For the next three weeks Hope4Congo will share a series of stories
from Brad’s most recent trip to the DRC.

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Daily Life in Congo means: Hunger, Malnourishment, and Suffering

In March 2019 I visited the provincial capital, Tshikapa, in the Kasai province of the Democratic Republic of Congo. This area was deeply affected by the Kamwina Nsafu uprising. Many people fled for their lives during that time. They left the area and/or went into hiding.

Southern Kasai region’s massacres and mass graves of 2017 have given way to general insecurity. Personal safety concerns remain after two years of poor harvests – hunger and malnourishment. The suffering and pain was palpable as I moved about this region.

I had been to Tshikapa on several occasions in the past but this time was different. Things were tense. People were living on the edge.

Over the next weeks I want to share three stories from my time there in an effort to make us more aware of what life is like for many in Congo as well as other countries where there is extreme political unrest among societies mired in poverty.

During breakfast with our host at Tshikapa, he introduced us to a small girl. She was about seven or eight years old. Scars around both wrists of her crippled hands suggested some type of injury.

My host told me her story. She and her younger sister were at home with their parents when some militia entered their home and fired on the family to kill them. In her terror and fear she hid behind her mother and wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist.

Her father and mother fell to the ground. Terrified and crying, this girl and her little sister ran from their hut through the village. Someone reached out to them to ask what the problem was. They told this person they had been attacked and their parents had been killed by the militia.

This person took the children under her care. She learned that the father had been killed, but the mother survived unharmed. The daughter had saved her mother’s life when she wrapped her arms around her mother’s waist.

The bullets intended for her mother struck this girl in both wrists. The emotional and physical scars may never be fully healed unless someone can reach out to this child and her family to provide the spiritual counseling and care most desperately needed.

Please pray for this dear family. Pray for their spiritual and emotional healing.

© 2019 Hope4Congo