Seeing the Church in Action in Eastern Congo

Picture of Bukavu along Lake Kivu from the Guesthouse balcony.

I think there is a temptation, for those of us in the world of mission/development, to look with a certain smug cynicism on the history of the church in countries that were evangelized during the time of colonization.  While it is true that it is easy to point out the many failings of early missionaries, and even the complicity of some in clearly sinful injustice, I think we sometimes do our best to reinforce this narrative and even avoid seeing the ways the Gospel can be a transforming power in these places.  

For instance, this week, as I prepared to go to Bukavu in Eastern DRC I was reading King Leopold's Ghost by Adam Hochschild, an excellent, riveting history of the Congo from the 14th century on.  The first contact with the Portugese by the kingdom of Congo led quickly to lucrative slave trading (at first with the Congolese nobility in complicity, but later enslaving even them.)  In one chapter he explains that some priests who had gone out to evangelize and had established churches became so enamored of the potential for wealth that they sold their entire congregations to slavers.  He further notes that after the reformation, in a nod toward morality, some did refuse to sell their converts to any Protestant slavers because they did not want to send those baptized into their faith into the hands of heretics.

While such stories no longer shock me, I will say that I think it is a mistake to think that all Christians in any era were equally abominably immoral either then or now.   In this blog entry I am committed to tell a story of encouragement about the work of the church in Eastern Congo that is embarking on a noble and dangerous mission to bring justice and relief to groups of people virtually imprisoned by rebel groups in the bush.  

UN refugee camp where Rwandan refugees are processed
before repatriation

I should probably explain what I was doing in Eastern Congo this week.  In fact I was only there for 3 days and it was part of what I would call a learning tour or exchange visit between some of our Rwanda partners, and some MCC partners in Eastern DRC.  

.

I actually left Bujumbura on Friday right after the kids got out of school.  From Bujumbura there is a fairly direct route to several places in Eastern Congo, and Bukavu, my destination was about 3 hours away.  The road passes through Rwanda for about 45 minutes before arriving at the border town across the Rusizi river from Bukavu at the bottom of Lake Kivu.  

The difference between the two countries is actually quite shocking.  Rwanda which has well kept roads and clean communities is in stark contrast to Bukavu which I would describe as  wreck of a city, which is sad because it could be beautiful.  It overlooks Lake Kivu from small hills and could easily pass for somewhere along the Italian Riviera.  But alas, when one arrives there you find that there has been no interest by the government in keeping up roads and infrastructure and the whole place looks like a dump,  in all the areas of public use.  Behind walled compounds though one can see very nice multi-story houses so there is wealth here, but not for public consumption.  The town is also a ghetto for numerous NGO's relief organizations and a large company of UN peacekeepers and other UN agencies.  Almost every car on the road that is not a taxi is a landcruiser with an emblem on it.

The state of the city is sad and does continue to confirm my belief that all the really good things in life come from investment in public goods through government spending and taxes.  (for roads, schools, parks, railroads, running water, sewage systems, electricity, etc.)  If you don't believe me come to Bukavu where there is no govt. spending whatsoever as far as I can see.  Ironically the cost of living here is extremely high and rents in Bukavu apparently exceed those in Kinshasa.  

I arrived with 5 colleagues from Rwanda at about 3pm and we crossed the border and took 2 taxis to our guest house.  It was fairly calm but had no consistent water or electricity.  They did run a generator at night.  Actually the 15 minute trip to the hotel is a story in itself.  Taxi drivers do not want to put a penny's worth of gas more than they will use, so there are people on the street that sell it by liter (quart) even less, in little bottles.  When you hire a cab the driver will buy a little bottle, put it in the tank and go.

selling gas by the liter on the road.

Our driver had so little gas that he found he could not get up a hill from the border to the center of town. That is until he turned the car around.  With the angle of the engine down the car started, so he backed up at about 30mph up the hill along the narrow street to the top, then flipped it back around and took us to the hotel where we spent the rest of the evening.

Before dinner we had a time of devotion with our group leader and the pastor of the Bukavu Mennonite Bretheren Church.  We went to bed and the next morning, after breakfast, went out by cab again to visit some partners of MCC DRC.   We visited several but I will recount the story of the work of one called the RRP (refugee repatriation program).  This group works to help bring Rwandese refugees out of the bush and get them repatriated back to Rwanda.  These refugees are primarily hutus who fled after the genocide and there remains quite a few thousand FDLR armed rebels hiding in the forest.  The problem is that they have with them many more thousand non-combatant Rwandese, particularly women and children who could go back to Rwanda and rejoin families or start a new life.  

Many are not aware of this option, and the rebels are committed to keep them in the bush with them as it gives them protection.  The work of the RRP is to get the word out to those who would like to flee the bush about the opportunity to be repatriated.  The RRP gives information as well as transportation out of the bush.  What makes it dangerous is, as mentioned above, the FDLR leaders do not want anyone to return and leave them in the bush alone without protection (human shields)

The other problem is that some of these people are in such remote parts of the forest that they are unreachable by the army or any NGOs. The RRP, however, has a very valuable network because it belongs to a larger organization of protestant churches that have small congregations everywhere in the region, even in extremely remote areas.  In many of these remote areas members of the rebel groups even go to these churches and would hear any messages brought by the local church leader.  

Pastor Kipindula who leads the organization told us that pastors can get the word out about the chance for repatriation and help organize 'escapes' from the forest for those who want to 'flee'.  In other words the church in uniquely positioned to be an agent of non-violent liberation and transformation in this situation and they are taking on that role willingly at great personal risk.

To date they have saved about 11,000 refugees who were stuck in the forest not knowing they could return to Rwanda and terrified of leaving for fear of being killed.

This has been a very effective campaign and far more effective, according to Pastor Kipindula than the campaigns by the Congolese army to route the rebels.  (Ironically all of their military campaigns are called things like "Peace", or "True Peace", and "Durable Peace")  The problem is that they tend to go in and fight rebels, killing some, which leads to retribution somewhere else, to which the army usually responds by massacring everyone they come upon in a remote community.  For many it is as if the war in the jungle is not over at all.)

The pastor also said that in the early days their work was even more hampered by the fact that the army did not support them talking to communities where the FDLR was because they were the enemy, and the FDLR in the communities would accuse them of being spies for the army.  Despite this, this organization has been working through the network of remote churches since 2006 at great personal risk,proclaim quietly the gospel: to preach freedom to the captives--AND to help them in their escape.  Most of those who have fled have been women and children, who are most frequently the victims of the conflict .

We saw the good work of several other organizations but I wanted to give details of this activity because it is a good counter-narrative to the one I often hear here about self-serving pastors and failed churches.

We had a chance to reflect on what we learned in the evening, then on Sunday morning we headed back to Bujumbura and Kigali (for our partners).  I was back home about the time Rebecca and the kids got home from church.

That was the end of the week, but it is worth mentioning some of the interesting events of the beginning as well.  We were in town most of the time and had a pretty full house.  Yolanda was down unexpectedly as she was sick and had tested positive for malaria.  We encouraged her to come down from Gitega to convalesce at our house which she did.  We also had Jodi down for several days with us, not because of illness.  Although all of us seemed to have something that was going around.  I was sick with a very sore throat and had to be on antibiotics.  Jodi, Oren, and Rebecca all had a touch of it at times as well.

By Friday, we were all feeling better though and Jodi and Yolanda returned back upcountry on the weekend.

Friday was a special day at school for David.  It was his first ever field trip.  His teacher and another teacher in the maternelle took their classes to see horses at Circle Hippique (a place David loves to go.)  They are studying the Cheyenne Indians in their classes and learned about the Indians riding horses.  The kids all got to put on their Indian headresses and shirts they had made and ride a horse.  

Parents were invited to go and Rebecca decided to go along to be sure he would be OK.  (We know from going there that the horses are often roaming around free and she did not want David to get stepped on.)  Apparently there were no mishaps and the kids had a great time as is apparent in the pictures.

Sunday afternoon I was back in time for our small group which is now meeting for its second week.  It is a real blessing to be able to share together especially in this season of Lent.  

Bonus photo:  Oren has been losing his teeth in the past month.  He is starting to look grown-up and pretty funny too.