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...

Choosing Service over Comfort

Let me tell you why Dr. David Haymes and his wife Cherry are HEROES to me...

At a time in this Dallas doctor's life, when he has every well-deserved right to be kicking back and 'enjoying the good life', he and his wife are spending weeks on dusty African roads, going to serve dying and desperate people, in conditions that would discourage even the rosiest of outlooks. 

Dr. David and Cherry Haymes are advocates for folks who suffer health indignities that most westerners will never see...much less understand. 

The Haymes have every right to be sitting on the back of a yacht somewhere in the Bahamas, but instead they are:

• visiting refugee camps in terror-stricken Congo
• carrying help and supplies to orphans of the genecide in Rwanda
• treating Kenyan patients in remote mobile clinics
• bringing life-saving meds to Sr.Freda's Cottage Hospital that would simply not be there if not for the Haymes efforts.

David should be on the back nine at Las Colinas Country Club, and Cherry should be on aisle 12 at Neiman's, but they are in West Pokot and the Massai Mara and Mt. Elgon.
And why do they do this???

Jesus Christ said, "All the commandments can be summed up in two...love the Lord with all our heart, and love your neighbor as yourself."

In doing what David and Cherry do...helping the helpless...they are following the teachings of the GREATEST TEACHER who ever lived.

Nothing Cooler Than a 'SLIP n SLIDE'

There isn't anything out there that is cooler than a good old session of 'slip n slide'...especially when you are doing it on the last day of camp in Kitale, Kenya with 100 of your favorite glue- sniffing street kids. It should be an event in the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Katie and Allie and Jana and Jaime and Zack rolled out the 30 yard poly wall and then lubed it down and added water and...instant INSANITY !!!!
Just like dancing in Kenya, no two street boys 'slide and glide' with the same flair, but everyone cracks me up and everybody has a good time...watching or slip sliding away. Remember that there are no SIX FLAGS in Kitale, no water themed parks...Wild Rivers REALLY IS WILD RIVERS !!!

Hippos eat people here, they don't dance in cartoon tutus.

And the point of this camp...
Even when life has you turned a bit sideways...there is love and hope and real change out there...John 10:10

DR.ROB's POKOT EYE CLINIC

Dr. Rob Henslick is an eye doctor from Saddleback that has been bringing equipment and supplies and meds to Kenya for a few years now.

He and his wife, Michelle, and their cool kids, Nolan, Grant, and Josh, are all-out advocates for the sick and hurting and the dying in the Rift Valley of Kenya.

From the moment the Henslick family first touched down in Kenyatta Airport, they have been great examples of folks who use their voice to speak up for those who no one is listening to.

Rob and Michelle have taken a very simple but consistent approach to getting eye care resources to Sister Freda's Clinic.

He has trained dozens of non professionals to work alongside him and Michelle in testing and assessing and caring for the blind and the near blind.

The men and women... the boys and girls he treated on a recent mobile medical clinic to Pokot were typical of what he sees across the Rift...from Massai land to Mt Elgon to the desert of Kachleba.
Folks who lack the simplest eye care...

Eyes that have gone dark from very PREVENTABLE diseases...but there is no Dr. Rob to be found. 
Men and women who live in a very different world than those of us who take sight and light and health for granted.

Inauguration Days

WASHINGTON DC!!!

Friends asked me why I was going to DC for the inauguration...I said, 'its WOODSTOCK, MARDI GRAS, MARTIN LUTHER KING JR on the Lincoln Memorial steps, and Pastor Rick leading in the Lord's Prayer !!!!' HOW CAN YOU MISS THAT??? 

I thought Promise Keepers was a huge crowd on the Mall, but this was over the top. Solid pack of people from the Vietnam Memorial to the Senate steps...some say 2 million ...

Can you see Rick Warren, up on the stage, waving to me?...
During the James Taylor, Bono, Garth Brooks fest...I made my way around the city...the Vietnam Memorial will always be the one that grabs me most...thought of Danny Daniels and Rocky McElveen fighting as kids and coming back as men.

The crowd was SO:

• Filled with a Spirit of Celebration
• Filled with Pride for our FIRST African American President
• COLD !!!!!
• Kind and patient and downright happy 

My close personal friend, Bono, took a brief moment to send me a personal  shout-out from the stage. He likes to embarrass me in crowds.

The highlight of my trip was PRAYING the LORD's PRAYER on the national mall with 2 million people...TV coverage didn't show the folks throwing their arms around the people next to them or holding hands and audibly saying together...

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name...thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtor. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil...for thine is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory for ever and ever...AMEN !!!!!!

If You've Given Up Hope...Read this

If you've grown cynical in 2008...

If you are still sick that your 401-K is now half what it was in 2007...

If you're upside down on your mortgage...

If the human resources person at your work keeps staring strangely at you...

THERE IS A REAL-LIFE GOOD NEWS STORY GOING ON IN KITALE, KENYA.

Meet Emmanuel...no last name...babies who get abandoned at Sister FREDA'S COTTAGE HOSPITAL don't really have luxuries like clothes or last names or birth certificates or moms or dads or a family...one day, you just notice there's an extra baby in the nursery and he's very sick...

As you can tell, Emmanuel was SO sick that his ribs showed through his tiny chest. His body had sores all over...he couldn't hold down the smallest amounts of fluids...death was as present as a circling buzzard.

But there is this sweet Ukrainian missionary named Tanya.

She came from Ternopil, Ukraine, to teach Kenyan children about Jesus Christ.

She and 4 other Ukrainians who come and volunteer at Sister Freda's couldn't get Emmanuel out of their minds...so they started doing what they COULD do...praying for him...and rubbing his little body which was smaller than their hand...and trying to feed him with a dropper and a mini spoon.

Well guess what...prayer and love conquered cynism and death...

Sick baby Emmanuel has become THRIVING, and GIGGLING baby Emmanuel.
Tanya's unending prayers and love and care for this one child are a perfect example of the power of one person refusing to focus on what she couldn't do, but concentrating on what she COULD. Tanya became a living ADVOCATE for a child that couldn't speak up for himself.

You don't have to sell your house in Orange County and move to Congo or Ukraine or Oaxaca or Kitale to be an ADVOCATE for the hurting of this world.
Just decide to do SOMETHING for someone...

2009...it just could be a good year to reach beyond ourselves...

If you want some ideas on where to start...look over some of the past year's blog and ask yourself (or the Lord) where you could begin in a tiny way.

Plant the seed...

water it...

watch it grow...

Saying Goodbye to Congo

Having seen what I've seen here in Congo...having met so many people whose lives are in complete chaos...having my heart ripped out by kids living without any parent or family member...having seen the selfless work of pastors and church leaders, trying to show Christ-like compassion without the simplest of resources...having spoken with moms who cannot find their babies...having heard from relief workers who are simply overwhelmed with the numbers of displaced people...

It's almost impossible for me to walk away...to get in a plane and fly home.

Temporary shelters of tarps and twigs holding hungry, confused and terrified people.

People trying their best to disassociate themselves from the fresh memories of civil war and abuse by rebels, government forces, and even peacekeepers.
Silas, poking his head through the only window in a 140 person tent.  

He has no idea where his mom or dad or brothers or sisters are.

Neither does anyone at the camp.

When the rebels came to his village, Silas just ran to the forest and hid.
Driving back to the Rwanda border we met these kids who won't go to an IDP camp.

They feel they are better off on their own.

THE IDP CAMPS outside GOMA, CONGO

One of the biggest reasons I went to DR Congo was to see and hear, first-hand, if what I have been reading about in the western press matched with reality...

• terrified families
• brutalized women
• murdered men
• abused and abandoned children

The stories I have been told, by mothers and fathers and kids I've spoken with, and the pastors who are trying to comfort and assist them...

they are ugly, and vile, and nasty stories of man's inhumanity to man, of unceasing tribal conflict, of the basest of human treatment by fellow human beings.

If you look and listen inside every tent, every shelter, every tarp lean-to...you hear the most sad and sickening stories of a nation torn apart by war...war that is so complex and yet so basically simple that it is staggeringly difficult to wrap my mind around...so I just listen...and pray for the kind of discernment offered by the Lord in James chapter 1.
And look at the thousands of displaced families...

And the little children who should be singing... and playing... and going to school, but instead they are stuck in this hell of a survival existence.

This is their home...this is their village...this is their marketplace...this is their school...this is their church...this is their clinic...this is their security...this is their existence...for how long?

Only God knows.

LIFE IN THE CAMPS

Life in the Refugee Camps outside Goma, Congo seems, to me, to be a blur of endless need, coupled with a certain resignation that this is the way it is going to be, while the various political factions work out their differences and deeds.

I changed this picture from its grim black and white and tried adding some color...as if that might change the subject or tone...but dressing up a bad situation doesn't change a thing...the eyes speak louder than the background colors... 

This little guy was cold and hungry and alone outside his tent. The tent he is assigned to has 140 people living in it and I feel like he just came out here to get away from the set of problems inside the tent. 

When I left the camp he was huddled in the exact same place...in the exact same squatting stupor.

Looking out, but at what? I don't know...

In this tent...where you sit...is where you eat...is where you sleep...is where you live...is where you play...is where you dream, if you can, in all the commotion.
At this camp, OXFAM(www.oxfam.org) supplies the water and gathering the daily water is a task of the children.

IT'S ALWAYS THE KIDS THAT CATCH YOUR HEART

Just walking across this IDP camp is an overwhelming exercise...My mind struggles with trying to envision 'solutions' to the simplest of the problems these kids face...lost or dead parents...disruption of all schooling...fear and insecurity...constant hunger...sickness and disease... 

Blankets and water and toilets certainly help, but the kind of emotional garbage that begins to collect when you have this many thousands of kids just living in survival mode...what about their dreams?...what about their nurturing?...what about their health, inside and out?

I just look at a 2 year old sitting in the mud outside a tattered tarp and grass dwelling and wonder...'who deserves that?'  

Not that all these kids came from the most wonderful settings BEFORE all of this chaos, but at least some of them were with their mom, some of them slept in safety and security, and some of them had enough food to fight a fair fight against hunger and disease...

Some things just shouldn't be.

But if I stay in that place...of 'this isn't fair'...'this isn't right'...then I get close to SHUT DOWN MODE.

We can't solve this mess, but we CAN serve and bring some measure of comfort to these kids.

'Even a cold cup of water in My Name'

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.