Congo: The Church, Children and Challenges

ANITA PADEN: Okay. Well I was actually born in Central African Republic. My parents were missionaries and they came to Africa in 1938. So I saw at home what missionary life was like but I didn’t really want to be a missionary because I saw the hardships as well. But then I was a nurse and I taught in a nursing school for some years in Sweden and I wasn’t quite happy with what I was doing. Finally I just told God, wherever you are going to lead me to go, I will do that, because I had this call…a pulling somewhere. So a week later things really opened up and I was asked by the mission where my parents had worked to go back to the same place where I was born. I was very happy for that decision.

HANS FINZEL: So you are Swedish by background. ANITA PAYDEN: Yes.

HANS FINZEL: So you spoke Swedish in the home. ANITA PAYDEN: Yes.

HANS FINZEL: And today you have an amazing ministry with grieving children in Congo. Over five million people have lost their lives in Congo over what period of time?

ANITA PADEN: From ‘98 to 2003.

HANS FINZEL: Okay, from 1998 to 2003 – five million people. You know people talk a lot about the one million that died in Rwanda but what about the five million in Congo.

BRUCE PADEN:: Exactly.

HANS FINZEL: We’re going to get to that in a moment but first I’d like to ask you,

BRUCE PAYDEN:, what motivated you to give your whole career – 40 years – to the continent of Africa and these two countries?

BRUCE PADEN:: Well I grew up…uh, was raised in a very Christian family where we often had missionary speakers in the church. In fact, we had them often in our home. My folks opened their home to provide hospitality for missionaries who were coming through, speaking in the church and so on and so on. Um, I think early on God was speaking to me and I resisted that. Finally I understood that there was a real call there and responded to that. Curiously enough, at a missionary conference in a Presbyterian Church, I’m not Presbyterian but it was a very good mission conference, and I really meant it. And it was so soon after that that just one door after another opened up. It was a very clear affirmation that was God’s call and the right path that He was leading me to. So I didn’t get overseas immediately. At that time the missionary organization that I was first with, they wanted their men to have some seminary training so I followed that and did get that training for which I am very, very thankful for today and then first to France for language study and then to Africa.

HANS FINZEL: Now where did the two of you meet? How did you run into each other?

BRUCE PADEN:: In France actually, in language study. We were both with different missions but going to the same place; the same country.

HANS FINZEL: Oh, that’s I interesting.

BRUCE PADEN:: So, yeah…

HANS FINZEL: And what year was that?

BRUCE PADEN:: Well we were both students in France in 1970-1971.

HANS FINZEL: Oh wow. That’s amazing. Wow, that’s great. Well, we’re so proud to have you as part of our WorldVenture family and you have been now single-handedly leading our ministry in the Congo in terms of the American presence. I know that there was a time Congo was the largest ministry that WorldVenture had; forty missionaries and an enormous compound. I think we still own more property in Congo than anywhere in the world. Right?

BRUCE PADEN:: Could be.

HANS FINZEL: In terms of hospitals and schools…

BRUCE PADEN:: Oh yeah. Yes.

HANS FINZEL: But the missionary force has dwindled. Uh, Congo has gone through some very, very sad, sad years. Let’s summarize for the listeners. Unfortunately, Congo doesn’t get much press in America. Let’s let the listeners know about some of the hardships that have happened there over the last 15 years. How can you describe the situation?

BRUCE PADEN:: Uh, well, uh if you go back to 1994 you have the genocide in Rwanda. At that time you had over a million refugees from Rwanda that came flooding into Congo. And that is really what sparked things off, no question about it. There were a lot of things that were done wrong in the whole refugee situation. Refugees are supposed to be placed within a certain distance from the border; this was not carried out; not respected for one thing. So after awhile some of these refugees who were Interahamwe, who had organized the genocide, began to make attacks back into Rwanda. And, of course, part of this was due to the fact that Mobutu, the dictator of Zaire, as it was called then, was a very good friend of Habyarimana, the former president of Rwanda. So there were not good relations between the new regimes, the new Tutsi regime which took place after the genocide. So he allowed some of this to go on. Well, the Rwanda government obviously had enough of that in time so that largely accounted for the 1996 rebellion where you had the first Kabila that moved in to take over the country largely and, really, the only reason he succeeded was he had all this help from Rwanda. And something that is not known that is very, very unfortunate is that we believe there were probably hundreds of thousands of people that were killed at that time. This is largely not reported. Uh, we personally had friends who were – Kabilese friends - who were killed at that time because when the troops moved in they knew the killers, the Hutu extremists were there in that part of the country, so anybody was a Hutu, whether he was from Congo, whether he had never set foot in Rwanda, he was fair game. We had personal friends who were massacred; we know from eye witnesses and so on, but that’s another story. So that was a tragic day and of course, that took several months before…. Really, they just marched through the country. The Congo army was so ill-disciplined that they had very little resistance. So by May of 1997, Kabila was in power and Mobutu had been chased out of the country. So there was a short period of relative calm up until the next year, in 1998, and that is when the rebellion started. What happened was that the first Kabila, of course he had gotten aid from Rwanda, had a lot of Rwandan advisors, but he got tired of them and was ready to tell them to leave. And that became very, very upsetting to the Rwandan government and so they formed some associations with some people in eastern Congo and there was a rebellion that was launched of August, 1998. That was a very dangerous time. Practically all of the missionaries of our mission that were there at the time fled, understandably, because… Actually there were a couple of days that the Interahamwe took over the city of Goma for about two days but they were driven by the forces with the help of Rwanda and the new rebel government that took power then. So that really launched this civil war that was so deadly, especially in the eastern part of the country. It didn’t affect the western part too much but this large part of land clear to the north and clear to the south was deeply affected. And you had these different rebel groups. You had the government in eastern Congo pitted against the government in western Congo and different countries in Africa – Rwanda, Uganda, the Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, Angola - that weighed in on one side or another and so sometimes it has been called the First World War of Africa.

HANS FINZEL: Oh gosh…

BRUCE PADEN:: Yeah, really, because it was really deadly.

HANS FINZEL: And it lasted from ’98 until 2003?

BRUCE PADEN:: To the “end of 2003” but actually that’s in quotes – that it ended in 2003 – because a lot of these rebel factions and movements that had been formed during that time – the Mai Mai or the CNDP and so on - were still active and vying for different parts of the territory in eastern Congo, which is very wealthy. It has a lot of good resources, and of course that is part of what feeds into this whole scenario and this whole conflict. So it’s been deadly and really, the church has… There are pastors who come and tell us how they have lived out in the bush. But not all of them fled as IDP’s (Internally Displaced People). In some cases they chose to remain in their village but because of the dangers, at night especially, they would live for months out in the bush during the night…

HANS FINZEL: Wow…

BRUCE PADEN:: …and they would move back into their villages in the day and would do this time after time.

HANS FINZEL: So before this all happened in 1998, what was our… We had quite a large church association, right?

BRUCE PADEN:: Right.

HANS FINZEL: Do you know the numbers? How many churches we had?

BRUCE PADEN:: It’s difficult now but it was very close to 300.

HANS FINZEL: So we had about 300 churches. We had a hospital, or several hospitals…

BRUCE PADEN:: A couple hospitals.

HANS FINZEL: A couple hospitals; dispensaries…

BRUCE PADEN:: About 25.

HANS FINZEL: Schools. Lots of Christian education.

BRUCE PADEN:: Over 200 primary and secondary schools.

ANITA PADEN: We still do, yeah.

HANS FINZEL: And we still have... You said 26,000 kids?

BRUCE PADEN:: 46,000.

HANS FINZEL: 46,000 kids. And how many schools?

BRUCE PADEN:: Over 200 primary and secondary schools.

HANS FINZEL: Wow, that’s amazing. But what was the impact on the church and on churches through all this period of civil war, as we look today. I know I heard you speak yesterday and it’s been so discouraging. Just what are some of the fallout that happened to our churches?

BRUCE PADEN:: Well, uh, as I mentioned we estimated just even a couple of years ago – because there was another rebel activity that heated up and became very, very dangerous and so on. But at that time we estimated that there were close to two-thirds of the church membership of all of our churches in eastern Congo, that many people had fled and were living in IDP camps.

HANS FINZEL: Wow.

BRUCE PAYDEN:: Uh, so that, that’s tens of thousands of people. So that means the churches were abandoned. In some cases they were totally destroyed. I remember I was asked to preach not too far from Goma, maybe around 40 miles or so. So it’s a nice drive Sunday morning going up to the mountains. We get there and there was a school – actually it had been built by another organization for our church community, this happens, but no church. Where’s the church? Well, that very area was really a hot spot. They had some really pitched battles there and in the process during that time, the church is no more. The congregation is there but they meet in an open field.

HANS FINZEL: Because they…

BRUCE PADEN:: The church is gone.

HANS FINZEL: They just destroyed the building.

BRUCE PADEN:: And so we estimate there is somewhere around 40 of the buildings – of our church buildings that either have been totally destroyed or very seriously damaged and they need help to rebuild, of course, or repair the building.

HANS FINZEL: Before we move over to Anita and talk about the children – the suffering children of Congo… So

BRUCE PADEN: we are now in the year 2010 and there’s so much suffering but, you know, there’s some great encouragement. What is your strategy to try to help and what are some of the things that WorldVenture is trying to do to assist our brothers and sisters in Christ there in Congo?

BRUCE PADEN:: Well, one of our more recent efforts has been to try to help the church association to be more self-sufficient financially. And so, um, we were able to help them provide some resources so that they could put up some shops; a building that houses 14 shops on some property that they own right in the middle of town. It’s very strategically located.

HANS FINZEL: In Goma?

BRUCE PADEN:: And this is going to help bring in some funds to help them with all kinds of needs they have -- churches; schools; medical facilities.

HANS FINZEL: So these are little shops that create, uh, economic, self-sustaining ability for the church association to generate income so they don’t have to be continually dependent on us.

BRUCE PADEN:: Right, so they just don’t have to always go hat-in-hand and try to find finances to meet all their needs.

HANS FINZEL: Right.

BRUCE PAYDEN:: At this moment, obviously, it won’t cover everything but it’s a start; it’s certainly a help.

HANS FINZEL: And it’s something we’re actually trying to do all over the world – creating economically, sustainable ventures…

BRUCE PADEN:: Absolutely.

HANS FINZEL: …where nationals can help themselves. To break this cycle of dependency on North America.

BRUCE PADEN:: Very much so.

HANS FINZEL: So you’ve been involved with that. Also, we have a Congo Relief Fund. In case you are just joining us, this is Hans Finzel, and you are listening today to Missions on the Frontline, based here in Littleton, Colorado. My guests today are Bruce and Anita Payden who for the last 28 years have been ministering in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And our website is WorldVenture.com and if you do a search for the keyword “Congo”, you can find our Congo Relief Project. We continue to need funds to help with relief. What have we done with the funds that we’ve been raising in our Congo Relief Fund?

BRUCE PADEN:: Aw, a lot of them have been used where we have been able to recognize that there are fairly good-sized pockets of people from our church association. We’re not an NGO, we’re not World Vision or World Relief so that we are able to take a whole population area. But we first of all try to help those within the church community and if we see that there is an area where there are a lot of them. Libya has IDP’s one place or another that we try to provide food, or cooking utensils or in some places, uh, what do you call them? Tarps.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah, yeah, tarps…

BRUCE PADEN:: Which can be used to cover non-permanent buildings that they’ll put up, which need that because when it rains, non-permanent buildings always leak.

HANS FINZEL: Yeah.

BRUCE PADEN:: Things along that line and so this has been a huge help to them to have that. We appreciate so much the help that has been provided. It hasn’t always been enough but it certainly has been a huge help. And, in some cases, those funds have also helped to provide medication or provide medical care for these people because a lot of them… In an area where we have a dispensary, for example, they have no money but they have medical problems; they need help. So we help the dispensary, one of our own medical centers, to have medical supplies so that they can help those people. So these funds have helped in that way as well.

HANS FINZEL: I’ve seen pictures of some of the IDP camps and it’s really sad…

BRUCE PADEN:: Oh yeah, pathetic.

HANS FINZEL: Again, IDP is Internally Displaced People and there are so many of them in Congo. There are believers who lost their homes, had to flee, they live in refugee camps and a lot of them are right on top of lava rock.

BRUCE PADEN:: Yeah.

HANS FINZEL: It’s just hard lava rock and they are living there with tarps. So thank you for the help you are providing and if you are listening and you could help provide some funds, there are still a lot of people who need food, medicine, and shelter and that’s Congo Relief at WorldVenture.com. Anita, let’s talk about the kids. God led you into an amazing ministry of relief for grieving children. How did… Tell us what your ministry is there.

ANITA PADEN: Yeah, I have a center in Goma now for grieving children and teens. And I started actually in Rwanda when we didn’t have a center in Goma and we lived in Rwanda part of the time because it was too dangerous to live in Goma. So I started in Kigali and worked for about a year in 2000, and in 2001 I started in a chapel in Goma. But now we have our own center for grieving children. So this is a program. It’s very much like a program at the Dougy Center in Portland, Oregon; it’s a national center for grieving children and they train people to go out to different countries so I think I’m the only one trained in Africa. The program is such that the children support children and teens with help of trained facilitators. So the kids come once a week and we have different activities. We sit in a circle and share, if they choose to do so. They do a lot of drawings and explain. We have games and they play out their grief as well, whatever the child feels they need to do they do there at the center. We work with five schools – primary schools close by and we have trained their director and one teacher so they know exactly what we are doing. Many of these kids are hungry. Many of them can’t pay school fees so we try to help them. That’s something that, um, people who are listening can also help with school fees. We like for the children to stay with family members. It’s not an orphanage; it’s not a school for orphans but they stay with some family member; it’s rare to find an orphan who doesn’t have an aunt or grandma or one parent. So that’s the good thing about it so then we try to support the family. Sometimes we set up a Grandma, for instance, with a little business. Maybe we give her a sack of charcoal that she can sell and then we know that at least they can eat and that may help, maybe, with some of the school fees.

HANS FINZEL: What are some of the things that children are grieving?

ANITA PADEN: Well first of all they grieve their loss of a family member. A parent and then also if they are displaced, they have lost their homes; they don’t live at home and they have a very small place in this little tent-made place they are staying. Then they have seen terrible things. I can hardly imagine it, I think, but they have seen very bad things. They have seen how their parents have been killed and sometimes cut in pieces and burned and those things really affect a child. So in some places we have had children… We had an 11-year old girl and she couldn’t speak at all. But the facilitator was actually a pastor in that village. He invited her to come and be with the other children and she came week after week and listened and she could draw. She could not speak. So one month goes by; two; three; and four months. After four months there is a boy in the group that had gone through pretty much what she had gone through. After he spoke and explained his drawing, she wanted… She takes him outside and that’s when she started speaking because she said, “You have gone through what I have gone through.” Then the boy comes in with her into church and said, “She wants to speak now.” And every body is shocked after four months. She stayed with her Grandma and they were shocked, also. So we have kids who are traumatized; they can’t speak or they stutter. We have children who are on drugs; alcohol. And then they get involved in inappropriate sex behavior as well and very depressed; suicidal. And with this program we see great relief for these kids and they start living again and these activities… They stop using drugs and alcohol and they start talking and they don’t stutter any more so it’s very exciting to see how this program helps the kids.

HANS FINZEL: Wow, what a great ministry. It must be satisfying.

ANITA PADEN: It is. It’s very hard but it’s very satisfying, yeah.

HANS FINZEL: Well thank you both. I wish we had more time. We’re out of time but we’re going to ask the folks to pray for Congo and pray for

BRUCE PADEN: and Anita. You guys are just going strong. I know you’re reaching retirement age pretty soon but we’re encouraging you to keep going on as long as you can because you’re doing such an amazing ministry so thank you both.

BRUCE PADEN AND ANITA PADEN: Thank you.

HANS FINZEL: It’s great to have you on the program. Thanks for listening today. This has been Missions on the Frontline. We’re here to expand your vision and make you aware of new and exciting ways you can be involved in missions around the world. Please visit our website at WorldVenture.com for more information on the latest news and updates. And remember to search for the keyword CONGO to see how you can get involved in donating or being involved in other ways with this very important ministry with the Padens in Goma. And don’t forget to drop me a note. I’d love to hear from you if you have any questions about missions or ideas for future programs; I’d love to answer them. You can email me at Frontline@WorldVenture.com. This has been Hans Finzel. See you next week at Missions on the Frontline.