Whirlpool Effect

When I was younger my parents used to buy my siblings and me little plastic swimming pools in the summers. One of our favorite games was what we called “whirlpool.” Everyone in the pool would swim as fast as they could in the same direction around the circumference of the pool. As we swam, the water would move faster and faster with us until it was practically pushing us along instead of vice versa. The highlight of the game was when one of us would yell, “Okay, backwards!” Then, we would try our hardest to stop and swim in the opposite direction, inevitably being pushed back and sometimes almost flipped over by the force of the water. The fun was in creating a force that was strong enough to carry you along in it and then trying your hardest to subvert it.

I am telling you about these little childhood moments because something happened to me recently that reminded me of the feeling I had trying to fight back a current I had helped create. As I was driving in Goma a few weeks ago, another car tried to cut back in front of me before they had completely passed and ended up swiping my front bumper. I was surprised when the driver saw that his car was undamaged and tried to leave the scene. To make a long (and frustrating) story short, a policeman eventually came and began to blame the accident on me as well.

We found out the next day that the young man who hit us was the son of a very wealthy Congolese man, so no policeman would dare accuse him. This and the fact that I was a foreigner meant that WR had to pay $50 to the police officer and pay for our own repairs.

For a while now this has been on my mind, I have felt angry, and I have been replaying different scenarios in my head for what I could have done to change the outcome. But, the fact remains that it is a kind of injustice I didn’t have to deal with often in the U.S. and there was nothing I could do to change or avoid it.

It wasn’t until yesterday that I was struck by the fact that I have been so angry about this injustice, but in reality it didn’t hurt me much. I am not going to notice the money we lost and I wasn’t physically hurt in any way. So, why does this keep me awake at night and occupy my thoughts so often when I barely take time to notice the injustice happening everyday to people around me? I have no answer for this. There are people in towns surrounding Goma who regularly don’t eat because rebels steal their livelihood. This does not infuriate me or stay in my thoughts more than a few minutes past when I hear about it.

Yet, more and more as I think about how living here is shaping me, I wrestle with the “answers” for Congo. I am aware that every action can either contribute to a “whirlpool effect” that is already ongoing or, like when we changed direction as kids, it can slow the current or even reverse it. The hard part is that the choices are not always mine. The Congolese people are the main players in creating the direction that their country moves in: every policeman asking for a bribe, every young child I pass that has already learned to beg when they see a foreigner, every individual that chooses their own good over that of others.
Then there are those that choose to go against the current and selflessly choose to do what is good and right. These are the people that should be admired for their ability to move in a new direction when everyone around them pushes them towards self-interest at the cost of others. Still my search for answers always leads back to God’s ability to change people. His very existence and character is the only reason anyone here would start to choose someone else’s good over their own. And that is the only real answer I can find right now.

Religion That Is True and Pure Is This...

Church Mobilization in Congo has been training churches on reconciliation and compassion. After pastors in the village of Rutshuru received this training, denominations came together and pooled their resources to begin doing compassionate ministry. As they sought to identify the neediest people in their community, a church member recalled a woman he knew.

This woman, a widow, had also lost her children in the war. The money she had been surviving on from the last bit of property she had sold ran out and she was evicted from her rented home. With no family left to help, she was living in the streets.

Though this woman did not belong to any church, the network of churches formed by World Relief decided to bring together money to purchase materials and build her a house. The community members gathered and worked together to build her a home of her own. Nothing like this had been done before in the community. This kind of compassionate action is now growing in Rutshuru, mobilizing churches throughout the region.