International Youth Festival

Last week I attended the Atlantic Bridge International Youth Festival in Tata, Hungary. There were about 140 in attendance from The Czech Republic, Iceland, Hungary, The Ukraine, Romania, The Netherlands, The USA, and one lone fellow from Slovenia. We stayed in an old monastery that’s been converted into a youth hostel. Apart from the heat and some rather creepy bathing arrangements (read 19th century mental institution), we had a very positive gathering. We met in the adjoining school gym most of the week; however, on the final day, we arranged a special meeting in the monastery chapel. All vestages of iconography were stripped away long ago, leaving only bare walls and cracked plaster. It was simultaneously sad and peaceful. John Oostdyk, the director of Atlantic Bridge, provides a snapshot of that meeting:

A long line of young people with eyes closed winded [sic] towards the secret place in the monastery from which a loving monk had sent his letters of love and encouragement to the participants each day. This last morning would be his final message but for this he invited us all to his special place in the monastery. Through a small door the group was led into a large dungeon-like chapel where Gregorian music and lit candles welcomed the guests. We had just walked back in history 600 years. When everyone was seated, Dennis shared the last message of the monk and spoke about the return of the prodigal son. It was very quiet that morning in the chapel as the message perfectly captured the intensity of the week. Milestones of Love was the theme. Speakers from various cultures, backgrounds and experiences talked about recovering meaningful experiences from the past, allowing healing from painful experiences, learning from our mistakes, and placing them in a context of present realities while providing a spiritual outlook from this point on, building positive milestones for the future. With just one thought through it all: God’s love manifested in Jesus is greater than any of our past, present and future hurts or issues. At the final meeting at the chapel each participant went to the alter to collect a special personal “God” stone as a memory of this week.

I am now editing the curriculum used for the youth groups who attend this festival. I’ve been working on an exchange basis in the Netherlands since late May and plan to finish the curriculum over the next year. The whole concept of bringing youth together through these clubs and festivals like the one that just ended is especially encouraging to me. I believe we are at the beginning of what could become a very useful and life-changing concept here in Europe and beyond. It is certainly the right time to train youth to build bridges and become cross-culturally competent. The doors are opening across borders; we have a common language with which to work; and there is a hope in the air about the possibilities of the future. At the same time, as we can read in the news and see on our televisions, there is still much work ahead to helping people understand and tolerate one another. It is programs like Bridgebuilders that can help the youth of today become people that will avoid conflict in the future. Also, Europe has a history closely identified with Christian thought. However, the core ideas have been so confused, diffused, and abused that there is no longer a clear understanding of how these ideas apply to today’s issues or could be beneficial for the future. While the Bridgebuilders curriculum is not necessarily meant to be a tool for evangelism, it is written from a Christian perspective and should at least introduce participants to Christian thought and ideals. With these goals in mind, I think we can hope for a significant and flexible program that will allow many youth to take up leadership in their families, churches, communities, and beyond.

If you are interested in Bridgebuilding or know a youth group that would like more information (doesn’t matter where you are geographically), e-mail me at nicholas[dot]media@mac[dot]com (replace the [dot] with actual dots) or click on the AB link above for more information.

Congo 2005

From an e-mail shortly after my return from The DRC in the Summer of 2005
I’m back in the States and have somewhat passed the jet-lagged
stage…at least I’m not waking up at 3:00 in the morning now!

Of course, when one returns from a trip like this, everyone either

1. asks for every detail or
2. doesn’t realize I’ve been where I’ve been and continues on as if I’ve been hidden in a closet for the past month.

I’ve thought about sitting down and writing a synopsis of my trip; however, it’s going to take some time to digest what I’ve witnessed. The people who want every detail can’t really comprehend the nature of what I’ve seen (I can’t imagine what it’s like for people coming back to a peaceful land after witnessing war…or maybe I can a bit better now). The people who don’t know I’ve been away tend to grate on my nerves; On the flight from Washington to Philadelphia, the person sitting beside me asked if I’d heard Michael Jackson got away without charges. I wanted to scream. I’d just returned from a country where more than 30,000 people are killed by violent acts each month and the world’s attention (or, pardon, America’s attention) is focused on a perverted rock star.

In a sense, it would be easy to write about the specifics. I could write several pages describing malnourished children, corrupt governments, and generally unstable societies. But you’ve probably read all that already. (And, I’m sure some of you have witnessed it as well.)

With my eyes I’ve seen things people in the “civilized” world don’t wish to concern themselves with or don’t know to. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a giant disaster and, it has to be considered, there may be little hope for improvement. In the 1990’s and early this century there was a war (or, a series of “conflicts”) in which millions of people died. During this time, many aid groups pulled out of the country leaving the already tattered infrastructure bare (as there aren’t really any taxes, there also isn’t really any governmental structure for medicine, education, or…anything. Basically, everything comes from outside aid groups). During the conflicts, most hospitals and schools were looted. Teachers and doctors fled and the aid groups supporting them left. So there is now a generation of Congolese growing up without education. There is one doctor or nurse practitioner for every 100,000 people in the country. The unemployment rate is somewhere around 90 percent. The average ANNUAL income has just been revised to $120 USD. The country is as big as the United States east of the Mississippi River with about 56 million people (this population, barring epidemics or genocide, could double in the next 40 years). Police aren’t paid; they are expected to make their income off bribes and harassment. We saw truckload after truckload of tropical hardwoods on their way out of the country (giant ancient trees easily sold for sometimes $60,000 on the world market). The Congolese who sells the tree off his land may get paid $100.

The history of the country since Belgian colonization ¹ in the late 1800’s has been one of constant brutality, blood, enslavement, and destruction. I have never seen a place of such desolation.

I could go on; I heard harrowing stories from the missionaries about safety (the missionaries in Kinshasa live under the protection of US Marines), about massacres (the former president went on the radio one day and declared all Rwandans enemies of the State; he then called for the people to kill Rwandans. The missionaries have pictures of bodies lining the streets of Kinshasa), about having family meals and singing hymns under live fire, about despair.

We visited several hospitals on this trip (the American Baptist mission work in Congo is in partnership with USAID, the US government’s humanitarian aid organization). I spent a morning in a surgical ward watching a cataract surgery, an ovarian cyst removal, and a prostatectomy — all done under local anesthesia in a room that looked much like a cross between an old garage and the laboratory of Dr. Frankenstein. We saw patients two to a bed with every kind of tropical illness (many of the people we saw are already dead; all the patients with HIV/AIDS will be dead in 2-5 years. There is no way they can afford treatment). Even people with easily preventable diseases will most likely die from them; there is just no medication readily available for them (I had to have about $400 USD worth of vaccinations to travel “safely” in Congo plus the $100 of anti-malarial medications prescribed for me; there is no possible way for the vast numbers of impoverished peoples there to afford such medicines).

On and on and on…

This month, the government was supposed to hold elections. There is absolutely no way this is going to happen. All the countries surrounding Congo have dibs on adjoining land and are agitating rebel groups and the general population. One of the missionaries said the markets are already sold out of machetes. [Last Friday, the US Department of State issued a travel warning for US citizens to avoid travel to DR Congo and for Americans in the country to be prepared to evacuate.] Congo could, in the next couple weeks, descend into complete chaos. Or not. Hopefully not; but in a place of such desperation, it just takes a little bit to tip the scale one way or the other (note: there were no elections and, other than some street unrest and a couple riots, the situation calmed fairly quickly; however, it remains tenuous as the parties in control loose legitimacy. Their central claim to power is that they will usher in a freely elected government. This will be all but impossible in a country with little communication infrastructure and no census. Also, the government barely has control over just the capital city {there is a frontier around the city that is closed at night to lessen the chance that rebels will overrun it}).

A representative of the United Nations says Congo is the worst unspoken humanitarian disaster in the world. ² I don’t even wish to recount some of the documented atrocities I’ve read and heard from the missionaries. (Currently the Pygmy tribes that live in Northeast Congo are subject to an unspeakable genocide. There is a bush legend that Pygmy peoples have special prowess in the jungles and are able to perform superhuman feats. Various of the rebel groups are hunting Pygmy, killing, and eating them to gain these powers. This was, unfortunately, not the worst of the stories that were recounted to me).

We have no idea. It’s hard to complain about minor issues here when there are millions of people living in houses made of dried dung who could at any moment be overrun by the military of their own government or militias from the country next door, whose crops and forests are sold for nothing to make houses in Japan or sugar for Chicago.

I’ve never had people stare right through me; we drove into Bas Congo in a USAID SUV (US Embassy plates, we weren’t stopped or harassed because we could call in a bunch of Marines with big guns). People looked at us with empty desperate and sometimes hateful eyes. Simply, I was white and obviously had some sort of connections and protection. People on the street had none of this, not even the protection of the law. Nothing; they are completely exposed and have to fend for themselves in one of the most hostile environments on earth. I had never understood where the title Heart of Darkness came from. I have some understanding now.

Despite all this, there are people there doing good; I have never been so impressed with people working as missionaries. They do so at great personal risk. They also sacrifice a lot concerning their families. There are doctors working there in bad conditions; they could easily work in pristine well-equipped hospitals in Europe or America and make large salaries doing so. Instead they work with just a little to make what difference they can. It’s very touching. It is a small shimmer of hope though on a otherwise dark place.

¹ For an excellent laymans commentary on the history of colonization in The Congo, read King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochschild. It’s published by Houghton Mifflin.
² United Nations emergency relief coordinator Jan Egeland speaking before the UN on humanitarian aid issues.

Here is a journal entry from Dr. Bill Clemmer concerning our trip to Congo. Dr. Clemmer is the coordinator of the medical aid program we were documenting.
Also see the BBC’s ongoing country profile and stories concerning The DRC (and just about everywhere else, for that matter) on their website.

2003 Cuba trip

8th February 2003, Miami 4:00 a.m.: Miami Police break down door to my hotel room. We awake at 3:30, pack our gear, and prepare to head out for the airport; however, the deadbolt on the door will not disengage from inside. Neither can the manager open it from outside. So, with tremendous clamour, an officer of the law makes entry.

Miami Airport: US Citizens with tourist visas must pass through a third country to enter Cuba, my group carries Religious visas (with two Canadians as tourists). The remainder of the pasengers are either journalists, academics, or people with family in Cuba. The families are checking everything from televisions to windshields and automotive mufflers. A man in front of us pays almost $2000 in excess baggage fees. The terminal we fly out of is off by itself, the marquee facing the concourse reads no destination.

Havana: Spend an hour and a half waiting in line at Cuban Customs; our visas arrive at the last minute. Our actual passports are never stamped with a Cuban visa. Instead, as a courtesy, we are given separate documents which are confiscated as we leave the country. Apparently, some other countries look askance at travelers who have been to Cuba.

The airport exit is surrounded by chainlink fence; against the fence are pressed hundreds of faces waiting for family members. We board two Mercedes vans and strike out into a countyside of sugarcane.

Ciego DeAvila, The Hotel Santiago Havana: The blind harpisicordist discovers we are a group of religious folk and proceeds to play a series of hymns at dinner. Jose, the missions director for Latin America, shifts about nervously. There are no windows in the rooms, only mechanical blinds that open to the street. The same blinds open to a shaft shared by opposing bathrooms on three floors of the building. If the people in both rooms open their slats, they can sing duets in the shower.

9th February 2003, Ciego: This morning, as I walk through the lobby to breakfast, I meet Jose politely arguing with the police. Apparently this is not a nice enough hotel for foreign guests; for the remainder of the stay we must find better lodgings.

We attend church in Ciego; it’s packed with young and old. Though the roof is falling in at places and Sunday school is held in an open courtyard, there is a certain vibrancy in their worship.

We have lunch on the rooftop of a church in Cespedes (note, every time we at at a church they slaughtered the fatted calf, we were a little uncomfortable at times realizing the economic state the people are in).

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​Church members prepare a large shared meal for people attending the gathering in Santiago.

Camaguey: Cuban equilivent of a mega-church (gleaming church, big sound, tropical birds in cages, fancy parsonage, etc.). Again, packed and vibrant. The Eastern Baptist convention who were hosting us, had nearly 2000 new church memberships within the last few months.

There is no apparent racism in Cuba, everybody mixes in together (the cities have no “black”, “hispanic”, or “rich” sections since the government distributes the population as it sees fit).

All our dollars go to Fidel: Despite the embargo, around $800m USD flows into Cuba each year. Americans can spend US currency freely; however, in order for a Cuban citizen to spend money in a government owned store (basically, all of the stores), they must first exchange the US dollars with a type of Peso equilivent to the dollar (only in Cuba, of course). Thus, the actual USD goes into the government coffer, while the people are given a currency that could be declaired defunct at the turn of a dime. Clever, eh?