Post 2: Congo & Hope

Friends:

Never have I been on the cutting edge of ministry as I am now. God is moving mightily. The Democratic Republic of Congo is simply different than anything else I’ve ever experienced. As the bush plane we took to the Congo descended into Beni over the lush rainforest of Ituri, I had to take a gasp at the immense beauty, never imagining the destruction and utter hopelessness that seemed to be all that I’d ever heard concerning this country to be true. But the people are lovely… and exploited and lied to and in bondage like I’ve never experienced before. Mending the Soul is here in Beni (now that Goma has fell back into violence) with the Congo Initiative to minister to the broken people of Congo. The rubber meets the road here. This is where the modern west and traditional Africa collide. This is where the bible meets myth. This is where colonization’s legacy is played out in ways that I could only dream of prior to experiencing it myself. The culture here is as far from mine, yet somehow so alike, as I can imagine. Africa has always posed a conundrum with me, and Congo has only further complicated that paradigm.

I don’t want to give too many details now until I’ve processed the complex situations that I’ve experienced since being involved with this, but the youth track of our complex has been one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life. Healthy-sexuality has everything to do with everything in Africa. It is one of the most key aspects of every major issue in this amazing continent. One might not gather that when thinking of poverty, war, famine, and other issues commonly attributed to “the dark continent”, but the patriarchy, war, rape, family dysfunction, poverty, AIDS, corruption, and many other issues are intrinsically linked with sexuality. I’ve seen its destruction in America. Here it has defined life and death. There is hope with the youth though…. I have hope for them, we all do, and we know God is faithful to complete what He has started, for God is able to do ALL things, no matter the difficulty we perceive. Moment by moment we are all reminded just how much God has to be at the center of all of this. He is the ONLY hope for the Congo, no amount of “free love” and NGO aid will fix the issues of the DRC, and the greatest leaders of the Congo echo these sentiments. Only Christ can heal this land. Period. I won’t attempt to explain all the dynamics at this time, but I will tell you this: after copious amounts of facing the reality of abuse-acceptance, victim-blaming, traumatizing-rape stories, clergy-denial, and a profound misunderstanding of sexuality, there is hope. The people here have a respect for scripture that is allowing for repentance on a large scale and normal people going to great lengths to care for the abused and to change their country back for Christ.

I want to share with you a story. A story that could change your life. I’ve only just begun to understand what it means in my life. Read. Absorb. Be changed.

Last year when the MTS team was here in Beni with the Congo Initiative they traveled to the nearby city of Butembo and went to the local mental hospital. There they faced the reality and aftermath of war: raped women who were so traumatized they could no longer function. Rape is always evil, but the rape in Congo is of a caliber that it is hard to express the profound destruction that is given to women who experience this rape. Steve and Celestia Tracy, the founders of Mending the Soul Ministries (MTS), were there to minister to the people there, and met a woman who was so traumatized she no longer could do anything for herself. PTSD doesn’t even describe the reality this woman lived in, her eyes were hollow and blank. She had been brutally raped by the rebels while she lived in her village, and had gotten pregnant from that tragedy, and in turn resented the child, and to top it off her village had rejected her, leaving her socially ostracized. Hell was her life on earth. And it is in this dire existence lies the most amazing story of redemption ever told, a story that could change the world… Celestia took a photo of this woman, Nama, was here name. The photo captures Nama’s empty eyes, her empty soul. That photo came back to the United States, became a painting that was eventually put into an MTS healing workbook. It haunted the Tracy’s thoughts and prayers for a year. The debilitating trauma of rape in the eyes of those who have experienced it will do that to someone. They never forgot her. God answers prayers. This year as we were here in Beni, at the conference, the ladies who worked at that mental hospital were here reporting on their work with rape survivors. After they spoke, Celestia and Steve went and talked to the ladies and brought along that book with the photo of the woman in it. They asked the ladies “Do you know this woman?” and the ladies said, “Yes, we know this woman!” and Steve and Celestia said “We have been praying for her for a year now, how is she?!” and then the best story told in decades was unfolded from women whose eyes wept with the ramifications of epic.
“Her name is Nama, which means ‘Grace’ in Swahili”, they said. “She was one of the most traumatized women we’ve had, but God did a work through us to her. Over the past year she has healed from her abuse completely. She can function as a normal person, loves her child, has moved back to her village and again can work in the fields. She has experienced amazing healing and her love for Christ is real. God has done an incredible work in her! But there is more. The man who raped her, and left her with child, has left his evil life in the bush and has given his life to Christ. He repented from his sinful and destructive life and has sought to turn completely around. He is actually from the same village as Nama is from and now has fallen in love with Nama and they are to be married! He is submitting himself to the leadership and discipleship of the church for two years to ensure that he has thoroughly changed from his past and that he is the man he must be to marry this woman he nearly destroyed. He doesn’t do this because he feels he musts, or because of some cultural reason, but because he has turned away and experienced Christ!”

This story of redemption has the power to destroy our fragile framework about what is possible, and build up in that void the truth; God can do all things, and he can redeem fully all things.

John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Please pray earnestly for healing in this land. Thank You, Dan

Ps. I miss the comments at www.glocaldan.blogspot.com ! Hook a brutha up!