congo, 3 year old girl, heal africa, & the andersons

certain people radiate the grace of jesus.  dick and judy anderson are such people.  i met them several years ago at a wedding. their son, chad (now on the leadership team at quest) was getting married to melinda.  i had the privilege of flying out to beautiful iowa to officiate their wedding. 

anyway, dick and judy anderson are friends of quest; through friendship and prayer, we support their work.  i’m not sure what to call them; they aren’t traditional missionaries - they are involved and invited to many places to aid in the work of reconciliation.  the work of RECONCILIATION, ultimately, is the work that God has called us to - to HIM and to neighbors.  they’ve spent many many years working in africa and particularly in goma, congo.  they helped start, i believe, an organization called, Heal Africa, in the congo city of goma.  this past year, our global presence pastor,leah was able to trek from uganda to spend some time with the andersons.  she says it was a life changing experience.  unjin lee, a member at quest and who started her year long internship at quest this month, will be taking a two week trip from 10/18-11/2 as part of the christian peacemaker team delegation of 10 women who will go to congo to meet with congolese women who have been raped as a weapon of warfare.  it is a brutal and painful story.

and speaking of timing, anderson cooper, a prominent newcaster of cnn, featured the painful story of a three year old girl (now five) who was gang raped allegedly by soldiers.  t, my 2nd daughter, is now five years old.  i saw the taped delayed report on cnn and all i could do was weep.  in his report, anderson cooper also shares about Heal Africa and their work and ministry.

There are some things you see, some things you hear that simply are unspeakable. In a hospital in the eastern Congo city of Goma, we met a little girl. She never said a word to us, she could barely look us in the eyes. When she did, her eyes told the story.

“She never says anything to men,” one of the hospital counselors explained, and then she told us why.

The little girl was raped. Gang-raped. It was allegedly done by soldiers engaged in a complicated regional war that has claimed millions of lives. The war officially ended in 2003, but outbreaks of violence and rape continue. The girl is now five years old. She was raped when she was three.

I wish I could tell you this was an extraordinary event. I wish I could tell you she was the only child attacked. The hospital was full of rape victims, and the doctor had seen other small children victimized.

Because the rapes are so violent, women often develop fistulas — ruptures in their vaginas or rectums that make it impossible to control bodily functions. A charity called Heal Africa was running this hospital, and the doctor said he was able to fix about 70-80 percent of the fistula cases, but of course some wounds never heal.

Heal Africa has opened up a residence for women with fistulas that can’t be surgically fixed, at least not here in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The women can’t go home. Often they’ve been rejected by their husbands because they were raped. The stigma here is strong. [click here to read the full story + comments of some of the viewers...]