Johan

The group of Coltan mines near Rubaya Town in eastern DR Congo, also known as the Bibatama Mining Concession, “employs” about 3 500 local Congolese people. Children are also noticeable in the digs. M23 “rebels” or internationally sponsored go-betweens and paid, trained and equipped agents of war to do violence to communities to maintain fear and compliance, ensure that Coltan is mined as cheaply as possible 24/7 365, to satisfy global demand in the manufacture of the latest high tech medical equipment, control systems, smarter than smart phones, surveillance equipment and instruments of brutal warfare. Global church denomination headquarters and Christians could not cope in a post-modern world if not for blood bought conflict minerals and blood stained high tech. The Church in Kisangani at this stage fears “rebels” more than it fears God. Efforts to re-establish international church, ministry and missions cooperation in Kisangani had failed. The refurbished (international?) airport in Kisangani remains closed for business and tourism visitors, import and export and Christian missions logistics since 2021. The Church, it is submitted, sees no evil, hears no evil but by the Great Omission, does evil!

The is a lot of talk going on in Africa at this time. Missionaries are bad! Jesus was black! The Bible is abused! Is it just noise or a true awakening? A real Revival? A search for truth? Or is it corruption trying to mend corruption? Please, let us pray for the Church, the fruit, righteousness and peace in Africa.

How lamentable that there are attacks on churches in the DRC again. An old method of terror and intimidation against unarmed Christians! But need Christians be unarmed, complacent, perpetual victims and easy targets? The DR Congo has a very developed Christian church, – but perhaps leaders and Christians are weak? This apathy gives carte blanche to rebel elements. The Church in Africa should perhaps be much more active and visible in communities and where the Peace Fires should lit by those who should proclaim the Righteousness and Peace of God … also outside the walls of the churches!

The eastern DRC remains a type of a Bermuda Triangle. Mostly human lives, and communities, and agriculture and conflict minerals just disappear. No one really seems to care except for a stake or a foot in the door for some lucrative “rare earths”. Peace deals, threats of arresting rebel leaders, MUNUSCO, SADC, AU, Angola, Kenya, other peace keeping forces, pleas by the Roman Catholic Church and the Protestant Evangelical ECC, citizens that cry, plead and beg, Congo in Haarlem, Friends of the Congo, The Sentry … empty gong like noises while raising funds. Every Congolese that found a way to South Africa now a Pastor. Everybody driving a brutal bargain, but the Christian Church as steward of righteousness and peace in Africa, or the late Rev Andrew Murray’s vision of an Africa for Christ … absent in the arena where international life happens and where people die daily.

Reaching out to isolated, unreached, overlooked, neglected or rebel-traumatized villages along the rivers of the Congo River basin provide very many challenges. Those villagers that are reached rejoice with the angels … but even with a bible in the hand, they are still poor, hungry and long for more in life. How can the global church and international Christian business do better in the eastern DR Congo, now that President Trump managed to broker a peace? There was, once upon a time, a model for commerce and industry along the rivers, with factories in larger towns. Palm oil. Soap. Saw mills. Grain milling and silos. A sugar cane processing plant. Indigenous food plants. Farming with tilapia, chickens, goats, rabbits and cattle.

What then is the use of spirituality, morals and ethics after hearing the Good News and turning your life around, if faith in the newly reached but isolated village does not translate into action. Actions of good works prepared for us to do! Not to earn salvation but as practical and sustainable proof of our Christian life! The overflowing joy of our salvation! Works for which we will earn rewards and crowns. Farming God’s Way is designed and tested in Southern Africa. While the Bible based message remains valid, along with the discipline required by Farming God’s Way, there are indigenous plants for food and medicine, for man and animals, that can be planted in villages on the Equator regions in the DR Congo.

Following the faith obtained through the Good News, the faith must translate to Good Works. It is a curse when villages along the rivers in the Congo River Basin are deprived of their agricultural efforts by rebel activity. Yet, while the workers of iniquity do injustice, the children of God must do the works of righteousness. Revelation 22:11 -12. Farming God’s Way provides a Biblical and disciplined way to do basic agriculture. Please, do visit farming-gods-way.org/

Congo River Mission, in cooperation with the indigenous churches of the DR Congo, promotes stewardship of God’s creation along with the Good News of Salvation and true Peace in the knowledge of our Redeemer. The bush meat trade is extensive in rural and suburban DRC. Anything that moves in the rain forest is snared, trapped, speared or shot with bow and arrow or with rifles. Many areas of the Congo River and its tributaries do not have hippos and crocodiles or monitor lizards any more. All hunted out, along with small buck, antelope, bush elephants, monkeys and chimpanzees! Teaching basic agricultural skills and indigenous plants as food and medicine for man and animal are hindered by continual rebel activity that displaces the rural Congolese people and interrupts agricultural planting and harvesting cycles.