Dungu Update 2

I have returned to Dungu after spending Christmas with the Medair team in Bunia. Christmas was a pretty quiet affair this year, I spent New Years Eve at the MONUC (UN) house with some Medair teammates, UN peacekeepers from Morocco and the Guatemalan special forces. Different definately!

The local population in Dungu were fearing the worst over Christmas. In Dec 2008, the LRA launched a series of horrific attacks in the town. LRA activity had intensified at the end of this last year, creating a lot of concern in and around Dungu.

Security remained calm over the festivities, but has continued to intensify since my return in early January. Why? Well certainly the LRA seem to have reorganised in Congo. The Congolese military presence has been reduced dramatically, as the government tries to fight a new rebellion in the Equateur Province. There are also elections in South Sudan in April, followed by more elections in Congo and Uganda in 2011. All mitigating factors maybe, and the LRA seem to be making the most of their opportunity, with attacks happening all over NE Congo.

Anzway, im doing fine. Medair and all the NGOs are working as much as possible to help as many people as possible affected by this ongoing crisis. Please pray for the work of Medair and those affected in the DR Congo.

Living Dangerously for God

Living dangerously for God. What does this mean and why do i want to talk about it.

I have been reading Joshua recently. Near the end of his life, Joshua challenged the Israelites to make a life changing decision: Choose for youselves this day whom you will serve, whether the Gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the Gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household we will serve the Lord (Joshua 24,15). The people responded with `Far be it from us to forsake the Lord to serve other Gods (Joshua 24, 16). They were taken aback, perhaps even offended by Joshuas challenge.

Then Joshua emphatically stated `You are not able to serve the Lord, He is a Holy God, a jealous God (Joshua 24,19). Can you imagine the indignation you would have felt if you had not been in the crowd that day. I am not able. Who does he think he is?

Israel missed the point. Their faith was based on what God had done for them not who he was. Joshua meant that God is so holy that we cannot to begin to fathom the depth of his character. he is so jealous that he will not accept anything less than total commitment. A token resolution to follow God is not transformational. Joshua was not asking for lip service, but for a life of absoloute and constant surrender to God.

How does this work practically.Is God really first in your life? I feel like God has brought me to a place where I am not completely certain of where he wants me to be in the future, but still that i am completely walking in his will. I have an amazing peace about the direction my life is taking, I trust the Lord completely and I am very content to live out a dangerous faith. There is nothing to fear.

Engagement and marriage

I am very happy to say that Jennie and I announced are engagement just a couple of days ago. I spoke to Jennie`s father and asked for his permission to marry his amazing daughter. We are both very excited about what the future holds. God has opened up so much for us in the last few months, and we are excited to see what adventures he holds in store for us over the next few years. We plan to be married at the end of July, in Denver USA. This obviously means that I will not be extending my Medair contract at the end of May.

There are some things we would like people to pray into for us over the next few months

Fiancee Visa. To get married legally in the USA I have to be granted a fiancee visa. These normally take 5 months to process, and I will even have to go for an interview in the US embassy in London. So theroetcially, we should not have a problem with the timeframe. If you can pray for us anyway, that there will be no delay`s in this process.

From now until the end of May I will be living and working in the DR Congo. Jennie will be working in Kampala. I will be able to see Jennie on my visits to Uganda for holiday, but please pray for protection over us as we will sadly have to spend some time apart over the the next few months.

Please continue to pray for us as we prepare to get married and spend our lives us together, that the Lord will bless us, continue to guide us and show us exactly where he wants us to be. Please pray that God will always be at the centre of our relationship and that he continues to work so actively in our lives. Please pray we can surrender our life to him.

We are truly blessed.

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas from the Congo! Its strange being in a warmer climate at Christmas, especially when its snowing so much at home. I dont like being away from my fiancee Jennie or my family, but there is one good thing about being in the Congo at this time of year. I escape all the commercial hype that Christmas means in the Western world. A friend recently sent me a link to the Advent Conspiracy website. www.adventconspiracy.org/

The story of Christ`s birth is a story of Promise, hope and a revolutionary love.

So what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a Savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams and shopping lists.

And when its all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to clear, and this empty feeling of missed puropse. Is this really what we want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world changing event again?

An opprtunity to focus on the message Jesus brought to this world.

I will leave you with that message, a very merry Xmas to all.

Dungu Update

Sorry I have not written in a while, but Im in Dungu now...and there is very little internet coonection here. I took up my new role as base support manager 2 weeks ago. I had a fantastic holiday with the beautiful Jennie in SW Uganda, visiting Lake Bunyone and the Virunga volcano range. Pretty spectacular. (I'm sure most of you have seen the photo's on facebook by now - I certainly don't have the bandwith to upload any photo's here)

And now im in Dungu. Whats in Dungu..well not much to be honest. Its a small town in North East Congo, approximately 250 km from the Sudan border. About 1 year ago the LRA crisis exploded here. The LRA have long since been forced out of town, but they are not that far away. There are reports of LRA attacks about 60KM away from here, with Congolese and Ugandan armz forces present everywhere.

What are Medair doing here? We run an emergency health project, providng equipment, medication and supervision, in the main hospitals and health centres. At the moment, treatment for the local population and IDP's is completely free in all Medair programmes. Thats an amazing gift we can give the impoverished population here. Martin Luther King said it was every persons human right to have access to health care.

We have just had our programme extended here for another year Praise God. The LRA are still very much a present force in north Eastern Congo, and continue to penetrate CAR and South Sudan. so there is much work to be done.

I promise to write more soon. I will be in Congo for Christmas, in Bunia next week, so I will have a much better internet connection in the base there.

Bye for now.

Team Life

`Our life is full of brokenness - broken relationships, broken promises, broken expectations. How can we live with that brokenness without becoming bitter and resentful except by returning again and again to God's faithful presence in our lives.` A quote from Henri Nouwen.

When I first started to think about joining Medair, one of the great attractions was the sense of community and belonging that a role with the organisation offered. Living alongside other Christians, from all over the world, all working together to serve the most vulnerable. To me, it sounded like an amazing opportunity to part of a unique community, living with like minded people.

Its therefore pretty ironic that this community has started to become one of the greatest challenges about being here in the DR Congo. Maybe i was naive, I would prefer to think that i was hopeful and optimistic. I have been surprised by some of the dysfunctionality that exists in our team here, and im talking specifically about the international team.

Of course, with our colleagues from the Congo, there are huge cultural differences which sometimes make it difficult to work together. I did not expect so many problems between a group of people who come mostly from Europe and North America.

Life in the field is intense, there is no doubt about that. People grow tired and weary, especially those who have been here for a longer period. Stress levels can be high emergencies can develop pretty quickly. We definately find ourselves under spiritual attack , we are working on the front line after all, soldiers for God. In Bunia, where I have been based for the last 3 weeks, there is a very heavy spiritual feeling. No doubt the results of many years of war and conflict and the terrible things that have been done here. There are all sorts of reasons that contribute to this level of dysfunctionality we are experiencing at the moment. Not that i think any of these are good excuses.

Christ says in Hebrews that we are a Royal Priesthood, that we stand out. Im not sure that we have been doing that as a team here recently. By my own admission I have pretty high expectations of myself and the people around me. Perhaps there is a lesson for me in all of this, to display the same grace God has extened to me, to show that grace and love to the people around me, I can be pretty impatient at the best of times .

Maybe its a lesson that we are all human, we all have weakness and people do from time to time disappoint us. Through the ups and downs Im being stretched and challenged thats for sure, and that can only be a good thing....

Prison Break

In my role as acting country director for the Medair programme, I am based in Bunia, the location of our main support base in the Congo. Bunia has been badly affected by ethnic conflict in recent years. Even today, there is a huge MONUC (United Nations) presence in town. The war that raged has all but ended, but there is still banditry and general lawlessness in town. I can hear gunshots most nights, especially fom the local Prison.

The conditions of the prisons in the Congo is quite frankly dreadful and to be quite honest, a complete affront to human dignity. Conditions are so bad that prisoners will reguarly risk their lives trying to escape, the exchange of gunfire that follows can be heard almost every night at the Medair compund.

The statement below comes from a recent UN report on social justice in the DR Congo. For Goma, read Bunia. The condition of the prison here is rumored to be equally as apalling.

`My interlocutors, including the Minister of Justice, who is responsible for the penitentiary system, unanimously agreed that prison conditions are atrocious. I visited the Central Prison of Goma and spoke with detainees there. In a prison built to hold 150, over 800 prisoners live in squalor. They receive one inadequate meal per day from the prison authorities, and rely essentially on food brought by their families. Because internal control of the prison is entirely left to the inmates, the stronger prisoners take the lion’s share of the provided food. The weaker prisoners and those without family nearby gradually become emaciated, and especially vulnerable to disease. Not surprisingly, many die in prison.

The number of prisons and prisoners in the Congo is unknown. Totally inadequate records of prisoners are kept and many are left rotting in prison even after their sentence has been served. The great majority of prisoners have never been tried before a judge. In essence, the prison system seems to be a depository for the enemies of the state and for those too poor to buy their way out of the justice system. The abominable conditions, together with corruption and minimal state control, mean that escapes are common, thus adding further to impunity`

How can anybody be expected to live in such a way. Some of these prisoners have not even been proved guilty, they are awaiting trial. The prsion sytem is just one of numerous problems this country has to overcome as they try to rebuild after years of conflict. But nobody should have their dignity stripped away like this?