IDP CAMP in Goma, Congo

I traveled by plane and LandCruiser with Dr. David and Cherry Haymes, from Dallas, Texas and my protector/friend Stonic Koipah through Rwanda to Goma, Congo to visit some of the many refugee camps stretched along the Congo/Rwanda border. From this hill, you can look out 360 degrees and see nothing but humanity. This IDP camp (Internally Displaced People) has around 29000 people who fled the clashes between the Laurent Nakunda-led rebel forces and the Congo government armies.

There is just no way to describe the indignities that the women and children of Congo have suffered at the hands of rebels and government troops and even peacekeeping troops from the UN. It is way too impolite to discuss in this blog, but we spent hours with ladies in Goma hospitals, listening to them painfully recount the terror inspired accounts of their attacks and their attackers. These poor ladies are damaged physically beyond repair and will never know normal body functions again.

When everyday people get drawn into evil terror and clashes, the consequences are so terribly sad and unexplainable. These ladies and little kids need loving counsel, and medical care, and whatever help we, in PEACE RELIEF can supply. 

We give blankets and food and clothing and cooking pots...they need and deserve SO much more...

'Catch the Muzungu"

OK...my favorite game in Kenya...CATCH THE MUZUNGU...

It has all the elements of great drama...

A field full of very fast future Olympic marathoners...

and across the field...a group of very white, very slow Americans...running from the kids. 

As the saying goes, "you can run, but you cannot hide...' there have been some muzungu that did better than others at holding off the oncoming horde...Taylor Ishii comes to mind as one of the best, but I think his retreat included climbing a tree...or was that Chris Wohlers...

Anyway...a special treat awaits the individual who first tracks down and 'tags' the fleeing American...like a soccer ball or a frisbee...so the smile that comes across the faces of the kids waiting to pounce and the laughter that comes from watching the awkward and inevitable capture of the tortoise-like muzungus is .... hilarious. 

Simple pleasures...

One Swahili Bible....

Beatrice has never owned her own Bible.

She has heard her pastor read from it.

She has listened to traveling evangelists quote from it.

But she has never had her own copy of God's Word...

Until today.

The Bible was a gift from our church RECYCLING MINISTRY that turns 'bottles into Bibles and sodas into scriptures'.

It is so simple...folks bring their cans and bottles to the RECYCLING kiosk at church.

We buy Bibles and give them to folks like Beatrice...

Two hours later...after most of the folks from the mobile medical clinic were treated...there was Beatrice, standing in the thin light of the window...with her new reading glasses and her Swahili New Testament...

She had some catching up to do...