World Cup Fans

Yes, we're supposed to be packing. And we really are. Yesterday we cleared out three huge shelves of medical supplies from our store room. Sorting every medicine, getting rid of anything expired, carting the rest down to the hospital store for use there. Mostly what we have left: protective gear in case of ebola again. Glad to pass it on. Expired anesthetics, by the way, in glass vials, explode pretty dramatically when burned in a trash pit. And sound a lot like the irregular sharp pops of machine gun fire. Thankfully our neighbors were watching (as always) and no one panicked. Today we unloaded the attic: stacks of decades-old medical journals to burn, empty boxes that had become rat nests (Julia pointed out that one said "Nest Soap" on the side, so maybe we have literate rats), an old fan that eats too much electricity, and dusty baby-gear that somehow escaped being passed on, like a potty, a broken wagon, duplo boards. Lots of dust, and lots of memories.

In between, we watch World Cup matches, along with the rest of the world. Where else do you see young men from countries as diverse and conflict-prone as North Korea or Slovenia out on a field of non-lethal battle, testing their mettle, striving for victory, controlled by rules and sportsmanship? It's fantastic. The sheer volume and uniformity make it different than the Olympics I think. The world comes together and we see that people are people everywhere. No matter what the language or skin hue, when the team misses a close shot, everyone's hands go instinctively to their heads, the same gestures. When the anthems are played, everyone looks misty-eyed and proud. When the team succeeds, everyone jumps and hugs and acts wild. And football is an equalizing kind of sport. Not much equipment is needed for kids to grow up playing, and practicing. Sure, all the England players make boatloads of money in the Premier League. But the Ghanaians, coming from a place of poverty, can just as likely win.

And yesterday, we were proud to be Americans. Hoarse, but proud. Our team came from behind at the half to rally with passion and skill. They scored two goals, turning what had looked like an inevitable defeat into a tie. Then one of our players was fouled at the edge of the box in a blatant attempt to trip up a score. No red card? No penalty shot? Not fair, but we can still do it. Donovan crosses the ball on a free kick into the tangle of bodies in front of the goal. On the replay one can see at least three opponents basically body-slamming American players to the ground. But Edu (American) comes through, meets the ball, clean shot, goal. Victory is in hand. But then, wait, as the crowd erupts and the players celebrate, the ref (who has been notoriously power-playing throughout the match) has whistled the goal off. He negates the score. No explanation. The commentators on every channel review the footage. No one has a clue why the goal is disallowed. The ref refuses to answer the players on the field. The match ends as a tie. We're still in the running, but barely. Afterwards the reporters swarm the American coach, Bob Bradley, and the team captain, Landon Donovan. Both give inspiring, gracious interviews. They do not stoop to accusation, they admit honest disappointment and puzzlement, they vow to fight on. It was a class act.

So, an opportunity for young men from all over the world to test and prove themselves, for fans to cheer and glory, for Africa to be showcased as a continent of beauty and order, for a pause in all the other problems of life. And an opportunity for us to turn from sad, messy, sorting and packing for a couple of hours here and there. We're fans.

Why Missionaries Struggle with Grace

As we returned, Travis called a great prayer meeting for all of us to just touch base, catch up, hear what God had been doing in our hearts.  And several people mentioned either significant struggles with identity/God's love issues, or significant lightning-moment apprehensions of God's grace.  It is, of course, what WHM talks about a lot.  And the heart of the way the reformation presents the Gospel.  So it's no surprise that we also seek to grasp the reality of God's unconditional approving love.

But it strikes me that one reason it is so hard, is that it is the opposite of being cross-culturally sensitive.  A good missionary is supposed to be alert to WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK.  What is culturally appropriate?  If I don't attend this burial will I send the wrong message?  If I wear those jeans will I cause others to stumble?  Should I let these kids do what they want, or reprimand them for their behaviour?  Is it OK to hurt someone else's feelings for my kids' sake?  So on one hand we have a whole way of life built around the mantra that we should enter into a culture by understanding it, thinking through the unspoken rules, adapting our thoughts and actions to those of our hosts.  

Then on the other hand we have the reality of grace:  nothing we do makes us more or less loved by God.  We are not measured by what other people think of us.  We have freedom.  

It's no wonder that cross-cultural living is probably the hardest place to hold a balance on this tension of self-censure for cultural appropriateness vs. basking in the unmerited approval of God.  I'm sure that this is yet another paradox that in the end does not need to be one, that living in the light of grace lets us willingly adapt to any culture.  But in practice, it's a tricky paradox to navigate.

Living in Ambiguity

Back home.  But never quite at home.  

Our trip in DRC helped us remember what it is like to be a new missionary.  All old(er) people like us should probably land periodically in a new country where we can't speak the language, don't know the way, and have to depend on someone half our age to take care of us.  While it was kind of nice (being taken care of!), by the end of the week I think we experienced again just what all new missionaries do:  being helpless, and being unknown.  Watching for cues.  Not knowing what was going on.  Asking a hundred questions.  Not knowing what should happen next.  Wondering what people were thinking.  Hoping we weren't causing too much trouble.  When I said some of this to our team mates I could see their faces light up.  Forgive us for forgetting what it is like to be new, and rootless!  Communication is a human attribute, so the entry into a new country where one can not communicate is rather dehumanizing.  And as people grow, they develop in the context of relationship.  Suddenly being in a new country, plucked out of the complex web, is strangely disorienting.  I hope I can remember that as our intern arrives this weekend.

So as we crossed the border back into Uganda, what a relief.  Before we were even through customs a friendly voice (in English) was calling "Doctor, how are you!"  The comprehension, linguistic and relational, was back.  Tuesday Scott and I basically walked around greeting people, something we don't do enough, spending the lunch period with the CSB staff, then Alpha Primary, Melen, the Health Center, some friends along the road.  We knew who we were talking to, and how to say it.  Weds he was in marathon school meetings and I caught up with cooking and survival, and today I went to the hospital while Scott is working on financial and computer issues.  It's good to be home.

However, we still feel the unease of ambiguity.  Who are we for these next 3 to 4 weeks?  Not team leaders anymore, and Scott is not officially Field Director until November.  We have entered the transition zone in a major way.  Suddenly it's all up for grabs:  where to start, who to give what, when or if to go to the hospital, how to arrange life temporarily while closing it up.  This is unfamiliar territory once again.  Not quite Congo, but not quite normal Bundibugyo life either.  The kids feel it. Are they still CSB students?  Will teachers be offended if they don't go to class?  Will they crumble emotionally if we push them to keep up old routines while plunging into packing and closure?  

So we need prayer in the ambiguity of this season, help in navigating this shadowy country of not-quite-gone-but-fading.

Congo Diaries, part 7

We have been traveling in Eastern Congo for almost a week, but without internet access, so all the posts have been piling up. Short version: flew to Bunia, drove to Nyankunde where a mission hospital is being resurrected, and then Epulu to see the famed Okapi Reserve. Back via Oicha and Beni. About 640 km of driving through an area that has been known for war, destruction, rape, and death on an unprecedented scale over the last decade-and-then-some (in the last year we've been to Rwanda, South Sudan, Gulu, and now East Congo, sort of have a theme going). But also a region that is rich in mission history, and on the verge of re-emergence. In most of the place, life goes on, as it ever has, in simple subsistence and family, work and worship. When the troubling conflicts are acknowledged, they are uneasily relegated to outside influences. The MONUC presence is muted, behind brick walls and barbed wire, and probably resented. And in this place where missionaries laid down their lives, countless Catholic priests and nuns and then the faith-based American missions we visited in Bunia, Nyankunde, Oicha, and Beni, in spite of much darkness the Kingdom holds on, both in people and in institutions. It is easy to be bleak and critical about Congo from afar, even from just over the border where we've watched. Our original "Africa Team" calling as we came out of college was to invest in the Batalinga of Eastern Congo, until we found out they are the same as the more numerous Babwisi of Western Uganda where World Harvest asked us to go instead. And as it turned out, in spite of our own rebels and Ebola and other heartaches, Bundibugyo has been a more stable base, and we see God's mercy in giving us that place to love. But a part of our hearts has always listened and ached for Eastern Congo, and now rejoices to see much good here.

For the long version, read the six posts below.

Hotel Congo

You can check in, but you can't check out. At least that's how we felt today (Monday). It's been a long time on the road. And we have a lot to do in Bundi. So from the moment we woke up this morning, we were eagerly anticipating being HOME.

Only Joel had to do some things at his conservation office in Beni first, anticipating an hour delay, so we took the opportunity to visit one more mission hospital. Nyankunde-Beni, another in the network of CME Chrisitan hospitals in East Congo. Basically when rebels smashed Nyankunde, the staff fled to Beni. And rather than sitting in stunned displacement, they found themselves an old building, renovated it, and opened a hospital. Like the proverbial backfire of martyrdom and persecution, the attack on Nyahkunde merely led to its duplication. Now five years later, they have purchased a large tract of land to build an even bigger, new facility. Meanwhile four Congolese doctors perform over a thousand surgeries/year, deliver babies, admit patients, manufacture IV fluids, run a pharmacy, preach and heal. Dr. Justin led us around. Like Dr. Mike at the original Nyankunde he grew up on the mission station but was at school when disaster struck. He and his wife now run this thriving, growing hospital, with input from Samaritan's Purse again, and visits by missionaries. The most fun was meeting the senior nurse, Mr. D, who is Dr. J's father. Mr. D's parents became Christians in 1931 when CT Studd preached in NE Congo, moved to Nyankunde to support the mission and church there. Now their grandson is the medical director of an off-shoot of that work. Again, the sense of history is amazing, and to shake hands with someone whose parents heard the preaching of one of the greatest missionaries ever, and to see the thread of continuity, the generations of bearing fruit.

From the hospital it began to be clear that the day was not going to go as efficiently as we hoped. The driver was making statements about mechanical work that needed to be done on the truck, which is probably always true, but we suspected he really did NOT want to drive to the border. Many times with the language barrier (French and Swahili only, forget English!), Joel's relaxed no-hurry style, and being guests, it was hard to tell what was just the Congolese pace and what was a passive-aggressive slow-down. Anyway it was out of our hands, so we accepted an invitation to visit the new UCBC (French initials for the Bilingual Christian University of Congo) and attend chapel, a rousing pentecostal-style service with a lot of electronics and speakers and good preaching and earnest good will. After the service Joel appeared, looking a bit shaken. The driver was now completely refusing to go further, because rumors were circulating that the ADF had distributed a letter in the last week threatening to attack, perhaps along that road.

You can't check out. It was now getting close to noon. Visions of another day in Beni, another week in Congo trying to get home by another route, began to loom. The University people thought they could send a driver, but then theirs refused too. Bundibugyo was only 100 km away, but so out of reach. We sent prayer alerts. And within another half hour had some good data: the MONUC forces and the US state department both knew of the threat and troop movements, but there had been no incidents, and neither considered the situation unusually dangerous. Our driver went to the taxi park and talked to others coming from that direction. Suddenly the threat lifted, and a third party was found who owned a Pajero and agreed to take us on the road for $50. Only it took him another hour to show up, and then we had to collect our bags and his phone and fuel and whatever. Finally we headed East.

The Mbau to Kamongo road is a bit of a track. Much better than a decade ago, we're told, when it was a bicycle path. Now there is a one-lane dirt road, sometimes with grass growing in the middle, many dips and curves, bumps and holes. It was slow, tedious going. Sparse population again, and frightening amounts of charcoal for sale. Until you drive for an hour through the Virunga Park and the forest seems endless.

The road seemed endless. Beautiful, but so long, as the day was fading and we knew Heidi was waiting for us on the Uganda side of the border. Just a few formalities for leaving Congo . . . which drug into another hour. We sat in a cramped room while a semi-hostile mostly-bored young man scrutinized every detail of every page of every passport. And insisted that Julia's photo was not of her, that this was not her passport. Asked her details, like her middle name, and age. She was not rattled. I was. Joel kept explaining that we were her parents. Then he did the same with Jack. Then he heard we were doctors and questioned us about AIDS at length, with rather explicit transmission details. We all just wanted to get to Uganda before dark. Heidi was trying to detain the immigration official there, as we kept exchanging sms's. But even after all the passports were cleared, more men needed us to unpack all our clothes from our backpacks and show them everything. It was invasive and a power-play. But also probably just confusing to them. They probably only get a handful of people with passports and baggage a year. This is not a well-traveled road. Most of the traffic is local trade.

Finally we emerged, and shouldered our packs, and walked through the knee-deep border river, the Lamia, amidst stony currents and women washing clothes and boda-drivers looking for fares. Uganda! I think it was our 7th border crossing of this long trip, and by far the hardest, and the most dramatic (actually walking IN the river, after all). And the Ugandan officials had not left thanks to Heidi, and she gave us all (including the official) a ride back to Nyahuka.

So thankful to have taken this trip, but the long road home shows it is not a route to be undertaken lightly, or often.

Epulu to Beni, more mission history

Sunday

Early morning tea, the smoky taste of water boiled over a fire. Last group photos with Mama Asumpta and her 8-month old Joelle. Finding out the pick-up to take us out is also carrying considerable cargo and a half dozen other people. Swahili jangling tinny praise music on endless-loop tapes fills the cabin of the truck. The now-familiar domed leaf-and-pole structures of pygmy camps, the inevitable African scenes of boys kicking a football and women slinging heavy baskets onto their backs, old couples sitting under thatched kitubis by a fire, wooden shack shops selling cooking oil and sodas. A quick glimpse of three men dancing in unison to a radio in a forest clearing. A small rope rigged up with inexplicable hope to right an overturned truck in a jungly ditch. Another town where women were circling a compound, waving leaves in their familiar shuffling dance. An outdoor barbering session. All glimpsed at a breakneck 60 to 80 km/hr on a remarkably well graded road that occasionally degraded into muddy ruts. Jack throws up into the handy bag I pocketed from the seatback on our last flight. Another day in the car.

We passed east today, back through Mambasa and on to Komanda, where the eastern-most north-south route intersects the Bunia road, and where we turned south towards Beni. And as soon as we did, the atmosphere changed. Congo up to then had looked like Uganda, moslty, or rather our part of Uganda ten to fifteen years ago. But when we turned south we began to parallel the Bundibugyo border. ADF territory, the deep forests and unmarked trails of Mt Hoyo and the underpopulated expanses towards the Blue Mountains. Almost all the houses in this area are simple mud and thatch, but now even the mud was crumbling. Roofs were patchy. Gardens were few. Compounds were pitifully small and decaying. We passed what looked to me like IDP camps, huddled clusters of tiny shelters that were mere pole and sheeting. Even to us, who see Bundibugyo as "normal", this stretch looked beleaguered, poor. This was the epicenter of some of Congo's worst violence, and people are still wary. In the last two weeks rebels/bandits/ADF or NALU or just marginal men, attacked an army post nearby, a little detail we did not hear until we were passing by. The people are clearly surviving on making and selling charcoal. Our driver stopped to buy two bags, $5 each here, worth $25 by the time it gets to Goma much further south.

And then, suddenly, a paved road began. Part of China's agreement to invest in infrastructure in Congo while taking 25 years of mineral and resource rights in some areas. In the middle of nowhere, a line of transformation. Beautiful, smooth, unblemished, just-completed tarmac. And almost immediately, the border to North Kivu, and a marked increase in population density. Towns. Bicycles. Churches. Signs. People. More people. And a premonition of Bundi-to-come, where pedestrians throng with their historic proprietary air along the way, but where vehicles can now careen at terrible speeds. I saw our speedometer hit 120 km/hr a couple of times.

In no time we reached Oicha, and again the group graciously agreed to pause and let us tour the hospital. This was a medical center built in the 1930's by Dr. Carl Becker, now in the last decade almost completely renovated. The old Belgian-style brick bungalow staff houses are still there, but spacious new wards bear both Bible verses in Swahili and signs for UN programs to treat women affected by the sexual violence for which this area of the world is notorious. We were shown, reverently, pictures of Dr. Becker and his wife on faded calendars (I was told I look like her) while the all-Congolese staff proudly showed us around a very functional hospital. I noted on a map that Oicha is the center of the health district that would include the little corner of Congo over our border. The patient volume was about twice that of Nyahuka, with about five times the space and equipment. This is the town that the late Dr. Jonah fled to with his family the morning that we all ran in different directions under attack in June of 1997. He ended up working here in Oicha while we worked in Kijabe, until it was safe for all of us to come back, or at least it seemed safer in Uganda than in Congo.

And at last our pavement took us, smoothly, all the way to Beni, another city. Huge UN bases, barbed wire, containers, blue-hatted soldiers from Nepal. Two-story shops, signs in French and Swahili, lots of cars. We are about 75 km west of the Uganda border here, either east through Kamongo, Japonda and then to Busunga (our route tomorrow) or southeast through Bwera towards Kagondo and Kasese (by far the main route). And our day ended as only a trip in Congo can: in an outdoor restaurant run by a man born here to Greek parents, sitting around plastic table sipping tonic water imported from Kampala, while a wing-clipped hawkish black kite harried a cluster of four hustling anxious guinea fowl wandering the courtyard, next to a fountain inhabited by a turtle and four small crocodiles (yes, real ones), cheering with the Congolese as Ghana won the first African victory in the World Cup, chatting with three young American missionaries who are lending a year of their lives to teach at a new bilingual Christian University which a highly educated Congolese couple are turning from dream into reality in Beni. Crazy and wonderful, from the concrete visions of the Beckers to the 21st century ventures of "their" Congolese grandchildren.

The Okapi, or Happy Birthday to Me

I (Jennifer) have had a long fascination with the okapi. So I have often said that before I die, I want to see the okapi in Congo, the only country in the world where they are known to exist (though there is evidence that some might be in the border regions of Uganda). They are large, sleek, mysterious, evasive, beautiful animals, elusive in their shyness, improbable in their formation, sometimes referred to as forest giraffe. The size of a large horse, with a rump and legs that are striped with irregular unique black and white patterns like a zebra, a long neck and curving grey agile tongue like their cousins the giraffe, and a shining chocolate coated body. Peacefully vegetarian, gracefully strong. Expressive oversized ears that fold to and fro, cautious, alert, delicately fringed by the vicissitudes of life. But it is the face that strikes me, the grey-white leanness almost skull like with large dark eyes, cheeks shadowed and hollowed, haunting, a visage that speaks of suffering endured. Beauty coupled with pain, the okapi embodies the life of the rainforest.

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In the wild okapi live solitary lives, roaming the forest, grazing the foliage, swiftly running from danger. So one could see them as contemplative souls too, those dark eyes and hidden lives, choosing their quiet isolation.

I don't know why I've always been drawn to the okapi, but now that I'm here, I'm blessed to have seen them. And even touched one. A Swiss couple, the Ruf's, collected a few, and an American couple, John and Terese Hart, began to study and advocate for the reserve a couple of decades ago. The okapi are a protected species with a limited habitat, and their survival is tied to that of the rainforest, the Bambuti people, the monkeys and leopards and hornbills and trees, a way of life, a planet. Bambuti people roam the forest gathering data, tracking points with gps, noticing signs of wildlife, marking evidence of poaching. Joel and his colleagues transform the data into maps and policies, working hand in hand with the ICCN (Congo's park service) and the UN. And thirteen of the animals live in pens at the central research station, spacious forested holding areas. About half were captured in the 80's and early 90's, and the other half were born on the station. These animals represent the twenty or thirty thousand that are thought to exist in the reserve, the public face of a species that needs attention. And the occasional school group or Bangladeshi peacekeeping soldier or missionary or reporter or scientist comes to visit, and leaves awed, which is a good thing for all.

This was not a convenient trip. Epulu is not exactly on the way to anywhere we "need" to go from Bundibugyo. Joel's gracious invitation to visit and my family's patience with travel (it is good to have a 12 and 13 year old who can eat antelope and trek forests and ride all day in the car without food and don't mind outhouses or bucket baths) have made it possible for this to be my most memorable birthday (well, this is the right month if not yet the day, and my 16th was pretty great) yet. We know the next four weeks will be a crush of responsibility and grief and these extra few days in Congo feel extravagant right now. But most real gifts are not very practical.

And as I turn 48 (!!), may the okapi remind us of the value of the examined life, the call to contemplation. The life of the herd has its own force, the communal push for survival of the group, defensive, nurturing, continuous, strong. But we are stepping back from the herd and from Bundi for a couple of years, not exactly to wander the forest alone, but hopefully affording some sense of hermitage. God most often reveals Himself in hard, lonely, away-from-the crowd places, from deserts to mountaintops to whale bellies. So let this be the years of the okapi, for us.

Take a Pygmy with a Panga . . .

And other travel advice, from Congo.

1. Don't wander around taking too many pictures in large towns. On our stomach-churning all-day journey westward from Nyankunde, we passed villages, and old Belgian administrative posts with their abandoned but still impressive brick villas with steep clay tile roofs. Mud and thatch homes, cassava and corn, bright fabrics, ingenious little raffia containers of charcoal. Bridges, some spanning rivers turned brown by gold-mining upstream. Long stretches of nothing. Bumpy marrum, bold driving. Then we pulled into Mambasa, a major trading town, where the East-West and a North-South route intersect. And where the sense of oppression mingled with car-sickness. As we stretched waiting for our WCS colleagues to confer, we were accosted by two very agitated and aggressive immigration officials demanding some sort of tax. It took Joel's WCS co-worker about an hour to talk our passports through. Meanwhile a schizophrenic man harangued Joel about Obama, some beggars materialized asking for handouts, women stood around selling murky substances from previously-used bottles, and I sat on any available spot trying not to throw up. It was a harsh town. Prayed weakly through the hour or so there, and wondered how much of Eastern Congo has emerged from chaos into the hands of the unscrupulous.

2. Hook up with a good NGO. Wildlife Conservation Society is a remarkable organization. Efficient, dedicated, disciplined, helpful. We have been well cared for. We entered the forest soon after Mambasa, the vast Okapi reserve, which is itself the size of some small countries. Dense rain forest in all directions. WCS works with the community to define restricted agricultural zones near the roads, working to protect the environment and feed the population in a sustainable and cooperative manor. Joel is another hero, a young American in his mid-20's, immersed in an all-Congolese staff at a remote jungle station, living locally and learning language. He was a short-term missionary with us, which is how we know each other. If more young believers would spend themselves like this applying science (GIS mapping skills in this case) to both preserve the beauty of creation and make the planet sustainably live-able!

3. Believe what you read in the news. Our trip into the rainforest could have been scripted by CNN. We passed men with "bush-meat", dead monkeys tied by their tails in bundles, smoked and ready for export. We passed swathes of deforested areas, trucks of planks for lumber export, new gardens springing up. We passed bags of charcoal. The bush meat trade, the population pressure for agriculture and fuels, the foreign market for wood, all threaten this environment.

4. If you want to enjoy the World Cup played in Africa, watch it with Africans. We saw the opening match outdoors under a tarp, the TV powered by solar panels and connected by a satellite, deep in the forest, monkeys scattering and rain threatening. By the time the game was well under-way I counted 47 people watching, having collected from the WCS network and the village nearby. South Africa represents the image, the concept, the pride of the whole continent, and as 5 Americans (us and Joel) we were caught up in the energy of 42 Congolese.

5. And most importantly, when you leave the thin cleared line of the road and venture into the forest itself, take a pygmy with a panga. We hiked about 15 km in the Ituri yesterday (Friday). led by a wizened man of uncertain age who had long ago traded his bark cloth for a Puma hat and Nike tennis shoes. But he still managed to wind us through confusing footpaths, hack out vine-encrusted spaces, and point out okapi footprints, evidence of their grazing. And aardvark holes. And elephant dung. He didn't say much, but along the way Tambo managed to collecct a large mushroon "very necessary for eating" and hack off tree sap "for candles", which he exported in little leaf pouches he constructed while walking. We passed a former Bambuti (pygmy) encampment, the small branch and leaf shelters already dissolving back into the forest. Dripping glistening leaves, speckled sunlight, hidden birds, sucking mud. Trunks too large for even two people to encircle with their arms, necks craning to look up at the soaring leaf cover danced by monkeys, straining to look down for treacherous footing. Our trek ended on an "inselberg", a kind of kopje or rocky outcropping that rises here and there in the sea of the green canopy. And then we traversed the forest back again.

Nyankunde, building redemption

Ruth and Rich D, I am quite certain, do not want to be anyone's heros. Or Dr. Mike U. But together they are, out of personal loss and weakness, redeeming Nyahkunde.

Nyankunde is a legendary mission station. I grew up reading the accounts of missionary stalwarts of the last century who poured their lives into it. After the post-independence Simba uprising in Eastern Congo in the early 1960's, the missionaries who returned cooperated to form what would become the region's premier referral and teaching center. There was a thriving hospital, nursing and other professional schools, a church, printing press, primary and secondary schools for kids. Missionaries from 5 organizations supported it with professional services. Names like Dr. Carl Becker, Dr. Helen Roseveare, Dr. Dick Bransford, all spent significant portions of their careers here. Ruth and Rich, an OB surgeon and an engineer, spent 20 years from 1965 to 1985 raising a family and creating the place. We meet people who speak of Nyankunde with tenderness in medical circles all the time. Our Congolese colleague from Hopkins was raised there, and an entire generation of others were impacted. And we've spent our lives in what would be, in another world, a parallel region only an hour's drive south, instead of a politically and geographically isolated impossible distance away. So we were pretty eager to see this place at least once.

However, in 2003-4, when the BaHima and the BaLendu errupted in another round of the conflicts that have wracked Eastern Congo for the last decade-plus, Nyankunde was devastated. Decimated would be too mild a word. People were slaughtered. Dr. Mike, who grew up there, lost his mother and siblings (he escaped by being in school far away), even though he was from an unrelated tribe, caught in the crossfire of hate. Not just the foreigners, but EVERYONE fled. Rebels, bandits, looters, opportunists came in and stripped the place bare. Furniture, household items, books, shelves, dishes, gone. Roofs gone. Window frames, doors, electric outlets, gone. Within a year the place looked like a bombed shell of a century-old institution. Rain fell, vines grew, trees sprouted. Only foundations and crumbling walls remained on most buildings, though a few that had asbestos harder-to-steal roofing survived. It is difficult not to see such a maelstrom of terror and destruction in spiritual terms. This was a place created by God's people as a center for healing, learning, and good. And it was wiped out.

When peace was restored, some of those missionaries started to ask, should we come back? The church, planted by Plymouth Bretheren, persevered. And some of those Congolese, like Dr. Mike., heard God's call. He came to visit and changed his one-day plan to a one-week stay when he was bombarded by medical needs, then moved with his wife and two tiny daughters into a now-decrepit house to begin to redeem Nyankunde. Now Samaritan's Purse has taken up the cause. There is one Japanese woman who trains lab workers, and Dr. Ruth who works in maternity, and a growing staff of Congolese working with Dr. Mike. Rich D, who BUILT THE ORIGINAL STATION IN 1965, now in his 70's, has started over. His ingenious water system survived. He's supervising a team of workmen, up every day to take roll call at 7 am, out on the construction site with his hands in the process. Across from the tragic shell of their old home, Ruth and Rich live in the first rehabbed home, which they have made beautiful. Ruth can barely walk without a cane, and moves about the station on an ATV. The day we arrived she had been intercepted on her way to early staff prayers to assist in a complicated surgery, saving the life of a women whose uterus had ruptured due to poor care in labor. After 20 years on the field and 20 years in the states, this couple is back at an age when most people have long since retired to an easier way of life, and this in spite of serious medical problems and dear children and grandchildren far away. And they are doing this quietly, obscurely, cheerfully, not with bitterness or judgement. They are doing it for God, and for the people they love.

So though they do not want to be heros, they are right at the end of Hebrews 11. And what pictures they are of God, who created a beautiful world which we ruined, but then returned to redeem and rebuild, to renew and restore, not leaving us to what we deserve, but pouring life back into earth. At a cost, the highest cost, the cost of blood and love.

Into Congo, hearts of brightness

(Saturday) Dozens of red tail monkeys are leaping, cavorting, munching, pausing, chasing through the tree tops as we pause outside our banda here are the Okapi Forest Reserve research station, a clearing of scientific industry deep in the rainforest. But I get ahead of myself . . .

On Wednesday we boarded a MAF flight bound for Bunia, DRC. It has been our dream to make it to Congo someday, the original destination of our "Africa team" from college. Though we've ventured over our border a couple of times, we have looked for an opportunity to go further. Our former intern Joel knew I always wanted to see the Okapi, so he kept graciously inviting us to Epulu, where he is on assignment with the Wildlife Conservation Society. As a team and now as field director, exploring the mission needs in war-recovering Eastern Congo has also been on our agenda. It was now or never, with Joel easing our way and our path about to take us far from Africa for the rest of the year. So we found ourselves flying a route from Entebbe that was only a slight degree off from our usual route to Bundibugyo. The Rwenzori cluster of sheer rock and snow penetrated the clouds to the south as we passed over Lake Albert and then met the green plateau of Eastern Congo, sliced with ravines and criss-crossed with cow paths, and then suddenly a town many times the size of anything in Bundibugyo or even Fort Portal or Kasese, a town we've lived probably about 50 miles south of for 17 years and never even seen. Bunia has a tarmac international airport, UN helicopters in readiness on the ground, sand-bagged and barb-wired army positions, flood lights and gun-ready defenses. We shouldered our backpacks and followed the handful of aid-NGO-workers chattering in French to the old airport building where there seemed to be a system that everyone was supposed to know, but we didn't. Thankfully we were rescued by Joel and skipped the intensive bag-search to go directly to a visa-purchase room where a woman at a table meticulously copied all the details of our passports onto a blank sheet of paper, stamped our passports, and then charged us $60 per person for a one-week-valid entry permit. Only that took about half an hour, because she wanted to inspect every $100 bill we owned. Scott would pay, she would exit the room, then come back and point out a millimeter tear on one edge of the crisp bill, and demand another. So he'd pull out his wallet, exchange, she'd leave, then come back and show him a stray pen mark, exchange again. I suppose people must get confused if it's done often enough and loose $100 along the way, but we finally emerged into the bright heat of the Bunia afternoon and piled into Joel's Wildlife Conservation Society Landrover with Herman, the driver.

Through the town, past the MONUC headquarters, the blue and white old Greek building with its barbed-wire-rolled walls that looked exactly like the pictures from TIME magazine during the worst of the conflicts there. Past the dukas, the crumbling colonial buildings, the shacks and shops, to Shalom University. This is an old Bible School that has branched out into development studies and graduate work, training pastors and teachers and leaders for the recovering Congo. We had met Dana and Ted W when we were all taking Kijabe respites from war in the late 90's. Ted walked us through the buildings, including a brand new library and lab full of lap-top computers, then past a parade of singing women who were leading the wife of one of the students up to support her husband as he defends his thesis! This family has spent most of their life in Bunia, their children now grown and in the US, they have returned to invest in another generation of students. Dana took us to the hospital where our Congolese MPH colleague Tony U used to work as an ophthalmologist, and where she and another veteran missionary couple whom we meet at most CMDA conferences over the years have worked.

We were a bit rushed to make it to Nyankunde by nightfall, so we pressed on out of town heading slightly south-west, across savannah, wide open spaces, the Blue Mountains which we see to our North in Bundi now forming a ridge to the south that blocked our view of the Rwenzoris. Herman sped along the marrum road, Joel in the front and we four Myhres in the back, all of it looking so much like home. Teeteringly overcrowded trucks, one roadblock where men in fatigues seemed to be extracting money from others, but our WCS status eased us through. After about an hour we saw the village and mission station about a third of the way up an escarpment to the left. After many enquiries we finally found Dr. Ruth and Rich D, the missionaries who had agreed to put us up for the night. We knew their niece in Chicago, and made a connection via our acquaintances in Bunia. We were received with a warmth of hospitality that left us feeling unworthy, here we were an entire group imposing for the evening with nothing but curiosity and respect to offer, and we were enfolded like Kingdom family. More on Nyankunde to follow . .

Hearts of Brightness, we were told, was the interesting play-on-words title given to a nature documentary about this area of Congo. As I reflect on our first 24 hours in the country, that phrase captures the place. Everywhere we were met with openness, kindness, helpfulness (well, except the visa lady, but even that was amicable). people of courage. We struck up conversation in the airport with a missionary lady Tony who had been in Congo since 1981, and exuded a comfortable graciousness as she put everyone in the visa office at ease with her Swahili and French. Eastern Congo from the outside is known for tribalism, pillage, rape, disaster. But it is sprinkled like salt with bright-hearted people, patient and brave to persist against all odds.