Brooks
Images of our time in DR Congo and Burundi keep popping into my mind as we spend a day of travel on our way to Madagascar. These images are powerfully imprinted because they are so emotional, or comical, that I hope they will stay with me forever. Like just now, every time we leave Kenya, the flight attendant comes walking down the aisle as we get ready for take-off, and sprays two large cans of bug spray, announcing, “The country we are flying into requires that we disinfect this plane before coming into it. Those who would like to may cover their noses and mouths.” Are you even kidding me? Do you think that would possibly prevent me from getting sick from the amount of chemicals just sprayed within twelve inches of my face?
Or, like last night’s hotel room, where there was no mosquito netting, so they just left a large can of bug spray on a table instead! Not to be outdone by sleeping on Mickey Mouse sheets for the past week! Of course, no towels, but again, Roger had to eat it and say, “Ok, glad you brought along two towels, Brooks!”
I won’t share some of my more embarrassing moments, but here are some of the other images that are coming to my mind:
Lots of men here ask me for my phone number or my email address, which the first visit or two, was rather flattering, but now I know better. Unfortunately, their plight is such that each one wants something: a laptop, money for education, or an invitation to get a visa to America, but their faces are still imprinted on my heart and mind because these are the ones who had the courage to ask me. I know there were lots who wanted to, but didn’t.
Then, there was the eerie walk crossing the border from Burundi into DR Congo. Once we had gotten out of the car and been checked through by the officials on the Burundi side, we had to walk through what Roger named “no man’s land”, which was a dirt road of some distance, with rice fields on either side, before reaching the dilapidated structure of the DR Congo’s border crossing official check-in point. Have to tell you, it was quiet, and it had an alarmingly ghost-like feeling as we silently walked along, knowing that hundreds of people had died in these very fields during the war. I couldn’t help but wonder what could happen at any moment in such a volatile land.
The women, oh the women. Can you imagine the dirt, the dust, and such a colorless community shouting it’s poverty? There amidst it all the women walk back and forth day after day, carrying huge tubs of wet clothes or sacks of Irish (potatoes) or charcoal or wood on their heads going about their days. Nothing but brown everywhere, on the ground, on the buildings…nothing growing to be pretty, to show some life, just to decorate the surroundings. So, once again, the women are the decorations, themselves! They smile, they laugh, they hold hands as they walk along, deep in conversation, dressed so beautifully in their hand-made, brightly colored clothes. Their love and deep affinity with each other is, perhaps, what holds them together!
Angel and Stephen’s faces of sheer joy in sharing their victorious story are seared on my heart forever. They told about their life of deprivation as children without parents and being shifted from one family member to another, not really belonging to anyone. And then one day finding themselves fleeing for their very lives from rebel guerilla fighters on the same road to safety, they decided to marry that very day holing up in a mud, thatched roof house, in the rainy season with rain leaking down on them all night long, with mud dripping through onto them. That was how they spent their honeymoon night! It was so obvious to them that God had joined them together for such a time as this. Stephen has lifted his wife up to join him shoulder-to-shoulder as his equal, something very unusual in the African culture. I believe they are chosen to do something wonderful and powerful in at least two nations!
When we first saw Stephen, he kept saying he couldn’t believe we would come all the way from America to be with him…that many Americans will come to a big city in Africa and speak to many people for a big revival or a big conference, but that we would come to Uvira in DR Congo to be with his two teams, he still couldn’t believe it. When it came time to leave, I shared with him and the teams what it had meant for us to be able to come, and how powerfully I felt God was using each one of them to impact their nation. As we parted, we cried...and they did, too.
I cherish and carry all these memories close to my heart. And I am full.
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