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.
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