Mugunga

PART FOUR: Mugunga Refugee Camp

As I begin this blog to explain to you where exactly God planted a surviving piece of my heart in the refugee camp of Mugunga, currently home to over 72,000 refugees.
I had taken a time to look at photos of this place and even a video of a children's program being implemented, might have been world vision, but then again, could have been something else. What matters is, how this camp was portrayed in that video, was not what we saw.

Losing all concept of time, my guess was Mugunga was on the outskirts of Goma. The apologies for the bumpy rides on the extreme lava rock came and went, I enjoyed the jolts and whiplash personally. There was no way you could not love the scenery; the people that scowled at you until you waved, forcing them to almost laugh at probably the overly confident eye contact we mzungus make. Fidele turns down an even bumpier road for a few minutes, lots of green popping up through the rock, wooden run down houses with flags and towels over the doors. I assumed the towels were there so home owners could keep their doors open but keep bugs out, like a screen door perhaps.
We pull up to a building that looks much like a garage with a few doors. Children come to the car and begin singing "Karibu" which means "welcome". These wee ones are taken out of the camp by day and returned to sleep in the evening, hoping to eventually move them to the orphanage when there is enough room. I was glad we stopped here to see these sweet children. There was something mysterious about these children that was different from the children at the orphanage. It was a hopelessness I had never been introduced to. Praise God for these women who take care of all these children and move them back and forth like they do. Oh the difference it must make in their lives!
Because when we arrived at Mugunga, the hopelessness that I had seen in the eyes of some of these littles began to multiply very quickly.
You know, on a missions trip when your leader tells you everything before you go to a certain place, what to do, what not to do... we did not have this advantage and it was awesome (and scary) to just let God work out the details.

Pulling up to these homes by the thousand was a shock. Made of dirt, straw, tarp, clothing, sticks, shoe laces, and many other unidentifiable items. We had driven by some camps, none of them looked like this. Children and adults alike began to come up to us; all asking for sweets at first. Fidele took my backpack out of the car and had it on. At first I had wondered why he had it on, then after a certain episode I became VERY GLAD I did not have it on.  It quickly became over whelming and we were told to follow out into a more open area. There were people playing with the ball we had brought.
All, of those children were so precious. Many of them very obviously suffered from abuse, afraid to touch or make eye contact. Some thought Ian had a gun (camera) and almost all of them wanted something from you. At this particular hour of the afternoon, some of the children began asking me for a ball. There I am standing face to face with my own backpack on Fidele's back and I am convinced of the location of the hack-e-sack. Unzipping the bag, he shakes me off like I am thieving. I say "Looking for a ball" and continue the unzipping, reaching into the bag my hand quite literally grazes a ziplock back full of jolly ranchers. Silence. All children within a three foot radius slam forward at me and in moments the bag of jolly ranchers is gone. I had a death grip on the bag, and then I had scratch marks, tooth marks and a piece of plastic and three ranchers still left in my white knuckled hands. Staring blankly, in shock, I watch adults and children destroy each other over these jolly ranchers. Faces being punched and slapped, kids being pushed down and stepped on. Here I am getting told in at least four different languages of my bad choice to share my candy.  My hands had met that hack-e-sack, so close to a decent game of ball. The desperation in hunger was that of a wild animal; my heart breaks every time with the image. We found out moments later, that these people had not been brought food aide in three months.

We begin to walk over to where our photographer is taking quite literally the most beautiful photos of these children. There is one girl in particular that is absolutely ripping apart my heart, she sounded like she was caught in a loop. Screaming "bumbou" (sweets) over and over and oooover. My body was going rigid, trying not to leap into the cry fest I have done so well to hold back on. Don't let these kids see your weakness, fearing they would take advantage of my emotional state if a tear threatened to fall. My mind kept saying, "step back, move away, goo", her screaming continues. "Dear Jesus make her stop!" was all I could pray! My body and mind are totally not on the same page and I find myself squatted down behind four or five other kids with my arm reaching through, massaging the head of this screaming child. Most of the kids seem unaware, so I thought. This little girl, stops crying. She reaches up and touches her chubby face, wiping her tears away. She closes her teary eyes and touches the rest of her face, touches her head where I am touching it and her breathing starts to steady out. Ian takes his camera and starts heading into the tent home area following my husband and Gilbert. As the children begin to scatter out for this walk, the little girl goes and sits in the dirt, still holding her face. Good heavens people, the desire to be touched and loved, to be reminded you are human, is such an enormously huge deal. God created us for love, to be loved, to love others. The peace that this sweet child had in these moments, was more than any tangible item could ever offer her. Jesus very literally used my body to touch this child and he took care of the rest. Also, she never looked to see it was me. But you knew, this was not a normal touch for this child by her reaction all around.



Walking up the volcanic hill, children would come up, walk with you for a moment, ask you for food and if you didn't have it they would likely cut out. I do not remember seeing many of the same children more than once on the trip up the hill to the wooden church. There was one girl. She was beyond adorable, a baby on her back, totally did not want to shake my hand. She told me Ian had a gun; tried to talk me out of my shoes, shirt, had a kid pat my back for a money belt (I gave it to my husband the day before, I'm too transparent when I have things people ask for!), wanted my earings... even when I said no to all these things, in every language I could muster... she would then still point to the baby's mouth, rub her tummy... yes, it was killing me. I had nothing. She was persistent, I'll give her that. We made it up into the designated church area. Walking over the threshold my husband took a photo of me, I had opened my eyes wide to display the shock of my heart. Almost a complete break down there as well, praise God for answering every prayer to hold me together.

Gilbert & Jean Baptist

In this church area, which was just a wooden frame with tarps; there were many children and some adults. Pastored by a man named Jean Baptist, what an amazing heart for the Lord! My husband shared with them and prayed for them. All the while, I am studying the little girls with babies on their backs, congregating together, checking each others babies, making sure they are on tight enough... some little girls without babies were giving up their seats on the oversized stick they were sitting on. Tiny mothers. Other children were wearing clothes that were ripped and cut, some with bloodstains where the cuts on the shirts were, which made me think that the clothing must had been on someone killed during the wars or protests. The little girl who had walked with me the entire way, kept her eyes on me. She kept pointing at me while she talked to the other girls. When praying I closed my eyes, but felt like someone was literally burning through my eye lids staring at me... and oh yes, I peek and there she is staring at me. Before we walk out the doors, I imagined she would realize now I really have nothing for her and expect her to disappear into and between the tent homes like most of the other children I had met on our walk. So I confidently reach out my hand for the second time, she gently and quickly shakes it and smiles as though she was embarrassed. Immediately she points at a little girl standing right outside the door, points at her mouth. I assumed she was telling me she needed food, I chose to not respond to the food request and instead noticed the lack of shoes and condition of the clothes this sweet child was in. Our eyes locked and I grabbed her hand, it was pretty melodious the steps of our four feet turned into my two feet.

The look on the other little girls face was more than priceless, it was Hopeful. She was utterly confused but a light went on in her. The other little girl with the baby on her back walked up close to me and gave me the stink eye and pointed at her and made her arms go in a position that would represent "huh what are you doing? that's not what I was telling you to do!" I smiled at her and hugged tightly to this sweet little girl. She must had been around 5 years old and my guess was somewhere around 25 lbs. Her pants were damp of urine and there were bugs in her hair but she held me so tight, rubbing her cheek on my neck and sniffling with a raspy breathe every so often. Her head was hot with a fever and her body was lethargic, minus her arms that wrapped tight the entire ride down the hill. The little girl with the baby on her back made points of touching my arm a few times, trying to be discreet of course. I pretended I didn't notice in fear she would leave my side.
Coming up to the bottom of the hill, I was told I needed to put the little girl down now for a number of reasons. That, was hard. I set her down and instinctively kissed the top of her head, held her face and lifted her up to Jesus before I began to walk away. Walked away fast too... Breakdown Central was going to make its debut... I grab my face and wipe the escaping tears in a two hand attack, when I hear the little feet of a child run up next to me. It is the little girl with the baby on her back. She stops me motioning with her hands. Looks into my face, confused still like at the top of the hill. She begins to wipe the hair off of my face, rubs my eye brow and touches my chin. She smiles nervously and then begins doing the massaging hand motion, that I had done on that chubby toddler that was screaming for sweets earlier. This girl, looked so pleased with this action. The hope in her eyes was magnificent. She absolutely beamed. Then walked off, disappearing into the neighborhood of tents.



My little friend and her baby sister

Sweet Jesus protect her.



A beautiful moment. If that was the only thing that happened on this trip, it would have been worth it. God has such a loud voice when I am willing to hear it!

 So... satan doesn't like the work of God, totally get it. There were a few times prior to this moment that I told my husband and Ian... "I don't want to see demon possession, stuff freaks me out." So naturally after the neatest moment with that little girl, a boy comes up screaming "TOMS!!" at me. Begins cursing at me in English the worst combinations of words I have ever heard, jolting away from me, even when his back was turned and I went to greet him, he spazzed out, ran and hid. He tried to let the air out of the tires on the jeep and cackled and dove around the side when I came to tell him to stop. Instantly in the presence of this child who had a cursing man's voice in him, I was discouraged. We climbed in the car, minus our missing driver. Our windows were open a good 6 inches and the tension of some of the refugees was getting high. It was time to go. And yet, driverless. Children and adults could see the water bottles in the car. They began asking for them and everything else. We had experienced the jolly rancher incident, we could not hand over the water bottles. Watching the people look at the water bottles was it for me. Head flew down into my lap and a pouring of tears. Our driver came soon after and backing up and out of the crowd of people, opening the backdoors to get children off the doors and we were out of there.

 About 3 or so miles outside the camp, I begin just thinking about the desperation and hope, that battle so many of the children I just touched face each day. As I am staring off, the car slows down to get off gravel road to jump on concrete for only a moment then back to the rocks; during the slow down I see three children off to the right in front of a home. No bigger than my Paige, are two children dragging another child, face down, by her arms through the dirt. Lifeless. Panic. and when you think you can't take anymore... God confirms the call He has placed in your heart for these people, His people. The song I had been humming through Mugunga was a song my dear friend Jamie Cooper wrote "and your people shall be my people, and your God my God..." all throughout the walk I was humming between trying to understand the kids and I could not identify it, until my heart took a breathe and said "Restore me!! That was hard!"

Sometimes, I feel the best parts, are the hardest parts, that stretch you the most and bring you closer to the creator. His heart if for these people and He was good to show me this hope through some of these children. Amazing right. Lord be close to these people and help them to return to their homes and to find their comfort in You.