In my last post, I told you about my Associates Kim Haxton and Meaghan Farquharson and their journey (physical, spiritual, emotional) to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
I am sharing with you a post from Kim on her gofundme page. If you haven’t done so already, I invite you to learn more and consider making a donation.
What a whirlwind. Imagine less than 20 years ago over 5 million people were killed. The effects of chaos ringing through the land are huge. We just drove down a street that in its hey-day must of been something special (1950’s) with buildings whose ghostly carcasses sit mostly empty, shadows of their former purposes. The streets are vibrant with people, noticeably are the children, working selling plastic bags for pennies trying to help their families… Sounds echoing of horns, and scratchy stereos pumping out sounds from the past and what is in now. It is amazing how big Congolese music is and has been in the world. There is a lot of creative inspiration from this madness.
I sat with an Belgian man who is here providing training to the Panzi hospital, as a career soldier, his words hit clear about the immense challenges and difficulties in a place where there is no infrastructure, many people in survival mode. He said this was second to Kabul in places where it was so overwhelming. I asked him what kept him in this line of work. He looked at me with his crystal blue eyes and said “I believe in Humanity” , well put. When he asked what kind of missionary work we were doing I replied, “Decolonization”, he looked at me and said “Yes, that is a gift for all of this mess”. When you see me there is more to this conversation about the outside influences that contribute to the oppression of the people besides the current government. It remains to be seen if there will be an election this year as there is no money to make it happen. I wonder why none of the mining companies will contribute to make this happen. I guess they do benefit from this government.
We taught our first day of our women’s classes today. Listening to how the women talk about the relearning traditional knowledge was more than I expected. One of the women said she was shown in dreams which medicine to use for her sick Baby………this makes me extremely excited.
Who knows what will come of the seeds we are sowing here, so far there has been a great response into people sharing about plant medicine. Each person seems to have one little piece of information. Every conversation I have, the response is the same about need to know this information, and remembering to ask about it.
Yesterday was Sunday, {funday} at Church. We climbed a hill in through the slums to a congregation of about 1000 people. The singing was glorious. This alone would be the reason I would attend faithfully every week. Its the biggest part of the fabric in this land that holds people thru all the hardship, I remember a story where a woman suffered extreme sexual trauma along with witnessing the death of her children, and she said “God was with me thru all of it”
Amen.
Embodied Awareness 