Witness in the Congo
Margaret Gregory was inspired by a visit to the Congo
Three-and-a-half years have passed since our last visit to the Congo. Much has changed for Congolese Quakers and the village of Abeka in that time. The Community of Evangelical Friends’ Churches in Congo (CEEACO) decided to change its leadership, but this idea was not well received by Mkoko Boseka, who had done so much to build the Quaker church. The new leadership, with Lusungu By’ucinda and Jean Marie Malenga as legal representatives, is more widely based and the church feels in good heart.
The Quaker Congo Partnership UK have been supporting projects based in the village of Abeka, including the provision of clean water. Catherine Putz, Paul Simon and I made the visit, and were joined by Bainito Walamwa, a Kenyan and clerk to the Africa Section of the Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC). He is an enthusiastic Friend with a great sense of humour and was delighted to have the opportunity to visit Quakers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Burundi.
The Sunday morning service we attended in Uvira was very special. They were celebrating the achievements of five young men who had completed their training as pastors at the Great Lakes School of Theology and Leadership and were taking up their mission as Quaker pastors. All the Quarterly Meetings in the provinces of North and South Kivu were represented, and there was much music and singing, with choirs from several different churches. The sermon was preached by Bainito Walamwa. At the end of the service the new pastors were presented with a number of books, including a hymn book, ‘for they are evangelists, and the best way to evangelise is to go out into the streets and start singing hymns’.
At the beginning of the visit we drove the forty kilometres down the rough road to Abeka. Halfway there a motor cycle escort – twelve bikes, three riders on each, all waving flowers and branches – met us. It felt like the progress of royalty or a pop group – most unfamiliar to us! In Abeka itself there was a huge crowd and more celebration. We walked up the hill to the lower water storage tank, where there was a service of dedication and real thankfulness for the clean water. This has made a huge difference to the health of the village. Hospital admissions for waterborne diseases used to be up to 150 a month; now they are about twelve. There is plenty of water, and we are asking for the assessment of engineers to extend the supply to three neighbouring villages.
Change was evident in the small hospital. Now there are beds with mosquito nets for all the patients – before many just had mats on the floor. Staff are working hard, though they should be paid more. We are looking for ways of increasing the support from public funds and raising money for important equipment, such as a new paediatric building and an ultrasound scanner. A centre for education, peace and psychosocial assistance works to provide trauma counselling, support for orphans and peacebuilding within and between communities. There has been extra work recently following an incursion by ‘Mai-Mai’ rebels repelled by the Congolese Army. During these disturbances there were a number of rapes. There must be easier tasks than working with soldiers to explain why they should not rape the local population. We heard about the training programmes that are underway, including women’s literacy and numeracy. We are looking for ways of developing local enterprises.
We also had valuable meetings with many of the other Quakers working in Uvira and Burundi. In Uvira the Initiatives for Community Reconciliation (INIREC) team are involved in community-based peacebuilding. In Burundi Quakers and the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) team are actively working for peace in many ways. The Quaker School at Kibimba has a special week of peacebuilding activities each term. All this is being done in countries that have suffered from long periods of civil war and are trying to avoid a return to that situation. The African Great Lakes Quakers are an amazing, vibrant community working together with enthusiasm and prayers.
CEEACO is a genuinely community-based organisation working in a difficult situation and making a real difference. It was a wonderful visit.
