Other people’s lives can leave us wondering how they get through each day. We received some Heshima (Comfort Congo’s project supporting survivors of sexual violence in DRC) sponsorship reports today. It struck me, as I read them, how difficult it was for me to comprehend what life in a warzone is like. Every area of their lives was affected. Even where they could go to buy potatoes depended on where they would not get kidnapped or violated. How do we imagine a daily life like that?
For a child, the reality can be even starker and more traumatic. An eight year old orphan, David, fleeing for safety, and then fleeing again as the war chased him from displacement to displacement with no parents to stabilise his life. A twelve year old girl, Maombi, whose mother died when she was two and whose father was just recently killed by rebel soldiers and she ‘weeps continuously’ because she doesn’t know where her father is buried and she now lives with only the clothes on her back and finds food ‘with difficulty’. Francis, a six year old boy, whose mum and dad were killed when his dad tried to protect their last bag of beans from rebel soldiers. Mervielle, a 13 year old girl, whose father was killed when rebels stole the money he had just been given for a microloan and whose mother was kidnapped by soldiers and died and who is now in her fourth location after running and fleeing the wars. Mwiza, a four year old boy, whose father was killed when an armed group raided his field and whose mother then died of a heart attack and has no-one to care for him. And there are so so many children like that.
But there are special people who are loving those children, feeding them, giving them medicine and, for the most extremely vulnerable, giving them a place to stay and a mattress. This is the work Comfort Congo, our partners in Eastern DRC are doing as they seek to regularly feed up to over 2000 children. For David and Maombi and Francis and Mervielle and Mwiza, there is no other hope except that Comfort Congo will look after them and keep feeding them until somehow they can live in peace and provision. They have no-one else but you and I supporting Comfort Congo’s heroic efforts to keep those children alive and bring peace to their troubled hearts.
