Why is God's presence so real out here in the bush of Africa? Why is He so evident? Why do I sense Him so fully and freely?
For more than 30 years now, Jim and I have had the rather unique privilege of living in two worlds--America and Congo. We travel from a world of high tech sophistication, wealth, affluence, unparalleled educational opportunities and a sense of entitlement to a world of abject poverty, filth, unbelievable corruption in the government. There is absolutely no governmental infrastructure and heightened suffering. Yet the presence of God is so embracing and enveloping. Why? I have been pondering this reality over the past three weeks since our arrival.
Tonight it dawned on me: GOD LOVES THE POOR! Now that's not the only reason. Millions of poor people live in Kinshasa and that city is one of the darkest places in the world. But poverty is definitely a factor here. Another factor is the wealth of their faith and the prices paid to exercise that kind of faith. Nkara (our mission station) is holy ground. This valley, surrounded by a horse-shoe shaped hill, was a center for ceremonial cannibalism and child-sacrifice until the 1940s. Then God sent a vibrant, sold-out, Spirit-filled couple by the name of Laban and Marcella Smith, and through the power of the gospel they preached, 10,000 men and women were delivered from the despair and hopelessness of their abounding sin known in the Bayanzi tribe.
That same power kept the Bayanzis from joining in the civil war when it started in the 1960s. Their salvation meant so much to them that they refused to allow anyone to pillage this campus. Their beloved pioneer missionaries, Laban and Marcella, enriched the African soil through the offering of their bodies through death. They are both buried in Kikwit. On the hill where Laban Bible Institute stands was the first church made up of palm fronds. A ritualistic spilling of blood by killing sons of royalty, who were then eaten, as well the horrific infant sacrifices by holding the babies over hot coals, cutting them up, and eating them, have been replaced by a training center whose heart beats for evangelism.
The legacy handed down to us is sobering. It is a legacy of sacrifice, dedication, putting one's hands to the plow, and never looking back, tireless evangelism, and thrilling to the privilege of serving the God of the universe. How could the Lord not be real here? How could His presence not be so palpable? He is the most dynamic force at Nkara. He has to be. With no hospital, no capable doctors, no way out of here by plane after nightfall due to the lack of VOR's here in the bush, we are desperate for Him. We have control over nothing--and He loves that. Because He then can be "our strength, our personal bravery, our invincible army, and He can make our feet like hinds' feet and will make us to walk--and not stand still in terror--but to walk and make spiritual progress upon our HIGH PLACES of trouble, suffering, or responsibility." Habakkuk 3:19
Praise the Lord!
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Recently I wondered what it was that pulled you back so strongly to Nkara. To go from (seemingly) the "everything" of the USA to the "nothing" of Congo seemed so hard to understand.
Now I know. Thank you for posting this, Nancy.
I wish -- strike that -- I pray we here in America will experience even a small portion of the God that is so real in the Congo. (Maybe I should be careful what I wish for, lest it truly happen!) But come, Lord Jesus. Fill us here in the USA with your spirit -- Your Kingdom Come.
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