January 24th, a historical day

I started off January 24th like any other day. At 8:30 I headed off to meet Pastor Kabamba to get started. As we began to walk to Shituru he shared the awful news that a member of our church had died the previous day. She died from high blood pressure or so they say. Its so sad how many people die from things that are treatable. She was a wonderful lady in her early 40’s with a baby boy less than 2 years old who unlike many of the children here was thankfully not afraid of white people and actually insisted on me holding him whenever I came over. She had a great sense of humor and was an encouragement to everyone she met. I had visited her from time to time and knew she was sick but because they always said it was high blood pressure it never occurred to me that she would die especially not so soon.

It was difficult to shake the frustrations of death and illnesses in the third world because in Shituru we were visiting Da Ladin. She is the aunt of the former prostitute. It turns out the entire family is in very poor health and there is a deep problem with sexual sins like a generational curse. Da Ladin was the second wife to a man from Kasai. Apparently he decided he hated her even after 7 years of marriage and kicked her out. He threatened to steal their twin daughters and take them to Kasai to be raised by his first wife. That would of course mean that the mother would never see them again and that the girls would not be treated fairly by the other wife. She had also developed I’m guessing an allergy or something that caused her entire body to swell. It was so bad she couldn’t walk or open her eyes. She said the doctors had advised her to take antibiotics but she had no money. I bought her the medicine and since then the swelling has been steadily going down. The entire family came to church on Sunday. It was a beautiful sight to see so many people who had given up hope for things ever getting better and had decided to follow their own paths instead of the ways of Jesus returning back to the fold with a new glimmer in their eyes that said clearly they had found a glimmer of hope at last.

We walked and walked and walked all day long. We went all over the city visiting the sick, discouraged, and those seeking truth. We must have walked 15 to 20 kilometers but it was worth every step to share the gospel with people. My message for 2009 has come from the book of Joshua. In the places I preach weekly I’ve been taking story after story from the book to explain what a believer must do to walk in victory. For the people I met briefly I shared only Chapter 1:7-9. My message is simple the answer to walking in victory is guard yourself from the devil’s tactics of discouragement and fear which will prevent you from working from God, instead be strong and courageous ready to do the will of God. Study the Bible constantly and be careful to follow God’s will for your life as sin will open the door for the devil to destroy your life. It was funny after I had said it all day in broken Swahili it was difficult to explain it in English to my sister when I talked to her on the phone. I guess that’s a good sign.

In the midst of our walking around we began to hear people making the sounds of celebration and heard the wonderful news that General Laurent Nkunda, the notorious rebel leader in Eastern Congo, had been captured by Rwanda! Nkunda began his campaign around the same time the Second Congo War was finally finishing up. He took to stealing children for his army and doing unspeakable things to civilians to earn “respect”. To explain him in a word he was evil very evil. He contributed to the deaths of over a million people not by bullets alone but mostly disease that without his tactics and war would have lived. In less than the past year he caused well over half a million people to flee for their lives. He was evil and a huge determent to peace in Congo. I thank God he was captured. In Lubumbashi there was dancing in the streets, school was cancelled and so was work in honor of this victory.

It is an interesting thing to be in a country when a war ends. The celebrations here were all filled with skepticism because they have heard it all before. Ever since the First Congo War began the promise of peace has always been promised and many agreements signed and people captured but unfortunately never held up. You could see it in their eyes they hoped maybe just maybe this was it but their memories told them it probably wouldn’t last.

There is another problem brewing in Eastern Congo. The notorious Lord’s Resistance Army of Northern Uganda has for many years been hiding in various places in the jungle of Congo. Congo has been so volatile there was nothing it could do to stop the terrorists of its neighbor (who was by the way continually invading them to steal their gold). For the most part they hid there only until last year. This past year over 400 children have been abducted from Congo and over 500 civilian brutality murders with the ruthless tactics the LRA is notorious for.

I couldn’t help but reflect upon my day realizing it was a historical one. In so many ways a day of victory both through the ministry I accomplished that day and the nation accomplished by capturing such an evil rebel leader. It was encouraging and exciting to realize God is truly moving in Congo. The other depressing problems here cannot discourage me because that is exactly what the devil wants for people to believe the situation is hopeless. Instead like Joshua I have determined to be strong an courageous and even though only “Jericho and Ai” have been taken declare the whole land for the glory of God. God had already promised everywhere your foot treads will be yours. I guess I need to start walking 15 to 20 kilometers everyday.

Basanga

An amazing thing happened on Friday. I pushed a switch and a light came on! The next morning a pushed a button and had coffee. Everything has suddenly become easier and faster in my life. Instead of going outside in the morning to start a fire to get hot water for making coffee I only have to push a button. Of course there are still the daily outages for whatever length of time. Sunday it went out at 6AM and came back on at 10PM but somehow that doesn’t seem so bad any more.

I got a phone call at 9PM from someone in my church asking me if I wanted to go with them to a traditional ceremony for the Basanga tribe in a small village called Pande. It was a little bit hard to understand her over the phone but after switching between Swahili and French a few times I got it and agreed to go. Of course they told me we would leave at 6 and come back at 11 but we left at 8 and came back at 3. I tried my best to understand the purpose of the ceremony and what I could gather was the Paramount Chief of the Basanga people declared January 13 a holiday after his father (the former Paramount Chief) died on that day.

Like most African tribal celebrations there is a lot of traditional beer to go around and plenty of dancing to the beat of the drums. And then of course the chiefs do their best to wear “traditional clothing”. There is no real program beyond the fact that everyone knows there will be a time given to honor the chiefs, the honorary guests, plenty of dancing, and eventually food. I would have thought the chief would have made a grand speech to his subjects but he seemed content to sit in his high chair and allow people to pose with him for a picture but only if they bowed first and showed respect. Because it was in honor of the former chief he had his own chair with a picture of the now dead paramount chief in the chair. Of course mention was made about how the spirit of the dead chief was among us and helping his son be a good chief now.

The traditional clothing was amusing. Each chief had a tail they used as a scepter. Hair was collected from an animal and in some cases the tail cut off then the hair or tail was fitted into a handle so the chief could wave it around and point at things with it. The hair/tails came from a variety of animals but the amusing part was the handles. Some had authentic looking naturally made according to tradition handles, but some of the people used modern umbrella, broom, or mop handles. In a more obvious manner of modern meets traditional each chief wore his best clothes and overtop of them his traditional costume. So that meant men were wearing suits with a colorful skirt overtop of it and maybe a few strips of animal fur over the suit jacket and some a Mobutu style hat made of animal skin (although not leopard skin) and others traditional beads were somewhere attached to the costume. Interestingly enough the paramount chief did not dress in any traditional clothes or in a suit. He did however boast a Stanley exploration hat. I found this incredibly amusing because not only was Henry Stanley a horrible man who deeply abused the Congolese people but his entrance constituted the end of the Basanga kingdom as they knew it by imposing total submission to King Leopold or death.

They had their own form of a kegger. A giant drum where each lady in the village would bring the pot of traditional beer she had made and dump it in until it was full. In sticking with tradition there were also 6 huge gourds with the tops cut off that were filled with the traditional beer. The tops of the gourds were used as cups and each was filled and passed around to the group of well over 500 people (although many were children and were not permitted to drink the beer). For the visitors there was also modern Simba beer and D’Jina soft drinks available. The paramount chief being more of a whiskey man than a beer drinker was provided with his drink of choice, Sprite, maybe it was spiked with whiskey for him.

The dancing was typical of what I have seen elsewhere in Africa. They have an amazing ability to move their butts and hips in ways you wouldn’t think possible. I noticed before each person danced they tied a kikwembe (colorful wrap) around their waists. If they didn’t someone would tie one around them while they were dancing. Someone explained to me that was the secret. If you had the kikwembe tied around your waist it was easy to move your hips and butt the right way. Somehow I don’t think it would have helped me at all. The dancing is often a woman beckoning a man with her hands as they dance and he then approaches. Then they will turn it around and the woman will back away and the man will beckon her to approach. If that get too close another dancer will come to distract them or break them up. Some times the men dance with the men and the women with the women. I guess they dance close together and pull off of each others energies and moves but some times when the men danced together it looked so homosexual. If I had been any place but Africa I would have never believed the men were straight.

The food served began with trays of little meat pieces. It wasn’t the kind of meat pieces we would expect though. From what I could see they only served inners. The people preparing the food must have worked really hard on at least some of it because intestines were carefully wrapped around to give either a nice look or an easier way to eat it. I’m not sure. I saw one tray being passed around that I at first thought was full of roasted caterpillars which I would have eaten. Upon further investigation I quickly discovered it was roasted innards as opposed to the boiled innards that had just been passed. Afterwards there was the typical meal bukari (corn mush), rice because it was a special occasion, and chicken. Normally there would have also been a leaf to eat either sweet potato leaves, squash leaves, or the favorite cassava leaves but not today. I was a little disappointed.

The few times that people spoke they spoke in Kisanga and someone interpreted it into French. The traditional languages are dying in Congo and that was evident by how many people I heard speaking to each other in Swahili and French instead of Kisanga in general conversations. When I asked them about it they explained it was easier to understand Kisanga than to speak it. Although people are constantly trying to convince me that I need to learn Kisanga I have no intention of doing so since it is a dying language and Congo has 5 other very alive languages in which I actually need to learn. I have picked up just a few words that are the same as the Bemba language spoken by the largest tribe in Zambia. The one word I have learned is twasanta, thank you. It is amazing how knowing literally one word in someone’s language can make them so happy. When I thanked the chief before leaving with twasanta everyone cheered for me and explained that I was becoming a Basanga and they were so excited. Hopefully they don’t get disappointed over time when I don’t add anything to my vocabulary.

I realize this entry is incredibly long but I wanted to give you the full picture of the ceremony. I have finally finalized my plans and I will be leaving Congo on February 12 and leaving Zambia on February 26. I’m really looking forward to it except for the weather. I feel cold right now in the mornings of full blown summer in Congo so I don’t know how I’ll make it in American winter even if it is Texas.

The Holiday Season

I finally started seeing a few signs of Christmas starting on the the 22. A few trees in shops and some homes had homemade decorations made from paper. I tried to greet everyone with joyeux noel but they just laughed at me and would say “bon fete.” For some reason people here like to say “Good Feast” or “Good Party” instead of “Merry Christmas.” Another thing I found interesting is that instead of saying “Happy New Year” people here say “Good Year.” It’s different but I kind of like it. I like proclaiming that the New Year will be a good year.

I found out that Da Gracia finally got up the courage to get tested for HIV and was found to be negative! God is so good. It is nearly impossible to be a prostitute in this area and not contract AIDS.

Before Christmas I met a boy about 17 named Ebi. He stumbled upon our church during a prayer meeting and decided to come in. It turns out his father was killed by Rwandan soldiers in the war when Ebi was younger. His mother died shortly after their family returned to Likasi. I guess the effects of the war and the lose of her husband was too much for her to bear. Shortly after that Ebi lost his 2 younger siblings. Life has been extremely hard for him as he daily deals with the trauma of having lived in a war zone, losing most of his family, and living with poor relatives who barely have enough money to feed him. He is only in 7th grade because there is rarely enough money to put him through school. He has recently begun struggling with thoughts of suicide and so much fear. He described how he would hear voices telling him he should kill himself of that eh was about to die. Because his mom and siblings died somewhat mysteriously he is scared out of his mind that it will happen to him too and at the same time increases his suspicions that his life is hopeless and he might as well end it. He suffered from migraines that never seemed to go away as well as other frequent illnesses. He was desperate for anything to help him when he entered our church that Wednesday evening. I was surprised to see this new person weeping as he cried out to God with all earnestness. It has been incredible to see Ebi’s transformation. He went from a scared boy ready to kill himself to a boy filled with hope and faith in God. It took a few weeks but with some encouragement and a lot of prayer he realized that God had a purpose for His life and desired to help him and loves him so much. I can’t help but wonder how many more kids there are in this country like Ebi. Their situations seem so hopeless and horrible but Jesus can change everything in someone’s life.

I still don’t have electricity. Someone actually worked on it for about 4 days in a row and did get a couple of houses in the area connected. Since New Years he hasn’t bothered to come back to work though. It’ll sure be nice to have it again.

When my parents were on their way back home from visiting me I decided to accompany them as far as Chingola the Zambian city just across the border for one night. It was incredible to be able to live with electricity, running water, speak English, and be able to go to a grocery store. I also enjoyed having an extra day with my parents.

I think I have mastered the border and the crazy corrupt border officials. Of course knowing more Swahili and having my proper permanent visa sure helps. It also helps that I have documentation stating that I am a missionary. Congolese have a lot of respect for missionaries which is such a blessing.

It was incredible being able to speak in English constantly when my parents were here. It was also really encouraging because normally I know the least Swahili out of everyone so it always feels like I haven’t learned enough but my parents knew absolutely nothing so it made me realize how much I’ve learned. Everything went really great while they were here and I think they really enjoyed themselves even with the lack of conveniences.

The more I think about 2009 the more excited about it I am. Time seems to be moving so quickly. I can hardly believe next month I’ll be going back to Zambia and on the last day of the month back in the USA. The only downside is how cold it is going to be. I just hope it doesn’t snow.