From Glory to Ruins!

Gbadolite is in the very northwest, just east of Bangui.

Rod ends up flying to many different places in Congo.  In August he flew a team seeking to help the Democratic Republic of Congo through Medical Aide.  One of the villages they visited in their survey was Gbadolite.  Gbadolite was the hometown of the late Mobutu Sese Seko who was a dictator/president over D.R.C. from 1964 to 1996.  He chose to build one of his many palaces in Gbadolite, Equatuer.  He also put in an airfield that could handle the Concord's landing.  Gbadolite was blessed with a dam on the Ubangi River that provides electricity for the village, a hospital, and a coca cola factory.  I was told that Mobutu's wife liked Sprite so he made sure she had it by putting a factory in their own village. 

The Mobutu Residence or Palace during his reign.

In 1996 Laurant Kabila marched through Zaire, as the country was called at that time and he took over the government.  Mobutu was already in the last stages of cancer and fled to Morocco for asylum where he died and was buried.

Throughout my life I have enjoyed visiting ruins with my family.  We would go to Arizona and visit the different ruins of the American Natives or stay in California and visit the Spanish Missions up and down California.  I must say that the missions I enjoyed the most were the ones that were not in ruins.  Each of these places visited gave me the sense of visiting ancient History.  When we visited Switzerland very quickly in 2006 we got to see an old castle that was known for torturing the Anabaptists back in the 1400s.  Even that was well preserved but still gave the feeling of stepping into a memory of ancient history.

One of the pools around the palace!

Mobutu's palace today!

The fountain in the driveway!

 When Rod visited Gbadolite, Mobutu's reign had only ended 17 years before.  Yet the palace was in ruins.  The hospital, though it had many buildings was attempting to keep one small clinic running.

Waiting in line at the clinic.

  The dam was still there and the village is still blessed with electricity.  I can imagine it is not as consistent as Mobutu would have insisted it be.  I have not heard anything about the coca cola company there.

The dam that provides electricity!

This makes me wonder about my life and what I will leave behind some day.  Rod and I began our marriage with the desire to serve God overseas through aviation.  We will not be leaving behind any buildings to be remembered by that I know of.  Our investment in this life so far has been in serving people.  So my question is, are we making an impact?  Will the impact last more than a few years or will it last through generations?   Do they need to remember who we are or our names?  Or will remembering their own faith in Jesus Christ be enough of a legacy?  And will they pass on their knowledge of Jesus Christ to others so they might know the truth, accept it in faith, and be set free?



Map: http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/map/dr_congo_map2.htm
Photo of Mobutu's "lived in" palace: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=851800&page=2

God is Still on His Throne

 Psalm 11: 4-7

“The Lord is in His holy temple; the LORD’s throne is in heaven;

His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.

The LORD tests the righteous and the wicked.

And the one who loves violence His soul hates.

Upon the wicked He will rain snares;

Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.

For the LORD is righteous, He loves righteousness;

The upright will behold His face”.

During language school in Kinshasa. March 1991

I loved reading this passage the other day because it brought back memories of September 1991 when I suddenly found myself evacuating with two small children and my husband far away.  I was asking God for some purpose in all this.  We had worked for years to become missionaries with Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF).  We had met at Moody Bible Institute and found that we were headed in the same direction to serve God overseas in order to be a part of building His Kingdom in this fallen world. We had all our training, had been accepted with Mission Aviation Fellowship, had raised support and had finished language school.  We had been at our new base, Tandala in the Equatuer Province, for six weeks and had spent the first three weeks painting our house and settling in.  Rod had spent another couple weeks flying with Dan Carlson so that he could fly to the remote airstrips around us.  Then Rod, Dan and all the other MAF pilots in Zaire had flown to Kinshasa for a Technical Conference.  He had been gone a week and that Monday morning they were headed to the airport when they realized that the mobs were out of control and they had to turn back to the Baptist guest house they had been staying at.

It didn’t make sense to me.  Why would God do this?  We were so ready to serve Him and suddenly we were being told that we had to leave the country.  As I prayed I turned to the Psalms and either this one or one similar was what I found.  God is still God.  God is still on His throne.  He is still in control and He is sovereign. 

The news was that Mobutu had not paid his soldiers and the looting throughout the country was the result.  Being new at living overseas I thought Mobutu was naïve and stupid to think his soldiers would be loyal even though he didn’t pay him.  Little did know that Mobutu knew exactly what he was doing. Later this would become known as Mobutu’s temper tantrum. The west was putting pressure on him to behave their way and he wanted their influence out.  By his soldiers looting businesses and homes and the population following suit, the expatriate community cleared out of the country.  Many never returned.  Others came back but when a similar looting took place in 1993 many more left. 

Emily's 1st Birthday November 11,1991

Yet God was on His throne and still in control.  For our family we were back in the states long enough to find out that our baby, Emily, needed medical help for her asthma.  She had to use a nebulizer three times a day to keep her lungs clear.  We eventually had tubes put in her ears to slow down the infections then we found a battery operated nebulizer and we were able to return to Zaire by August 1992.

Emily in the hospital January 1992

Other expatriates left and found God guiding them permanently away from Zaire for many reasons.  The church had to learn to stand or fall on its own.  They had grown to depend on mission agencies supporting them financially over and over again.  Suddenly, the church in Congo had to learn to stand without money backing.  For some church congregations this would mean falling apart and having no fellowship, for some it would mean keeping the name of Christianity but falling back into animism for their security, for others it would mean coming together and working together in unity to keep their fellowship, and even others it meant standing alone individually while the world around them became more corrupt.  There have been areas that a household had to take turns going to church because there was only one set of clothing to share between two people. Cults and other religions have come with money to share and many have latched on to the "economic" opportunity.  Yet we know that God has His remnant and His church still stands.

 

Thank You God for being on Your throne.  Your ways are not my ways, nor are Your thoughts my thoughts.  Yet I know that You are a wise God and when I stand still and know that You are God I have peace.