Update!!!

Yes, we are home now! I have just taken awhile to update our blog. I have emailed our newsletter out to as many as possible, but I thought I would copy and paste most of it onto here in case you would like to read it! The trip was incredible in so many ways and is hard to pack into a few paragraphs! I am continuing to learn some keys lessons since we returned....

The majority of our time in DR Congo was spent in the town of Rutshuru, joining with the local churches in a compassion mission. World Relief helps empower the local church to do a variety of things, including taking care of their own. We arrived a few weeks after our missions pastor Joe Johns had spent time in DR Congo teaching pastors on servant leadership. We helped to reinforce the concepts Joe had presented to pastors in the area.
One of other goals was to sit down with each pastor connected with WR in order to receive prayer requests from them. What a privilege and burden at the same time! These will be passed on to our congregation and help to form a connection and strengthen the partnership between FMC and the churches in DR Congo.

Two of my (Emily) biggest frustrations on this trip showed me the greatest lessons. I was discouraged about the language barrier, not being able to easily communicate with the Congolese. Also, because of a situation you’ll read about, I was feeling like I had not accomplished much. However, the day we went to help the churches cultivate (or hoe) a field on the edge of town, I was working next to a girl named Leah. Although we couldn’t talk directly to one another, I felt the Holy Spirit between us as we worked. We were united by a common goal and felt connected. On a broader scale, I usually think that I have to “DO” in order to make a difference. I’ve since been reminded that my job is partly to encourage, support, and pray for these churches in DR Congo. In more than one instance, I was reminded that our job in this partnership looks different than what I had thought at first!

Two words that I (Clint) would use to best describe this trip would be HOPE and PRAYER. The hope comes from seeing many people from all different denominations coming together to work at building mud houses, making and distributing food, cultivating land, and worshiping. The picture of this can not be described with words. I am talking about groups of people that did not want anything to do with the other, but now are working side by side. You throw our team plus staff from World Relief into it, and you get a glimpse of the body of Christ. This is not always perfect though. At one worship gathering, many choirs from different churches left because they were not asked to sing first. But through the partnership we in America have a lot to learn about reconciliation and working together as the body of Christ.
I use the word prayer because as Emily said we were not able to “DO” as often as we thought we should. The story Emily was talking about that was frustrating, but a good lesson, was when the church took food to the hospital. When you are in the hospital you are not fed unless your family brings it. So there are many that are starving plus dealing with whatever else they are in the hospital for. This group of churches has started to bring food once a month to the hospital. But this time we were stopped for many different reasons but mainly because we were with the churches. So we left and went back to our guest house.
You can not imagine the feelings we were having. We all decided to get in a circle and pray against the spiritual warfare and our attitudes. There were a lot of tears, anger, and confusion in those prayers, but we kept praying. The pastors and Marcel decided to take the food to 2 different prisons, the police, and a church first aid station. We as a team were not able to go to any one of them because of security. We were able to pray though, and you know some amazing things happened. In one prison all the inmates knelt and prayed with the pastors, and in the other 8 men accepted Christ and said they want forgiveness. The even more amazing thing is these men shared that they were planning when they got out to kill and get revenge, but now they understand they need to forgive. You know our team did not “DO” but we did stand up with prayer and fight the battle that is going on every day all around us. Pray has more power than we know!!! This is just one of the times we got to see God on the move!

God has His hand in DR Congo and we need to keep lifting up the Body of Christ worldwide. Thank you for your support in this very important mission. Hopefully we can talk with each of you personally and share more about God’s glory in DR Congo!