Living in a Red Zone

Area map

Yes, we’re living in a red zone here in Beni, as declared by powers that be. Yes, the Congolese army is fighting ADF-NALU. Yes, Beni is the headquarters for military activity. Yes, one sees more soldiers and army vehicles around town. 

The history of this conflict, like most conflicts, is complicated and many-layered. It’s easy to fall into the “good guy/bad guy” trap to simplify the story and get one’s hands around it. But simple explanations demean the story. I won’t even try to explain the issues, describe the actors, or outline the history. There are plenty of resources for that (thank you, Kyle Hamilton, for your diligence in keeping information and resources on the CI website current).

Home from market

I simply want to make clear that red zone, like any other label, is just that: a label. It’s an attempt to sweep all the puzzles pieces into a pile so they fit into one box. But each of those pieces is just one part of an entire story with complexities, nuances, vignettes, joys, and fears. The sky piece and the flower blossom piece echo nothing of each other. The grey cloud in the right hand corner reveals nothing about the piece of red dress on the child in the lower left hand corner. Yes, we live in an area labeled red zone. But that label ignores the joys, friendships, and daily life challenges that breathe because life moves forward.

UCBC women students

Shops, schools, and churches carry on. The motos run. People go to the market, sweep the street in front of their kiosks, wash laundry, prepare meals, have weddings, deliver babies. UCBC women students discuss how to encourage each other and create opportunities for their voices and their gifts. Reflection days and chapel and classes proceed. 

The fighting is outside of town. Depending on whom you ask, it’s anywhere from 20 to 50 or more km from here. Last week some students reported hearing occasional sounds of artillery in the distance. But there are no such claims this week. Sure, when two or more folks get together, the discussion includes the latest about the conflict. But people also talk about family, work, school, and church.

I love the fact that life goes on.

Cooking for all-campus meal

Regardless of what one thinks about the conflict—its sources, antagonists and perpetrators—that life goes is a statement about resilience, courage, and the gift of being able to “live in the moment.” And that is something most of us (self included) relearn daily, regardless of where we live. In fact, that's one of the gifts of Congo—joy in the moment. We are instructed to pray, "Give us this day, our daily bread."

Sure, there are precautions. I don’t go out at night. But then, I don’t go out any night. When I walk from UCBC to home, I don’t traverse the quiet paths through “the bush,” but the main road. I keep my phone loaded with airtime units, extra cash on hand, and my passport with me. But I do this regardless of what color we are or aren’t. 

Leadership and key staff at CI-UCBC keep ears and eyes on the situation. Through a variety of networks and contacts, they obtain and verify information. They also laugh, whistle in the hallway, rejoice in the day, attend to the needs of others, and “do the work God has given us to do.”

And so I follow their lead.

Cain, Enoch, and Noah

Have started reading the One Year Chronological Bible (New Living Translation), thanks to friends Ned and Marilyn. Thursday’s reading included Genesis 4, 5, and 6: the stories of Cain and Abel, Seth and his descendants, the generations from Adam to Noah, and the beginning of the Noah and the Flood story. A couple of musings.

Cain

Cain seems generally to be known as the murderer of his brother, as someone driven from the family. Yes. Cain did kill his brother. Yes, he was driven away to live in the land of Nod, the land of “wandering.” But God also protected Cain with a mark. He continued to watch over Cain. And Cain’s descendants were artists, craftspeople, and caretakers of animals. Not a bad legacy.

God, in God’s great mercy, provided means by which Cain knew redemption.

Thanks be to God.

Enoch

Among the other daughters and sons that Adam and Eve had, was Seth (Genesis 5:3), “a son who was just like him—in his very image.” And the verse just before, the writer reminds us that God created human beings, to “be like himself.” Hmmm….

But what strikes me about the story of Seth is the listing of his descendants—eight generations’ worth. We have Enosh, Kenan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah. Each one gets three verses that follow the same pattern as Seth.

When Seth was 105 years old, he became the father of Enosh.
After the birth of Enosh, Seth lived another 807 years, and he had other sons and daughters.
Seth lived 912 years, and then he died.

• Age of father and birth of next son in the lineage.
• How many more years the father lives, "And he had other sons and daughters."
• The final age, "And then he died.

Until you get to Enoch. Enoch “became the father of Methuselah. After the birth of Methuselah, Enoch lived in close fellowship with God for another 300 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Enoch lived 365 years (hmmm.....), walking in close fellowship with God. Then one day he disappeared, because God took him.” [my italics]

What? Enoch just disappears, “because God took him?” What did Enoch’s family think? Everyone else died. Disease. Sickness. Wounds. Old age (different idea of old age back then). The kids come home from school. “Where’s Dad?”

Mom answers, “Didn’t you see him the fields?”

Enoch is simply gone. Vanished. Was there panic? Did the family and friends create myths and legends about his disappearance? Where they angry? After all, Enoch was a righteous man. He “walked with God.” I imagine family and friends crying out, “He walked with you, God. Why did you take him? What right do you have?”

And for what purpose? Why did God do this? “Take” Enoch? Why not give him an honorable and peaceful death surrounded by wife, children, and grandchildren? Simply because God can do this? Only to offer this hiccup in the narrative of Seth’s descendants so a layperson like me stops to wonder, “Hmmmm….”?

Noah

Genesis 6. The beginning of the story of Noah and the Flood.

Verse 6: “So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them [humans] and put them on the earth. It broke his heart” (my italics).

What powerful language. God’s heart breaks. He is in sorrow. She is in sorrow. Our ways hurt God. Did God’s heart break over her disappointment with us? God’s hopes and expectations dashed to smithereens? Did God’s heart break because there was no longer anyone with whom to "walk in close fellowship”? Did God’s heart break because he knew what had had to do to fix things?

But these things didn’t remain fixed. Look at the mess we’ve created around us since the flood famine, war, poverty, slavery (ancient, 19^th century, and now), rape, murder, greed. Surely God knew we’d mess things up the first chance we had. God is and was God. All-knowing. All-powerful. God was not, is not, a dummy. God had foresight and foreknowledge, back-knowledge, history in His hand.

I don’t care about different interpretations, doctrines, dogmas, formal text or dynamic text translations. What matters is that all this mess, “broke his heart.” I think it “broke her heart,” too.

Then Noah appears on the scene. “Noah found favor with the Lord.” Noah “walked in close fellowship with God.” Same language that describes Enoch. In the midst of everything and everyone else, here was someone who “walked with God.”

Maybe that’s the reason for the story. That’s the lesson.

Thanks be to God.