Bill and I are in the Democratic Republic of Congo for eight weeks filling critical needs at the Vanga Evangelical Hospital.  Our work will take us back to South Sudan in May, and by the end of June we will both be in the U.S. for our first year of home assignment since 2005.  Our time in the Congo has brought back many fond memories, especially in Vanga where our four children were home-schooled some 20 years ago…but a recent trip into Congo’s distant past raised a chilling reminder of the sins of the past and scars of the present.

During Easter week we took a trip down the Kwilu River by wooden pirogue to visit rural health facilities and isolated villages along the way.    Unlike the mighty Nile River in South Sudan which is bordered by vast Sahel-like plains, the tributaries of the Congo wind through dense jungles with heavy greenery dipping into murky waters concealing hippos and other amphibious and reptilian creatures.  

We visited a small village called Luzuna known for its rubber trees, the site where this tale of woe begins.   We must return to colonial days when the country was known as the Congo Free State and the Belgian king, Leopold II, owned it.  King Leopold II gained possession of the vast Congo at the Berlin Conference of 1884, auspiciously for ‘humanitarian and philanthropic’ purposes.  In reality, this ‘humanitarian’ venture became a profit-making one, especially with the surge of the automobile and the global demand for rubber.   So voracious was the Western need for rubber, and so profitable the commodity, that Leopold’s colonial minions did anything to increase production, including the maiming of Congolese men, women, and children. Quotas were required from each village and if workers did not produce their amount due, a hand was chopped off of the worker or of his wife or child.  

The village of Luzuna is much the same today as it was three generations ago, with families living in straw-roofed mud homes and the principal occupation the harvesting of rubber.  The salient difference today is that rubber is harvested for the village’s benefit and not for those of colonial masters. 

Rubber trees are cultivated and grown in long lines through the rainforest, where the air is hot and heavy with moisture. The process is labor-intensive.    Workers make long line cuts into the hardened bark bringing forth a white sap-like material which is directed with a leaf as it drains slowly into an earthen cup placed below.  

   The rubber, called caoutchouc (pronounced ‘cow-chew’) is allowed to thicken in the cup and then placed in the sun for weeks to dry. The bowl-shaped masses are then pressed against others to form a ‘brick’ weighing 20-30 pounds.

 Once every few months a barge steams up the river collecting these bricks of rubber and transports them to the capital city of Kinshasa to be made into plastic chairs and tables.    We didn’t ask what they are paid for each block of rubber but in this village, children run around without shoes and few are able to afford even the molded plastic chairs from Kinshasa, the end products of their labor. 

The horrors of the past, though rarely mentioned, are not forgotten, nor should they be. The human rights’ nightmare of the Congo Free State came to light through photos smuggled out by missionaries such as African American William Shepard, writings by  journalist Edmund Morel,  and widely-circulated publications of others such as Mark Twain (King Leopold’s Soliloquy) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (The Crime of the Congo).

We departed Luzuna heading upriver as the sweltering sun started to fade over the Kwilu River.  The children, delighted by our impromptu visit, laughingly surrounded us as we climbed back into the pirogue.  The adults warmly embraced us and waved as we departed, asking us to please come again.   What a contrast to the foreign visitors of years ago… and what an obligation we have, not to undo the sins of the past, but to bring the love of Christ to the present and eternal hope to the future. 

 “For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake.  For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”   2 Corinthians 4:5-6