We were in a plane circling over the city of Goma in Eastern Congo. The pilot, MAF (Mission Aviation Fellowship) missionary Dan Carlson was radioing the tower for permission to land. The 2,500-kilometer trip from the capital city of Kinshasa had taken just over six hours. Our plane (a single engine Cessna caravan) was full of medical supplies and short on fuel. The passengers, Nancy Bolan (USAID health officer), Larry Sthreshley (Presbyterian Church of USA) and myself (American Baptist Missionary) key members of the IMA health project SANRU, were sent to assess the damage and help coordinate a relief and rebuilding program for this town of over a half million persons. A town, buried in part, under volcanic ash and lava.
What we saw resembled nothing less than a war zone. Large patches of green earth were scorched black by city-block wide paths of lava, which had a few days earlier spewed from neighboring Mount Nyirangongo and poured out onto this city of half a million people. Thousands of homes, buildings, schools, churches, and clinics were destroyed. The city, already in the midst of a three year old civil war and unable to care for its people could hardly begin to address this catastrophe "Could we?" I wondered as our plane taxied onto the single remaining stretch of tarmac, and was flagged over to a grassy knoll. A 50-foot wide path of lava had bisected the airstrip and separated the runway from the remains of the terminal. We proceeded to the parking lot on foot where our church friends and associates met us. A 4-WD vehicle, provided by our health project just two months earlier for health zone supervision, had miraculously escaped the fire and destruction. It was now in service helping to supply the remaining health clinics with medicine and supplies. You are "a breath of fresh air and bring us great hope," said Dr Jo Lusi a Congolese physician who awaited us by the vehicle. We were enveloped with hugs and showered with blessings by the party of six who greeted us.
Dr Lusi and I had been in contact by phone since the eruption of Mount Nyirangongo. He had described the cataclysmic events as akin to "end times". "If this is what the end of the world will be like", he said, "it will be terrible!" (More so for those without faith in Christ.) "End times" may be a prophetic description, I later thought, as we discussed the future of the town with local authorities and other international relief agencies. Many questioned whether the town should even be rebuilt but instead re-located to another part of Eastern Congo. However in the days subsequent to the volcano, hundreds of thousands of people have returned to this town and settled in with either families whose homes were preserved or set up make shift shelters, waiting for the lava to cool, in order to rebuild. "This is our home," said one woman…preferring the scorched earth of Goma to living in a refugee camp in neighboring Rwanda. Others scoffed at the idea of resettling outside the city limits, citing the insecurity of living in the neighboring hills where armed rebel groups, some remnants of the Rwandan genocide a few years earlier, continue to terrorize the rural population.
I confess, I don't know what the best solution is; to rebuild the existing town on the lava plain risking a similar catastrophe ten years hence….or push for resettlement elsewhere, risking a generation of children growing up in refugee camps; or forcing others to live in daily insecurity and nightly terror. I imagine the issue will be debated for weeks to come and the solution in the end will be more political than pragmatic. Our vision however, is focused on meeting present needs.
Goma has hundreds of thousands of citizens living today in abysmal conditions. Their needs are tangible and comprise things which we can provide; clean water, medicine, food and clothing. These are being airlifted in as I write this report; a large component provided through gifts and funds raised by our churches in the United States. Makeshift health clinics are being set up by our local SANRU team and stocked with medicine and vaccines. Basic materials (blankets, clothing, water containers, cooking utensils) are being provided to those who have lost everything. Still there is more to be done.
I returned to Kinshasa yesterday and will head back to Goma in the next week or so; likely aboard a UN transport plane loaded with an expected five-ton shipment of medicine and medical supplies solicited by our mission partner, Interchurch Medical Assistance in the United States. It is a blessing to be able to represent those who have given sacrificially, and a privilege to be able to respond in such a concrete manner. Still, it is sobering to live in a country, where even those who have so little…and have faced so many horrors…face again, a tragedy, beyond description.
"Why do bad things only happen in Africa?", my eight year old daughter asked me upon my return home to Kinshasa last night. "They don't honey", I assured her. I do believe that God often challenges most, those who are able to stand up to such trials….and for them will be reserved greater responsibilities and blessings. (Zec 13:9 I will refine them like silver and test them like gold….they will call on my name and I will answer them…I will say ..they are my people. and they will say…the Lord is our God) Nothing escapes the knowledge of our heavenly Father, who numbers the very hairs on our heads. It is how we respond to tragedy that characterizes our worth.
In our International church service in Kinshasa this morning I shared from the book of James and spoke of the importance of putting deeds behind our faith. (James 2:26). The culmination of our faith, I believe, is when we come to a point where we are useful to God…and put in service for the Kingdom. The fruition of our faith is not just a personal salvation for oneself (which I will cling to for my remaining days)…but a transformation of our lives…so we can be used by God to bring hope and relief and ultimately a message of salvation to others.
The people of Goma have been pressed as olives and challenged in ways few could imagine. Out of the fire, I believe, will come a people and a nation, praising and acknowledging the Lordship of Jesus…a people who will be put into greater service. I want to be a part of that transformation process….and used by our Lord…more than anything else.
2 Cor. 4:18…so we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary…but what is unseen is eternal.