Dear Friends,

We are coming to the end of our trip, but not our journey. There is much to do and I think I can speak for the team to say we are excited to see what the next steps are! I will try to blog one more time before we are home. Pastor Michael has left to make it home for his son’s game, Patrick and I leave for Kigali on Friday, getting home on Sunday. And Pastor Kasareka and Camille will travel on to visit Bunia, Beni, and Butembo, towns North of Goma. They will be having Pastors Meetings as well.

We’ve had good days. Camille is singing, “God is so good.” And He is right. Why would we have a song in our hearts in the middle of Goma? Because He is at work. We see the timing of God in this. This morning we met with an NGO who is one of the few attempting to target men in the fight against sexual violence, Women for Women International. It was so encouraging to hear from them. They do a once a year training of leaders. They’ve done it for the last three years. They said with the military especially, they are the most active and responsive during the training, but it doesn’t seem to affect their behavior once they go back to camp. Why? They said it simply. The lack of mentorship and follow up.

Yesterday we went back to the military camp to visit Brother Joseph’s ministry team.
These people have practically no resources but they are very organized and working hard to reach military men. We heard from the entire team. We can talk to you more about that in person. . We are praying about the ways we can partner with them. I spoke at L’Arche’s Bible Study for women and that evening and then we did some massive team debriefing, getting ready to come home to YOU!

This afternoon Pastor Kasareka spoke at the men’s Bible study at L’Arche. We visited Femme Plus, UNICEF, and Women for Women. We also meet with project coordinator for the Baptist Denomination. They have amazing programs. Wow!!!!! They have been working to train their pastors to start men’s ministry and are able to train kids in their awesome network of schools. It was hard to hear them describe what often happens to a women who gets raped. She is often rejected by the family. Even if she is raped in front of the man he will ask, “Why did she allow that to happen? She should have asked them to kill her!” They have “sensitization” education that takes time to talk with that man, if he will allow it, to help him understand that it wasn’t her fault etc…Often those men won’t listen to the women staff so they have to send a Pastor. They did say those men who are so resistant are often the ones that are involved in violence already. We also learned more about those babies who are born out of rape. How difficult it is from the man to accept that baby and for the mother to for that matter. Much sensitization and education is being done in that area.

Tonight I shared at the prayer meeting for women recovering from rape or preparing for the fistula surgery at Heal Africa. Again, What a joy. I wish you were there dancing with us. God bless them. Afterwards three of the girls shared their story with us and a gal from the UN program fighting sexual violence in Goma. Those brave ladies will be sharing in front of a UN committee. Their stories were the usual unimaginable stories. What a precious group of people to share with.

Tomorrow is a busy day starting at 630am meeting with Camille’s mentees (sp?) Some of them will be carriers of this vision and we will use them as a pilot group to begin mirroring what Camille is doing. We also will be meeting with the General in town. I am so excited for our 1pm meeting. We will have about 20 people here for lunch. They are people that are very connected to what is going on at the ground level with the people.

Well, on the way home tonight the car started having problems and then when we got home the bathroom overflowed and filled the hallway.

Blessings from the Team. Aim