Life Reclaimed

It seems about time for a blog, as I haven’t yet put to words anything that has happened since I arrived in the Congo that stormy November night! (Sounds dramatic doesn’t it?) Right now seems the perfect time, sitting at a desk in beautiful Zambia where I’ve been shipped to whilst the Congo’s unpredictably volatile elections take place. Where to start! These first two weeks have been filled with new sights, new sounds, and definitely new smells. Hugging the borders of my new home - the bustling city of Likasi, DRC – are countless communities devastated by a history wrought with war, disease, famine and the most heinous criminal activity. The Congo seems absolutely defined by its contradictions. The world capital of rape and torture, yet 95% of the country claim themselves Christian. Its brutal history has left scars on a culture that now seems definitively violent, a violence found as much on the market streets as in the halls of government, where current presidential candidates have promised bloodshed for anyone who doesn’t lend them their support. And yet for so many here hope is not absurd or misplaced but as integrated a part of life as the pain and poverty they experience moment by moment. In fact the two seem impossibly married. I’m learning this in my heart too.

Here I’m left without so many of those little things I never realised I would miss; chief of them chocolate, and the English language. You can slip into feeling isolated or alien when you’re lost in a people and a language you don’t understand. It strips you of your security and comfort. And yet of all that the Congo has given me already, that is probably the greatest gift. I’m learning every day that God is enough. Absolute dependency = extravagant provision. You can’t really open your hands to the gifts of God until you let go of everything else you’re clinging to. Sometimes he’s audacious enough to kick it out of your hands. Or send you to the Congo. It’s when I’m weak that God does his best work. That isn’t a cliché! It isn’t a Christian Hallmark card. It’s at the root of so much. I’m learning every day to see like Jesus sees. I’m learning to give of my selfish self without regard or request. I’m learning that God has a plan and a promise written upon the lives of every single one of his kids, that not one is forgotten, not one abandoned. There is not one of them whose fingerprint God didn’t labour over, whose hairs God didn’t count, whose future God doesn’t imagine, envision or dream about. And when you see that, then you see the real, deeper poverty etched into these children’s lives –that their future has been stolen from them.

In an urban community near our home I watched as the open coffin of an eight year old orphan was carried out before his wailing grandmother. I’m still not sure what to think or feel. A boy who watched his father walk out on him, then stood over his mother’s grave, and died at eight years old of a preventable disease. It makes you ask the kind of questions that might have answers, but you don’t expect to hear them. His grandmother knew that it’s enough sometimes just to yell. And that’s life in the Congo, and has been for such a long tainted past. Life stolen by Westerners who robbed the country of its resources and chopped off the hands of the enslaved for their death count quota. Life stolen by civil wars killing more than WWII and then left forgotten. Life stolen by volcanic devastation, by raiding rebels, by famine and disease and malnutrition. In the Congo life is fragile, and always on the verge of being broken. But there is life. Bursting through the cracks of the blood stained ground life is springing up, real and beautiful life. You can feel it. You can see it, there in the faces of the countless people living to bring hope to those with none, people who have refused to be a product of hopelessness. Teachers who every day walk 12km to give a lesson in one school then 12km back to give a lesson in another. Men who orphaned children run to because they see in them a father who cares. Widows pooling together everything they have so that none of their children will go hungry. Life is breaking through the cracks. As for me, I’ve come alive in the Congo in a way I could nowhere else. I’m stepping deeper into the Father’s heart. Without it, none of this is worthwhile. For now, this is exactly where he wants me to be – living in the plans and promises of God. And I get to watch, maybe even help, as life breaks through...more and better life than anybody ever dreamed of.

The Long Road to the Congo

DAY ONE

It is not so difficult to get up at 4am when you know that with the sunrise comes the beginning of a road trip like no other. The Democratic Republic of the Congo has been embedded on my heart for as long as I have known that God was calling me to Africa, so you can imagine both the overpowering excitement and the underlying anxiety that got out of bed with me the morning I started my long journey to the Congo. It was going to be just three of us travelling, but with the very real possibility of our car breaking down on the journey we added the Hands @ Work mechanic to our party. And so before sunrise the four of us piled into the rickety old truck and set off – Dan our volunteer coordinator, Dave the mechanic, Sibu the Swazi and me. Road trips are rarely about the destination but about what happens on the journey. This one was different – the journey itself was made even more incredible because it anticipated an incredible destination.

We drove through South Africa the whole morning, stopping every half an hour for Dan and Dave to pee, until we reached the Botswana border at lunchtime. Despite the reputation of African border posts we actually sailed through and headed into Botswana. The rumours I had been told before I left turned out to be true: it is literally full of donkeys. More donkeys than people for sure. It’s actually the reason it is too dangerous to drive through Botswana at night – you’ll likely hit a donkey. It is also incredibly flat. On the straight roads that run from South to North you can see for miles upon miles around you. No mountains or trees to block the view and few towns or villages scattered along the roads – Botswana is no man’s land. The surplus of donkeys quickly lost its novelty and we were instead hooked on the families of elephants that roamed wild by the roadside in the North of the country. We stopped a couple of times to take pictures; Dave got some of him holding a big wad of elephant poop. By the time the sun started to set we weren’t near enough to the lodge where we had planned to stay, so instead we booked into a little getaway spot about ten kilometres into the Botswana bush. We had the honour of sharing in Sibu’s first ever experience of a swimming pool – amazing to watch! Nothing will knock you out like 16 hours driving, and after a little something to eat we hit the hay and slept like babies.

DAY TWO

I hadn’t realised when we started out just how many firsts this trip would involve for our Swazi friend Sibu. After another 4am start, hot footing the final part of Botswana to the Zambian border, we crossed the Zambezi river on Sibu’s first ever boat ride. He was anxious when Dan told him to watch out for crocs and hippos. On the other side we spent a good while getting through Zambian border control, but eventually were allowed into the country and headed straight for Victoria Falls, about 70km from the border. It is dry season in Southern Africa, and so the Falls were not the great thundering walls of water that I was expecting but more of a dry canyon with a great green river streaming through the middle. The upside to visiting in dry season is that you can walk along the top of the falls. As we waded through the Zambezi feeling like Livingstone himself we came across a big family of elephants by the riverside. Naturally, we chased them. We darted through the bushes, enduring the thorns in our feet, to get as close to them as we could. It was the most amazing experience and an absolute gift of God, and we sat there watching elephants as wild as ever we’d see them. After stalking big game (Dave took another picture of himself with elephant poop) we spent some time walking along the top of the Falls. I took the opportunity to scare Dan by hopping along the edge and jumping down to ledges out of sight so it looked like I’d fallen off the side. We stumbled upon an amazing pool right on the edge, hidden amongst the rocks that no one else seemed to have found. So we dived in off the rock about 5 metres above it and discovered it was so deep we couldn’t reach the bottom. It was so close to the edge of the Falls that if we’d gotten out in the wrong place we would have fallen off the side. But we didn’t, and once we’d finished in our secret swimming pool we got out and headed back to the car and onwards to Livingstone, where we spent the night in a little hotel.

DAY THREE

The day started early again with a 4am dip in the hotel’s swimming pool. We left Livingstone as the sun started to rise and headed northwards through Zambia, stopping in on a few of our Hands friends along the way. At a place called Kabwe we met with Beth and Ali, two of the volunteers from my own intake that had since been placed in Zambia. It was great to see them again, and after having a little to eat in their place we bundled them into our beaten up old truck and headed back out on the road, destination: the Hands @ Work farm in Luanshya, North Zambia. We got there hours later to find the place without power, which meant a rather romantic candlelit dinner prepared by three more of our volunteer intake – Alisha, Janine and Sara. We spent the evening talking, catching up and finding out what was happening where they were. It was absolutely incredible to see them again, but three days travelling, 48 hours of which spent in the car, had taken its toll and our charismatic company was tainted with an overwhelming tiredness from all 4 of us, so we headed to bed.

DAY FOUR

Dave, Sibu, Beth and Ali took the truck back to Kabwe, where Dave will spend some time before travelling home and Sibu will spend two weeks before joining me and Dan here in the Congo. The rest of us began our day heading over to a prayer meeting with a local Hands @ Work service centre, after which we travelled onwards to Kitwe where Janine and Sara have been placed to work. After spending time there James, the leader of Hands in Zambia, and Janine drove Dan and I northwards to the DRC border. We had to wait a while for Erick, the Hands @ Work DRC coordinator, but once he arrived we headed straight through to border control. Despite what we had been told to expect it was a surprisingly quick and easy process – the fastest border crossing yet. We said goodbye to Janine and James as we stood in no man’s land between Zambia and the Congo. Thunder clapped overhead and the bright skies in Zambia behind us became thick with black clouds, lightening and rain in front – like the weather too was subject to border control. It was hilarious – a metaphor written in the skies in the black clouds that introduced us to the place they call ‘the heart of darkness.’ On the other side we encountered the chaotic bustle of the Congo streets and hailed a taxi to make our way to Lubumbashi, 70km from the border. There we picked up Erick’s car and drove onwards towards Likasi, DRC – my home for the next five weeks. I love this place. It is vibrant red and green, just like I imagined, and in the storm that welcomed us to the country the earth and plants burst into colour. The drive from Lubumbashi to Likasi was probably the most precarious I’ve ever been on. At one point the car almost broke down in the middle of the flooded Congo countryside. Dan and I took it in turns to sit in the front seat helping Erick figure out whether it was safe to overtake and how far away those headlights rushing towards us actually were. But despite the rain, the Congolese enthusiasm for dodgy driving and Erick’s CD that only had three songs on played repeatedly for the two hour journey, we made it to Likasi sane and in one piece. I cannot wait to step into what God has in store for us here in the DRC. The journey was incredible, an adventure I hadn’t expected, but was nothing compared to what is ahead. I want to explore God’s heart for the Congo, step boldly into his plans and promises for me and discover as best I can the dreams he has written for this amazing nation. Bring it on!

Prevailing Footprints

This is not the kind of preparation I was expecting. Tomorrow I will be heading off to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to spend five weeks working in local communities with the orphans, widows and the dying. There is, somewhere in the region of my stomach, a strange mixture of excitement and the heavy feeling of complete unpreparedness. I don’t feel scared or anxious, just unprepared, and I think it is that which is making me so excited. I love this feeling, it’s like the deep parts of me crying out to God – you’re going to have to take care of this one, I’ve got nothing! Absolute dependency = extravagant provision. God is going to do something marvellous, of that much I’m sure. The journey alone is going to be an adventure in itself. Me, our volunteer coordinator Dan and Sibusiso the Swazi travel from White River, South Africa (the place we call home) to Botswana where we will be staying in a lodge. From there the following morning we will head upwards and cross into Zambia, stopping at Victoria Falls and staying overnight in Livingstone. The next day we will hotfoot it northwards, stopping here and there at Zambia’s Hands @ Work bases then staying overnight in the copperbelt town of Luanshya. Finally, Dan and I will cross over by bus into the Congo and onwards to our final destination: Likasi, DRC!

I’ve been so preoccupied thinking about the journey that I’ve probably wasted a lot of time I should have spent thinking about the destination! Yet God has been giving me a little teaching and training and guidance along the way. Just not the kind I expected. This week I opened a book I have been reading called Beautiful Outlaw, a book about the scandalous personality of Jesus. It has nothing to do with Africa, nor had it yet mentioned it at all, but as I opened it I read the author’s description of what Christ means when he says he is sending us out like lambs amongst wolves. Putting words in Jesus’ mouth, he writes: ‘Take this seriously. I’m sending you into the Congo with a butter knife. You are easy pickings. You must be holy.’ Gulp. The author may have been speaking in metaphor. God isn’t.

I know that the Congo is an unstable place, but like all places of turmoil and torment it is also beautiful soil for a breakthrough of God. And the Bible calls my God the Master of Breakthroughs.

The Congo is a nation utterly devastated and utterly forgotten. Its obscurity to the Western mindset (I didn’t even know where it was until I got to Africa) is the aftermath of a tragic but muted past. Around 10 million people were lost to the rubber slave trade of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, another 5.4 million lost to the Second Congo war of the 1990’s. But it is not forgotten to God – and that is so important! God is on the move. I really believe it. I don’t know why I believe it, I just do. It’s not hard to see in a nation so ravaged by war the footprints of the Enemy whose manifesto is to steal, kill and destroy. The poor of Africa are his killing fields. Sometimes it feels like the scope of the issues are simply too big, the roots of the problem simply running too deep. But that’s rubbish. Nothing can prevail against even the most unreservedly insignificant person that boldly and recklessly follows after the heart of God. He’s already on the move, leaving footprints behind him for us to track. He is teaching me that I don’t have to convince him to remember the Congo; he has plans and promises written for that nation that I could only hope to imagine. I’m just invited along for the journey. The Master has breakthrough in store, and I want to be a part of it. He’s written it on my heart. And I want every step to be holy, to carry the presence and peace of God. Holiness overcomes hopelessness. For now, this is just my first step into the promises of God, remembering as I go that nothing can prevail against you when you walk in his footprints, even if you’re armed only with a butter knife.