Violence Here and There

The violence in DR Congo, especially in the east and toward women and children, is always in our minds when we speak about Congo.  Questions about it frequently come up during presentations.  Maman Nzeba, head of the Department of Women and Children for the ECC (Church of Christ in Congo, the national umbrella organization for Protestant churches in Congo), spoke often and powerfully about this during her visit in the summer of 2010.  The Congo Symposium in May 2010 (http://globalministries.org/news/africa/congo-symposium-dvd-clips.html) lifted up the problems in great detail.  The recent book, A Thousand Sisters by Lisa Shannon, follows one American's journey of discovery about the suffering there.

After the shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and other innocents in Arizona, the murder of a promising young athlete and the shooting of a 16-year-old at a funeral for a victim of violence in my home town this past week, I am devastated.  In a small scale, I experience the frustration and fear of senseless violence.  It is so wrong, it is so meaningless.  What can possibly be done to stop it?

Consider, then, the devastation that must be felt in a country where more than 5 million people have died since 1997 due to the violence in Congo - that is roughly one in every 10 persons in the country.      There, it is a war of greed over resources.  Until the exploitation of this rich country stops, recovery seems unlikely.

Here the causes are less clear, and the impact is less widespread.  But the question remains, what can stop the violence?  Some of us would suggest that semi-automatic and automatic weapons have no place in the hands of civilians, and a reasonable first step would be to stop their sale for anything but military purposes.  But the power brokers for the weapons are strong, and a solution to our violence seems unlikely, too.

Today I am praying for an end to violence everywhere.  Too many of God's children are dying at the hands of other children of God.