among new people, and without a clear direction of where he was going next. But yet again, Roger listened to the Lord. “God said, ‘If you want to do what you want to do by yourself, I’m not going to be with you. But if you want to obey and do what I want you to do for Me, I will be with you.’ I said ‘Wow, how am I going to start?’ It was very heavy for me. I said, ‘Lord, help me.'”

Amid the whirlwind of change, people, decisions, and input from God, Roger had nearly forgotten about the dream he had—the one telling him about a man of God going before him to the U.S. Among the group that welcomed him to America was a young man whom Roger recognized from youth ministry work with his church back in the Congo. This man began telling Roger of an evangelist, once in Belgium, who had come to the U.S. and had a ministry in Raleigh, evangelizing to the Congolese people. As the young man spoke, Roger realized the man was Kibutu—a friend of Roger’s from school in the Congo, a friend whom he had received Christ alongside, a friend whom he had lost contact with after they both left the Congo to pursue their studies. “I said, ‘Lord I know now why You brought me here. Everything I saw is coming to pass. So, I know that I’m in the right direction.’ In the morning [after I heard Kibutu was in Raleigh], I took that number, I called, I said, ‘Kibutu!’ and he said, ‘Who is this?’ And I said, ‘Roger.’ ‘No way! Roger?! It’s you?!’ I said, ‘Yes, it’s me!’ He said, ‘Wow!’ and he screamed, he said, ‘The army of God is now in town.'”

Roger remembers, “I said ‘Lord, thank You.’ Because I didn’t have any clue. But God was putting everything together in His power. That’s the way we started the church [in Raleigh].” Less than a week after calling Kibutu, Roger went to hear him preach at a small local C&MA church, and God spoke to Roger again, this time through a vision, right there in the church, while Kibutu taught the Word. “I saw a palm tree in a corner of the church, growing from the ground, growing with the branches and with the fruit. And some small fruits began to fall, and three of them fell down and they [rolled] to another corner, and from there, they start also growing, to bring a big palm tree again. Three of them. I said, ‘Wow Lord, what a vision.'”

After bringing this vision to Kibutu and others in the church, they prayed—and their prayers led to planting a church in Raleigh, to reach the Congolese population. And so, Roger and Kibutu’s friends Jean-Pierre and Richard Phaku began working to bring in the Congolese to that humble Alliance church, spreading the gospel to these Congolese children of God.

Roger called Raleigh home for 10 years—during which time he engaged in teaching by pastoring the Congolese church. Yet as he leaned more and more into this pastoral role God called him to, he realized he needed and desired further education. After many fervent prayers and many closed doors, he went on to New York to study at Alliance Theological Seminary (ATS).

New York City, New York, U.S.

Roger, his wife, Pauline, and children Glody, Benie, and Esdras moved to New York in 1999. After attending ATS, Roger graduated with his master of divinity in 2002—and then began anew the process of seeking the Lord for His will and wisdom for what to do and where to go upon graduation. While working nights as he finished out his degree, Roger often visited the ATS prayer room before or after his shifts, asking God where He wanted him and his family to go. And once he sensed God calling him to New York City, he contested. “First, I don’t know nobody there. Second, there’s no parking spaces there. All the houses are expensive. There’s no room,” Roger laughs. But after sharing God’s answer with his wife, she told him, “Wow, that’s great. If God wants us to go there, we will just go. Because where God sends us, that’s where our blessings are.”

So, yet again, God met the Ntotos with the provision of people. After putting his yes on the table to go to NYC, a man came to visit ATS, searching specifically for Roger after hearing he was Congolese and studying there. This man invited Roger to NYC for an internship, to help reach a group of Congolese and Francophone people there with the gospel. This small group of eight people—mainly diplomats from the United Nations, which was located near their meeting place—was soon entrusted to Roger after this man left to pastor in a new place.

Honest questions welled up inside of Roger—How would it work? How would he be paid? How will they grow? But God spoke to him again, saying, There’s an opportunity for you to plant a church. Through these diplomats, Roger and the team he grew were able to reach French-speaking people inside the UN and in their community, launching a ministry project that was then adopted as a branch of Alliance ministry by the Metropolitan District. Roger planted a church for this Congolese and Francophone population bustling throughout the streets of Manhattan—very nearly in the same spot where A. B. Simpson began his ministry all those years ago, reaching the marginalized of the city and sending the first Alliance missionaries to Roger’s home village of Maduda.

Columbus, Ohio, U.S.

After many years spent in New York City and establishing the church among the Congolese, the Ntotos received a call from a friend within The Alliance, who had been an international worker in West Africa and was now in Ohio, helping and ministering to the quickly growing African population in Columbus. This friend had French-speaking African families that needed aid and spiritual outreach but were unable to receive much help because of linguistic and cultural barriers.

Through discussions with these friends in Columbus, as well as with district leadership, the Ntotos prayerfully relocated again, moving from New York City to Columbus as the beginning of 2024. At the very start of their time in Columbus, they met the people whom they had come to help, and Roger and his family found a quick sense of peace wash over them. “These are my family,” he says. “These are my people. They embraced me very well. They embraced my wife and my children. That means there is love there. And where there is love, God can operate and do many things.”

Roger and the Francophone church began meeting in a house in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, in February 2024. This space, called the Lawson House, holds 42 people—yet, at their first official gathering there, 68 people showed up. Having a French-speaking Congolese pastor in their midst provided an abundance of open doors in this community—the church grew, more people were able to attend, and churchgoers and community members were able to share openly about their families and struggles in the U.S., creating an environment of care, prayer, and community.

Right away, the church had a prominent felt need of a new gathering space, but continually ran into places that demanded a high rent payment, which was impossible for the young Francophone church. Roger describes the past year as going to the “school of faith,” practicing patience and trust with each passing Sunday. And God’s provision met the church this past May, when a vacant space was made available through the revised plans for Project ReImagine. God opened the door—figuratively and literally—for the church to gather in the Alliance Ministry Center (AMC) building. The AMC has blessed Eglise Evangélique Amour du Christ, Roger’s Francophone church, who now call this renovated strip mall space their home every Sunday. Right there in our interview—in an AMC meeting room—Roger praises the Lord for the space and tells me, “To myself, I say, ‘Wow. Things are going in the way God wants them to be.'”

Such a Time as This

During our time together, Roger tells me many stories, only a handful of which have made their way onto these pages. But one of the stories I most enjoyed took place while Roger was pastoring in Manhattan, during his travels for the Metropolitan District conference:

“We get to the airport; I saw him passing, because he was getting inside the plane. I’ve seen him ‘up there,’ but face-to-face? Never. He does not know me! But that day, I went inside and said, ‘Ah, that’s John Stumbo sitting there!'” Roger goes on, telling me about how he ended up in the plane seat right next to the president of the U.S. C&MA at the time, John Stumbo. “I look at him and I say, ‘Hi, president!’ And he asks, ‘Who are you?’ And I look at him, I say, ‘I’m just a little boy come from Congo.'”

“Just a little boy come from Congo”—one who has been faithful to go to all the places God has called him, one who has said yes to planting churches out of realized needs, one who God had in mind for such a time as this, even as far back as 1884.

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