ARMS DON'T EQUAL SECURITY

If guns and tanks and soldiers equaled security and safety, Goma might be one of the safest places on the planet right now.

Every other vehicle you pass on the roads into the IDP camps seems to be an armoured vehicle of UN peacekeepers...mostly Indian...or a lorrie transporting government forces or police forces of various loyalties...I feel like I need a program to keep up with who exactly the forces at work here are.

Taking pictures of peacekeeper vehicles was probably not one of the smartest moves I made, (I remember yelling at Jeff Frumm when he was shooting photos of rioters outside of ElDoret during the Kenya chaos earlier this year.)

For all the military presence, people are still terrified...One woman in the Norwegian IDP camp told of being raped by soldiers in her village, then when she was 'rescued' by rebels, she was further abused throughout the night by her rescuers.

While the cease-fire talks continue in Nairobi between Congo military and the  Laurent Nkunda led CNDP, the rebel armies are just 3 kilometers from our IDP camp...just over the ridgeline.  

Our Friends from ALARM CONGO

Our friends from AFRICA LEADERSHIP and RECONCILIATION MINISTRIES (learn about them at ALARM-INC.org ) escorted Stonic and me into a few IDP camps, run by the Norwegian Refugee Council and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.

I was attempting to see what the response of the church was inside these Congo refugee camps...how Christians were encouraging these terrified displaced victims of the ongoing Congo Civil wars.

What we saw and heard first hand over the next days was disturbing.

There are an estimated 300,000 internally displaced people in the Goma corridor who lack security, basic health care, adequate food and reasonable shelter.

The brutal clashes between the government forces, the rebel forces, and other well-armed militia from neighboring nations has created a nightmare of murder, rape, child abuse, and absolute terror among these eastern Congolese.

Saddleback Church's PEACE RELIEF program has worked with local indigenous church pastors and church leaders in bringing Christian comfort and relief assistance to victims of natural and man-made disasters in Peru, Myanmar, Indonesia, China, Kenya, and in stateside crisis situations from 9/11 to Katrina...from the LA RIOTS to Galveston ...from the Laguna and Crestline fires to this year's Santiago firestorms.

I have, however, not seen or heard anything as complex and brutal as the chaos being visited upon the residents of eastern Congo. 

My permission to pass from Rwanda to Congo.

One tiny slice of the people we will be meeting.

IF YOU'RE GOING TO CONGO...TAKE STONIC!

4 excellent reasons you should take Stonic Koipah with you to Congo.

#1 Any guy who has killed a lion is the guy I want to be with when trouble strikes.

#2 He's Masai...enough said.

#3 I've never seen him flinch under pressure...even once.

#4 The best campfire stories you will ever hear.

Stonic met this young boy on our first day at the Goma IDP camps.

He told Stonic about the horror of being forcibly enlisted as a child soldier, and the terrible things he was made to do to people. It broke Stonic's heart and he never stopped talking and thinking about that kid.