Crisis deepens but Texas Baptists send aid to east Congo

The humanitarian crisis in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo grows worse, but Texas Baptists are responding to needs there.

In a message to Mark Heavener, director of Texas Baptists’ Intercultural Ministries, Pastor Manassee Ngendahayo of Rest for the Nations Baptist Church in Abilene requested funds to “help the hopeless” in the DRC’s North Kivu Province and South Kivu Province.

Ngendahayo, who was born and raised in the DRC, is president of Rest for the Nations Ministries. The international ministry provides spiritual and physical support to refugees, internally displaced people and the impoverished in Central Africa.

Ngendahayo noted ongoing violence in areas of eastern Congo controlled by the M23 rebel paramilitary group, which “has led to mass displacement, loss of life [and] widespread suffering.”

“Their lives are even more difficult each day,” he wrote. “The most challenging part is the scarcity of food and lack of water.”

Specifically, Ngendahayo requested funds to provide rice, flour, sugar and beans for families and individuals in the eastern DRC.

Texas Baptists’ Intercultural Ministries authorized program support for humanitarian assistance for the eastern Congo, using funds made available through Texas Baptists’ worldwide missions.

Heavener noted members of Texas Baptist Congolese churches have family directly affected by the violence, unrest and hunger in the eastern Congo—and that means members of the larger Texas Baptist family are impacted.

“If you are a Texas Baptist, this conflict is touching you, too,” he said.

Abductions, violence increasing

The situation in eastern Congo continues to grow increasingly dangerous, Léon Lepamabila, secretary general of the Communauté Baptiste des Fidèles en Afrique and a pastor in Kinshasa, wrote in an email to the Baptist Standard.

“Every day, new missing persons reports pour into the city of Goma,” he wrote. “They are accompanied by frightening stories from desperate families looking for their loved ones. The latter are said to have been arrested by the occupying forces or kidnapped by unknown persons.”

Pastor César Tabu Munumbo was abducted from his home at gunpoint by men in civilian clothes on March 2, and his whereabouts still were unknown four days later, Lepamabila reported.

In addition to abductions, he noted several hospitals in recent days were targeted by armed gunmen, “marking a new escalation of violence against medical facilities and health personnel,” he wrote.

Attacks on health care workers “directly compromise the humanitarian aid on which millions of people depend,” he noted.

EDITOR’S NOTE: The seventh paragraph of this article was edited shortly after it initially was posted to clarify the source of the funds allocated to eastern Congo.