A lesson in peacemaking

Is striving for peace all that important to Christians? Doesn’t it divert us from the evangelistic imperative?

I suspect some of us are tempted by these thoughts from time to time. However, a sharp lesson from our Congolese Mennonite Brethren sisters and brothers should make us reconsider.

Street scene in Kikwit

From 1965 to 1997 President Mobuto Sese Seko held virtually absolute power and robbed to ruin the country he called “Zaire.” While he personally socked away billions of dollars of U.S. aid in Swiss banks, the country racked up a $14 billion debt. Meanwhile, quietly, obscurely (for about 30 years) a guerrilla movement developed under Laurent Kabila.

In late 1996, with support from Rwanda and Uganda, Kabila attacked Mobutu’s troops in the southeast. Initial success led Kabila to try to overthrow Mobutu.

As cities, towns and villages fell to the advancing forces, the battle became a rout. The army of Mobutu fell apart and took its fury out on local villages.

Consider, then, how people in Kikwit – a community of about 700,000 on the banks of the Kwilu River, 500 kilometres east of the capital Kinshasa – might have felt. Every community in the surrounding area had seen killing, rape, pillaging. And the majority of military troops would come through Kikwit on their way to Kinshasa.

What could the church do? Should it even try to do something?

The Mennonite Brethren churches met to pray and develop think tanks to brainstorm. One MB member was Felo Gabriel, the Director of the Action for Justice, Peace and Reconciliation (AJPR), a local peace organization occasionally funded by Mennonite Central Committee. The AJPR trains people to strive for peace values in their communities.

Another leader was Mahenji, then moderator of the MB conference in Congo, and now vice-mayor of Kikwit.

The MB churches pitched an idea to Kikwit’s mayor. Looking for any strategy to keep the town safe, he ultimately accepted it.

They took over a month to set up the plan. Volunteers met the troops before they could cross the bridge into Kikwit. They fed them with food collected from city residents. Business people provided transportation to get the food over the bridge and take troops out of the area.

These collections were not that easy to come by. (Where might we find extra money for gas and food to share with our enemies if a majority of our church members were unemployed?)

A further strategy of prevention involved more than 2,000 youth, mostly in their 20s, who were deployed in groups of 100 as night watchmen on five main streets. AJPR trained them to handle any enemies who entered Kikwit. “No one was afraid of being killed, caught in accidental gunfire or other forms of direct and indirect violence,” says Delbert Kuhosa, staff member of AJPR.

In spite of all the training and planning, the guerrilla troops shot and killed a youth. This made the others very upset and they swarmed a small group of troops, capturing one. The rest fled. In several cases of attempted rape, the youth chased the troops away.

This life-and-death situation in 1997 fostered tremendous creativity for the good of the Kitwit community. And, the witness of the church to the gospel of peace has not gone unnoticed. The church continues to grow.

In a workshop I attended in Kitwit recently, Safal Kiesamukami, urban conference youth leader said, “When there is no peace, we have no energy. As a result, the church cannot advance. We need much prayer, but our stomachs are also empty. Malnourishment leads to illnesses such as tuberculosis and related diseases. How can we fulfill the call of 1 Thessalonians 5:23 that ‘your whole spirit, soul and body be preserved’?”

Back row, second from right is Mahenji, vice-mayor of Kikwit; third from right is Felo Gabriel, director of AJPR; crouching in front of them, Delbert Kuhosa, AJPR, members of Mbandu MB Church, Kitwit

This situation suggests the following lessons to us:

1. It should be possible to fully integrate peace, relief for the oppressed, and evangelism in our theology and ecclesiology. We can learn much about this from our Congolese brothers and sisters.
2. The local church is the hope of the world – literally the only safety net in some cases – and we who are wealthy need to position ourselves to share our resources as part of that hope.
3. The bad news we hear about other parts of the world usually affects our sisters and brothers in concrete ways. We must become globally-oriented Christians, seeking to know something about the church in the news targeted areas.
4. “Blessed are the peacemakers.”

David Wiebe is Executive Director of the Canadian MB Conference. He visited Congo in August, in conjunction with the Mennonite World Conference in Zimbabwe. Delbert Kuhosa, a staff member of the AJPR, served as a translator and provided the information for this article.