Congo - Development

I made a trip to the front desk to get the gel packs the OT suggested when she heard about our icemaker breaking. On my way, I stopped by the mailbox and soon opened my Peace and Justice Journal from MCC. {MCC U.S. National Peace and Justice Ministries]. It was all about the Congo. It made me smile.

Some of you might wonder, “Why in the world would any news from Congo make you smile?” — especially when your icemaker is broken! It’s true, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is one of the most desperate places in the world — so much suffering! The Human Development Index places it at 180 out of 193 countries (2022). It is completely off the radar of most Americans. But ever since I read King Leopold’s Ghost around 1999, I can’t keep it out of my mind. Having met MCC workers from the Congo and followed the scant news we get about it, I’ve developed an affection.

Plus, this week, on Oct. 12, it is Simon Kimbangu Day (see The Transhistorical Body]. The Congo has produced some amazing Christians. Oct 29 is Christophe Munzihirwa Day. Add to this that one of the most inspiring books of the last decade is Emmanuel Katongole’s Born from Lament: The Theology and Politics of Hope in Africa in which he shares first-hand stories of Jesus followers in the Congo leading the way.

Shush child

In the midst of my own turmoil, which has a decidedly “first world” look to it, I am hoping for some encouragement. You probably are, too, since you are facing an election, a Middle East war and your own troubles. If you’re from the U.S., you might have some connections in North Carolina or in the other areas pummeled by Hurricane Helene – our NC contacts survived relatively well, but they are surrounded by devastation and grief. I am going to say few more words about the Congo, but first, let’s all take a minute in God’s arms and receive a collective shushing.

Don’t fear, because I am with you;
don’t be afraid, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
I will surely help you;
I will hold you
with my righteous strong hand. — Isaiah 41:10 (CEB)

When I first read that verse as a kid, I heard, “You need to stop fearing, because it is wrong to fear when God is with you – and he might be displeased.” Maybe I needed that for a developmental season.

But in my later years I hear God shushing me like I used to softly speak to my troubled babies and grandchildren: “Shhh. Don’t be afraid, I am with you. I will always be here as long as I have breath.” When God, the eternal breath of the Spirit, shushes, it is truly an unending promise along with immediate comfort.

I suppose you know we instinctively started shushing babies as soon as they were born because we could feel their shock at entering a world of new and unfamiliar sounds. I suppose when we feel overwhelmed, our bodies may remember the time we experienced our own initial trauma. Shushing recreates the familiar sounds of the womb, providing a sense of comfort and security for that dear baby.

Nowadays, we have machines that shush for us. Some of us create a womblike environment in which to sleep, we are so anxious and so surrounded by anxiety-producing sounds. It is hard to sleep in my neighborhood because there are drag races on a street nearby – one of the last in Philly without a big speed bump! You may have fireworks and sirens going off all night. But be careful how you cope. I think after we are six years old, or so, we had better take care not to become dependent on a machine to sleep.

For now, would you like to slowly go through that shushing word from God, stored up there in Isaiah for you? I think it should take you six deep breaths to get through it. Take a deep breath and slowly read a clause as you exhale. Take a next slow inhale through your nose and gently exhale as you move through all six lines. If you do it again, that is even better.

Shush over the Congo

Now maybe we can consider the Congo and the 115 million people who live there. Over 7 million of the Congolese are displaced persons, driven from their homes by conflict or corruption. It is hard to say just how many refugees add to the population, but there are hundreds of thousands from Burundi, the Central African Republic, South Sudan and Rwanda. That list of countries sounds like a litany of war, terror and starvation to me, a wound on the world.

We have to consider the Congo because raw materials in the eastern part of it are essential for the world’s rush to replace fossil fuels and save the planet. To reach the zero emissions targets by 2050 will mean a 600% increase in mineral demand. The provinces of North and South Kivu, bordering Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi are crucial to providing the global supply chains with the coltan, gold, and cassiterite which fuel green economies.

SMB coltan mine near Rubaya, DRC. © Junior D. Kannah/AFP

Kivu is also the home of the largest and fastest growing population of displaced people. DR Congo has 250 local armed groups and 14 foreign armed groups fighting for territory, mines or other resources in the country. In North Kivu, one major armed group, M-23, controls much of northern part of the province. They control key coltan mining villages where people make their money in illegal mines, excavating without machinery. M-23 uses motorcycles, trucks and boats to smuggle coltan into neighboring countries in order to avoid the heavy taxes levied on mineral sales inside DR Congo. Imagine living there, if you aren’t there right now.

Knowing about the Congo can be overwhelming — especially when you feel burdened with problems of your own. I can relate to that. I hope this is not true of you, but I cycled in and out of feeling overwhelmed last week. I needed to turn and turn again into that loving embrace of God, who surrounds me with grace and feeds my hope. There are so many things that are far beyond our capacity to control! If we still feel we need to do that, we have to shrink our world until it is very small. If we keep ourselves that small, the Congo might as well be on another planet. Anything outside your apartment might feel foreign!

We all need some encouragement. Even though this post is filled with difficult things, I hope it also encourages you to latch on to the vast resources of God at your disposal.

Here is a final prayer to acknowledge our need to turn into God and hear the shush of our loving parent — if your are a Mennonite, you might recognize it from Voices Together. Again, take it slow, one breath a line.

Gracious God, when there is nothing we can say,
We give you thanks that your Spirit intercedes for us
with sighs too deep for words.

Loving God, when there is nothing we can do,
we give you thanks that you are working for good
in this world of struggle and pain.

Holy God, when there is nothing else we know,
we still give thanks that nothing in life or in death,
nothing in heaven or on earth,
nothing in this world or the world to come
will ever separate us from your great love through Jesus Christ.

Maybe we should all try that again, praying with the millions of faithful Congolese people, with the people suffering from the aftermath of the hurricane and other disasters. Pray it with the many people pouring out love, skill, time, and resources to help them, and with the faithful lovers in your own life who are there for you, or will be, often when you least expect them and rarely because you feel you deserve them.

**************************

Further resources for learning about the Congo and climate issues:

U.N. Humanitarian Affairs [link to Congo efforts]

U.S. Institute for Peace [Congo emphasis]

Indigenous Environmental Network [just transition]

World Resources Institute [minerals and climate]

Friends of the Congo [statement on climate change]

While many people were wrapped up in Steve Bannon’s departure from the White House on Saturday, at least 200 people were killed in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo. A landslide swept through a fishing village on the banks of Lake Albert in Ituri province. Some people are still buried and may never be found. Landslides are common in the area, since the hills are deforested and desperate people crowd onto them in search of affordable land for their homes.

While we continued to obsess over the outrages in Charlottesville, we ignored the ongoing violence in the central Congo. 1.4 million people have been displaced by a conflict between government forces and those of the traditional chief, the Kamuina Nsapu. 8000 people among the displaced are Mennonites. “There is no place where this conflict has gone where there are no Mennonite churches,” says Rod Hollinger-Janzen of Inter-Mennonite Missions. Church leaders report that 36 Mennonites are among the U.N.-estimated 3,300 deaths since October. Church buildings and church schools have been damaged or destroyed.

While Congress was trying to eliminate the minimal and expensive healthcare provided by the Affordable Care Act, the Congo plunged deeper into a humanitarian crisis, with about 7.7 million people on the verge of starvation, according to UN food agencies.

Let’s find Kinshasa on the map

As we took a peek under the blanket of silence that covers the great national sin of racism in the wake white of supremacists making themselves known in Virginia, we did not bother to peer out from under the blanket that hides the rest of the world from us. Can you find Kinshasa on a map? 11 million people live there — 3 million more than New York City.

But why would we know? The country was founded on invisibilizing Africans. The slaveholders who greatly influenced our country’s Constitution managed to get 3/5 of the enslaved population of their states counted as citizens, even though they knew they would never vote and their interests would never be represented. When Charlottesville was discussed on the BIC-List, voices immediately rose to parrot the President’s claim that there was “violence on both sides” – it sounds like the same kind of “equality” African Americans have received since the beginning of the country. 25% of the descendants of slaves in the United States probably traveled the great river near Kinshasa because they were stolen from the area that is now the DRCongo and Northwestern Angola.

Are the troubles in Africa more important than troubles in the U.S.? Not really. Are we responsible for the displaced in the Congo? — to the best of our ability, yes, of course –just like we are responsible to take action against injustice and hopelessness in our own churches and cities. And, thank God, the Mennonite Central Committee is helping people in our name and in the name of Jesus right now. Circle of Hope contributed over $100,000 to MCC last year, and my household added more, directly.

But even if we cannot be responsible for solving all the problems of the world, we could at least do our best to be aware of them. Our country is responsible for causing many of them, after all.

I acknowledge that you might have varying degrees of willingness to be a “we” or think in terms of “our” with me. But let me finish. I just want to say that It would be best if we were not so self-absorbed that we react to every Trumped-up bit of nonsense that comes over the airwaves as if it were of primary importance. We should discern what are the most important things for us to care about, not just careen from newsbite to newsbite. Even as the President tries to distract us from some sin by committing another, we should not take the bait, but attempt to see from the eternal perspective of Jesus and act accordingly.

Development

Rod White on following Jesus into wholeness

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