Thoughts on the War in Eastern Congo

The pictures and recent reports of fighting, rape, killing and displaced people are so hard for me to read, me, one who has given her heart to Africa's children, one who lived for nine years in Congo, one who considers the Congolese like brothers and sisters. I ask myself what I should be doing. Surely I should be doing something. I find no answer but to pray. I don't even speak the Swahili language or the other village dialects of the area. If the war were in Bandundu Province where I could communicate fluently...but it isn't. Not yet. So I pray, holding up to the Prince of Peace the war-weary Congolese. Please, Lord, protect them tonight. I know You are a Great Healer, Lord. Bring healing to the little three -year old girl who was raped. Bring healing to her torn body and to her wounded soul. I pray for the women and young girls who have been raped repeatedly. Lord, bring them peace. Lord, put a wall of protection about them. I pray for the soldiers on both sides, crazed with power and orders and witchcraft and drugs. Break through the walls they have built around themselves and let them see and feel and know what they are doing. Bring healing to them, too. Lord, You cried at the death of Your friend Lazarus. I know you cry at the suffering of the Congolese. Lord, bind up their wounds. May their sufferings drive them into Your loving arms, for there they will find peace for this life and for eternity. May the courage and peace of those who know You break through to the soldiers who were do them harm and cause them to also come to You. Lord, why are You allowing this? I cannot see any good in it, but I know Your Word says that all things work together for good to those who love You (Romans 8:28). I trust You, Lord. I believe You in the night, and I ask that You may turn this evil around for good for the Congolese people. In Jesus' Mighty Name, Amen!
PS: Lord, please show me what else I can do for this part of my big African family.

Hungry children, naked children

I'm getting ready to lead a team to Uganda to put on a late Christmas for children at our adopted IDP camp. (IDP=Internally Displaced Persons) As I prepare, I am motivated by the needs I observed there last summer. Some of them came to our Day Camp completely naked. Clothes were considered a luxury their struggling parents could not afford. I saw children who were filthy and sick. But the saddest thing I saw occurred when one child spilled the plate of beans we had just served him for lunch. He hesitated for a moment, and while he did about five other children swooped in on the beans, scraping them off the ground and stuffing them into their mouths, sand and all. That's when I realized how hungry these children really were.

It was a privilege to have something to share with them for the five days of our Day Camp. As I thought about it afterwards, I realized that both feeding the hungry and clothing the naked were acts that Jesus considered done unto Him. What a privilege He gives us to have enough to be able to share with those in real need!

Our children are wounded healers

Today we received an email that a child came to our project with her mouth badly burned. When checking on what happened, the mother laughed and admitted she did it because the child was sucking her bottom lip!

I was glad that before that report, I got another one a few days ago. One of our missionaries, Ruth Ann Gowin, was badly burned and scared in an accident when she was young. The children at ECM's Haven of Hope home have been asking her if it was her mother who burned her, or someone else. They refuse to believe her pleas that the scar resulted from an accident. One of the boys came over and patted her arm tenderly, tears flowing down his cheeks in sympathy for her perceived hurt.

If the children can learn to utlilize that empathy that they learned from being so hurt themselves, there is great hope for them. They are deeply wounded, yes. But already they are wounded healers. Thank you, Lord, for letting me be a part of that.

Encouraged by one albino child

Our mission agency, Every Child Ministries, is in the midst of starting a new project to help albino children in Africa. The project is still in the preparation stages, but I was really encouraged that we have already helped one. A worker with another NGO (non-governmental organization) in Africa saw our ad asking for sunglasses to help the children because their eyes are super-sensitive to light. She had observed an albino child in one of their programs who always went around with his head down, but she didn't have a guess as to why he did this. When she read our ad about albino children, she immediately recognized his problem. Soon, he will have sunglasses to allow him to raise his head, and will come to our party for albino children. It will be his first chance to know that there are other children in the world who look like him.



Since this worker wrote, I've thought often of this child, and the whole scenario has been a special encouragement to me. I'm not sure why this one is so meaningful. ECM has helped hundreds of thousands of children, and I've listened to some of the worst horror stories possible and hugged some pretty undesirable looking kids. I've seen so much abysmal poverty and misery I can't even begin to describe it. Several times in my work I feel I have lifted the lid off of Hell itself and peered in to its awful pit. But I was encouraged by this one child. Maybe it's because he was a "bonus". We hadn't begun the program yet, but already the preparations had helped a child. I thought a lot about what it would be like to have a condition that no one understood--not even aid workers who were trying to help. That child must have felt pretty much alone. I pray that our explanation of his condition and our simple suggestions for helping him will REALLY help him to feel God's love. Thank you, Lord, for these little tokens of Your care for EVERY CHILD.



Learn more about albinism or albino children on our website at www.ecmafrica.org/albino.

Amazing Pro-Life Links

I just found these amazing pro-life links related to the black community.
www.blackgenocide.org
www.klannedparenthood.com

Along with another of my favorites, www.lifenews.com, I'll pass these along.

A Black Man Will Be President--Why Can't I Smile?

The first black man in history has been elected president of the United States. With my love for Africa, I should be out dancing in the streets. I have a black daughter and two black granddaughters. I should be shouting for joy. I know the encouragement this is to all my African American friends. Just to think that it could be done, that we've come that far, that such a thing is now possible. I should be dancing all night, like the schoolkids used to do in Congo the day after exams were over, as they did in Ghana when they defeated the American team in football. I went out and celebrated with them. We drove around town and honked and cheered and wrapped our heads in the Ghana football flag. For black people, the election of a black president is a far greater victory. Why can't I celebrate now?


I can't. Yes, it's wonderful just to know that a person of color can achieve such a status. Yes, I'm thrilled about that. But to have this specific black man as president causes me great distress. I'm distressed because he has promised Planned Parenthood that the first bill he will sign will be a Freedom of Choice Act overturning all present restrictions on abortion like parental notification and all of it. Yet what kind of babies are eliminated more frequently than any other kind by abortion? Black babies.



I'm distressed because I've been reading that he plans to immediately restore funding for UNFPA which would use US taxpaper dollars to fund abortions overseas, even funding forced abortion in China. But me, I love Africa. That's the special place in the world that God has laid on my heart, in addition to my own homeland. It makes me absolutely sick to my stomach to think that my tax dollars may be used to fund abortions of precious African babies. Yet it appears that such things are very high on O'Bama's agenda--so important that they may happen right away almost as soon as he is sworn in.



Well, if it happens, I intend to raise my voice. I hope that others will not be so caught up in their own economic problems that they fail to raise their voices as well. The Bush administration might be criticized on many points, but policies that disregard the human lives of the unborn are NOT THE CHANGE WE WERE LOOKING FOR.



I have a suggestion for Mr. O'Bama. All presidents find that it's easier to make promises than it is to keep them. We know you made pro-abortion promises, and the American people were so caught up in their own miseries that they hardly noticed. Please, you don't have to carry through on every promise. Don't carry through on this one. Please. Why destroy your own people? Please.

THE VALUE OF A CHILD, EVEN A GIRL CHILD

I just found out yesterday that I am going to be a Grandma for the dozenth time. Our oldest daughter Carrie is expecting her seventh. As we drove home from Carrie's I envisioned myself cuddling and loving that new baby we are soon to welcome in our family.



I couldn't help also remembering things I'd read recently about what is done to babies in some parts of the world, especially if they happen to be girls. (I couldn't help but think about that since so far, Carrie has five girls and only one boy.) I read that some mothers feed their newborns rice with the hulls still on, so that the rice will slit the newborn's throat. For economic reasons, mind you. Families can't afford the huge dowries that are required by their custom.



I thought about parents in some parts of Africa where our mission, Every Child Ministries, works, who sell their children into prostitution to gain a few dollars, give them as slaves to idol shrines, sometimes just to obtain a good crop or success on some business venture, sell them to traders to serve as bonded labor, diving into the river to gain a few oysters to sell.



What is the value of a child? As a Christian, I see every person at every age from the moment of conception to the grave, at every shade of ability and non-ability, of every color and language and culture to be made in the image of God, carefully crafted by His hand. That's what it says in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. "So God made man in His own image. In the image of God created He him, male and female created He them" (Genesis 1:27). If people don't believe this, if they believe human babies are just animals or biochemical machines, then I can understand how it is that they treat life as cheap. For them, they can treat children as economic pawns to be bargained for their own comfort and convenience. For me as a Christian it is not so. As a Christian I value human life because God made us all special and gave to us a unique dignity in His creation.



That's the underlying base that has caused me to become a mother to millions. That's the reason I "adopted" my BIG African family. And it's the reason we will welcome Carrie's baby. And it's the reason we will vote Pro-Life in the upcoming election. The value of a child can never be overestimated.

Harriet Finds Hope

Today our new 3-minute video about child sponsorship comes out. On it, we tell about Harriet, a 14-year old girl I met two years ago. She came to our morning Bible class for children of the Kamwokya slum community who were not in school. Harriet distinguished herself by helping with the younger children and was selected for sponsorship. I soon learned that for some years Harriet had been acting as the head of her family. After losing both parents and a sister to AIDS, she had to drop out of school and take in washing constantly in order to keep her and her two younger sisters and a brother alive. It was a rough road for Harriet. She gave up her dreams of ever finishing school.

Receiving sponsorship has changed all that. With all the children sponsored, they are all back in school and receiving the basic necessities of life.

I am tired today and discouraged about some issues we are facing. But when I think of Harriet, when I look at her picture and remember how she was just overcome with emotion when she learned she had received a sponsor, well, I find new courage to go on. My BIG African family encourages me because I can see that my work is worth all the struggles. Harriet, if you kept on after losing your parents, if you kept on when handed adult responsibility while still a child, if you kept on through long, tiring days of doing load after load of other people's laundry by hand, surely I can keep on, too. Thank you, Harriet, for encouraging me today.

I'm hoping lots of people will watch our new video and that many more people will sponsor a child so they can receive the kind of encouragement that I have from you. You're a star in the film, Harriet! May it bring sponsorship and hope to many kids like you.

Whose vision for Africa?

As I have thought and prayed about my BIG African family over the years, a recurring image has frequently come into my mind. I have seen a big map of the continent of Africa, as if shaped like a human heart. Down the left side a huge, horrifying dagger, dripping with blood, is tearing the continent apart.

Since God has given me a love for Africa, I have asked Him repeatedly what this meant. Why should He give me or allow me to have such a horrifying vision for a place and a people that are so much on my heart?

He showed me that this is not His vision for Africa. This is the enemy's vision. (I am a Christian. The enemy I am talking about is not any person or group of people. It is Satan, a spirit being who rebelled against God.) God was showing me what the enemy intended for Africa. It wasn't easy or pleasant, but as a mother of Africa, I needed to know and understand.

As I watched in my mind's eye, the dagger turned to a cross. It too, was dripping with blood, but this blood brought not death, but healing.

God was showing me that my beloved African children were going to suffer greatly. But He saw it. He had not forgotten them. He had already sent His Son to shed His blood to provide their healing.

When I first began to live and work in Africa 27 years ago, I could not have envisioned the sufferings that lay ahead for my African family. The terrible Congolese wars were yet ahead. I met only a warm, welcoming, peace-loving people. The Rwandan holocaust was unforeseen. The long war of northern Sudan against its southern regions was just brewing. The slaughter of Joseph Kony's LRA army in northern Uganda was not even thought of. The AIDS epidemic had not yet decimated countries. Millions of now orphaned children lived peacefully with the families. But God knew the sufferings ahead. He knew how wicked men would use the precious gift He had given them--freedom to choose. His heart ached.

Was it the heart of Africa I saw bleeding, or was it the heart of God Himself?

Amazing Calls

I'm amazed as I look back on how God called me. It began first with reading a series of books when I was a teenager--books about five missionaries who were speared to death in the jungles of South America. Strange that reading about someone being brutally killed should result in my heart volunteering or being drawn toward the career that brought about their death.

There were five books in the series as I remember. My Sunday school teacher passed them around as others finished reading them. From the first book I felt strangely drawn. Not toward death, but toward missionary service. I quietly counted the cost even if it meant by life, my heart said yes, and peace filled my soul.

Six, seven years later. Poor choices made. Times of questioning God and even of shaking my fist at Him. I was married to a wonderful man, but one who had not come to trust my Jesus for salvation. It was five long, difficult years before that happened.

Even after John came to Christ and, three weeks later, announced that he wanted to start attending church with me, my missionary call seemed lost. I felt that I had "blown it," sinned too much. I knew that God had forgiven my wandering, but I felt I had missed my opportunity to be a missionary. I settled into doing what I could at home--teaching Sunday school, Vacation Bible School, Bible clubs, Christian ed. committee, and much more at my church. I read missionary biographies to my children by the dozen. I prayed God would call others in my place.

But the missionary call only grew louder and more insistent. It grew so strong I could hardly stand it.

I never talked about it with my husand. Not once. He was happy farming. He loved his farm. It was his dream come true, and he never wanted to do anything else. He talked farming by day and yelled at his cows in his sleep at night.

The missonary call for me became so strong that I needed to share it. I began praying with a couple who came to minister at the high school where I taught. I prayed that God would take the burden of this calling away from me, or that He would give it to John. I was sure He would take it from me.

On Palm Sunday 1979, we were driving from our farm in Fremont, IN to Jackson, MI where our kids had been staying for a brief visit with my parents. I was chatting about many things, but John was not responding. "What's the matter?" I asked.

He began crying, sobbing. I had never seen him shed a tear before.

"I just think God is calling us to be missionaries!" He choked out the words. "I think he is calling us to go to Africa as missionaries." He said that morning as he was milking his cows, "minding his own business," it was just as if God was standing right beside him, telling him that he wanted to go to Africa as a missionary. He said that he could think of ten perfectly good reasons why he didn't need to do that, but that God would not let him off the hook.

I wanted to jump through the roof and shout "Hallelujah!" but I was too dumbfounded.

I tried not to act too eager, but after a few minutes I shared with him how I had been feeling the same calling and had been praying about it for two years.

It's now 29 years later. We spent some time getting ready, and we've served in Africa for 27 years--23 of them with Every Child Ministries, the mission we now serve.

Many times when I think of the mountains of difficulties we've faced, I've questioned God's call. Sometimes I've even asked myself if I might be crazy to even attempt the things we've set our sights on. Sometimes that call seems distant and unreal. But in those times I have only to remember that my John Rouster gave up his beloved farm to become a missionary, and there was no doubt whatsoever that God called him and not me. When I remember that, it all becomes real again. It's God's private sign to me that I did hear His call. WE did. Thank You, Lord, for the reality of that call.

Actually, John went to Zaire (now called DRC or Democratic Republic of Congo) with the idea of helping teach agriculture. I went with the idea of teaching English. We understood that those skills were needed in Zaire. John was an agriculturalist and I was a high school English teacher.
When we went, we didn't yet know that our calling was for African children. We only wanted to help out wherever we could.

We did a lot of thing that first term. By the end of it, it was clear that God was calling us to work with children. That idea was a seed that has quietly but steadily grown in our hearts.

A couple years ago I was reading a book that challenged me to think through and write down my life purpose, and to ask God to impress on my mind a Bible verse to claim as my life's purpose. I thought through my many roles--missionary, executive, teacher, trainer, writer. All were true, but none fully captured God's calling on my life. Then I thought of "Mama." People in Africa have called me "Mama Lorella" for a long time. That was it. I thought of Judges 5:7, in which Deborah describes the terrible condition of Israel in her day, "until I arose," she says, "Arose a mother in Israel." She too had many callings--wife, prophetess, judge, warrior. She didn't work alone. She went into battle with Barak. But she was aware of her life having made a difference. When she thought of it, she didn't say "I arose a judge" or "I arose a warrior." She said "I arose a mother in Israel."

I became conscious of having been called as a mother to millions of African children. I haven't labored alone. I've had lots of help. I hope my life has made a positive difference. Conditions for African children were very bad. They needed someone who would take their burdens on her heart. God didn't call me as an executive, although that's one of my roles right now. He didn't call me as a writer, although I do a lot of it. He called me first and foremost in the role I know best and love most. He called me as a mother. A mother to my own precious children and grandchildren first, of course--Carrie, Sharon, John Henry, Kristi--Marissa, Caleb, Serena, Alaina, Elizabeth, Tessa, Jordan, Hannah, John Everett, Whitney and Jenna. He called me as a mother to African children too. Not only Kristi and Whitney that we adopted into our family, but to millions of African children. He laid a continent's children on my conscience, and He stretched my heart to be able to hug them all.

It might sound presumptuous to talk in such big terms. Mother to African children. How could God ask such a thing? But I am delighted that I am not alone in this calling and our family is not alone in this calling. I have come to know others who have a similar burden. Some I have known are Phyllis Kilbourne of WEC International's Rainbows of Hope and Heidi Baker of Iris Ministries in Mozambique. There are many of us, I know. Africa needs many mothers.

So what do I give Africa? I've given her years of service, of course. Sweat, yes, lots of sweat. Tear, yes, lots of tears. Work, yes countless hours of labor. Prayers. Well, I don't claim to be the greatest prayer warrior in the world, but yes, I've given lots of prayers. Money, lots. The years of my life. But mostly I have given her my heart. I have loved her children. You see, God called me to be a mother to Africa.

Next time: The terrifying vision God gave me