Why I Love Congolese Scouts

Our official escorts in Mulongo

It’s no secret that back in high school I had crushes on boy scouts (particularly Eagles and rugby playing scouts). There was just something about hanging out with guys with survival training and chivalry. I listened to so many of their stories about camping adventures at Philmont it was if I’d been there too. How wild and exciting they made it sound! Of course, Mom teased that when they’d all come over to our house it was like watching Wendy and the Lost Boys interact.

I, myself, hadn’t lasted long in our local girl scout program. A couple years of selling cookies and decorating cakes was enough for me, so when we moved I wasn't interested in finding another troop.

It came therefore, as both a surprise and a laugh to me when I moved to Kamina, DR Congo in 2005 and found out that my neighbors and new best buds were active scouts. Weren’t they a bit old to still be scouting?  What exactly was the point of it when everyone there already knew as a matter of daily survival how to live off the grid and Macgyver random objects?  How do you talk about allegiance to God and Country when your government is so broken?  I had much to learn.

I was shocked when I began traveling with the bishop into even more remote communities—ones that had been directly impacted by the war—that there were always scouts there to meet us upon arrival. They not only would help transport the luggage and equipment, they’d form a human line around the visitors and escort them safely to their lodging. They then took shifts guarding the compound 24/7 and would act as runners for supplies. Scouts, it turned out, are the go-to crew for hospitality, crowd control, security, protocol, and important event set-up (sound system, outdoor electrical, etc)—not to mention their other do-gooder projects like assisting widows and orphans or mobilizing community clean-up efforts. I also noticed that the deeper into the war zone we went, the more disciplined the scout troops seemed to be. This was no coincidence.

At first it disturbed me how much these scouts resembled young soldiers as they marched in their lines. Then it hit me: for these young men who knew the face of war and been recruited (often forcibly) by armies and warlords, the decision to join the scouts—the community’s unarmed peacekeeping force—was a bold act requiring the resolve of a patriotic soldier.

The United Methodist Church’s North Katanga Conference alone has 4,807 (as of August 2013) active scouts. They are planning to hold a jamboree next summer in Tenke, DR Congo and have invited scouts from the USA to join them. Dr. Art Collins, president of the National Association of United Methodist Scouters and pastor of Ellettsville First UMC is heading the recruitment and registration for Americans interested in attending or underwriting this event. I encourage you to contact Art for details.    

  

scouting in Kalemie, DR Congo

Scouts in Tenke, DR Congo welcoming the FPM bike team

Scouts in Kabongo assisted local police with crowd control at annual conference

Scout troop that guarded our guest house 24/7 in Mulongo this summer

View more photos of scouts in North Katanga

Malaria, Fasting, Field of Dreams, and Standing in Solidarity

These women were returning from doing laundry at the river. Dad noticed the task had taken them all day. I noticed their loads included uniforms from the choir that had welcomed us at the airstrip.

So I Skyped with my parents last night and found out that Dad is down with malaria again. He’s sweating it out on the living room couch in Plainfield, Indiana and stubbornly not seeking professional medical attention because he says local doctors would overreact (translation: he doesn’t want the medical bills). He hadn’t been taking any anti-malaria meds on our recent trip to DR Congo, but I’d made sure that Mom had some extra pills, so we at least talked him into taking a couple Mefloquine tablets yesterday.

I mention this because, while my father and I agree on many things, there are ways in which we differ. I, for example, take my anti-malaria pills because I’m no good to the team if I’m sick, and I’ve got a young daughter who needs her mommy. Dad, on the other hand, takes the solidarity approach. If the Congolese members of our team don’t have the luxury of taking anti-malaria meds, then neither will he. Dad’s primary mode of transportation in Congo is bicycle; I tend to ride in/on machines with engines while there. Some of our methodological differences are philosophical, but mostly they are related to age and gender (a young mother is more at risk than a crazy grandpa).

The question of how to live in solidarity with our colleagues in Congo is complex. Back in 2005 when I was living in Kamina, there was one day that hit me hard. I had spent the afternoon with two Congolese friends, and they were escorting me back to my house so I could have the dinner the bishop’s cook had prepared for me. They knew I had promised to play with the kids at the orphanage after my meal, so they said they would just wait outside for me. “You must be famished too,” I said. “Why don’t you go home and eat with your family?” They gave each other the do-we-tell-her? look and replied that there was no point walking home because the food money for the month had already finished and the household was fasting until the next payday.

They explained to me the system commonly practiced by families in the community: when food supplies run short, you divide the household into two and teams eat one meal every other day. The ones who have eaten more recently are in charge of doing the labor-intensive work for those who are hungrier. Food is consumed before bedtime so one gets a better night’s sleep and still has energy for morning chores.

As you can imagine, this put me off my appetite, and I felt too guilty to eat the abundant meals being made for me. After a couple days, my energy levels dropped, and the cook started panicking. “You must eat more! If you become thin and sickly the bishop will blame me and I’ll lose my job!” he pleaded. He was right. My solidarity fast was helping no one and stressing out those tasked with keeping me safe and healthy. As the bishop has pointed out numerous times over the years, while sickness, accidents and death are a regular occurrence in Congo, when it happens to an American volunteer it makes international headlines and creates huge problems for the hosts who failed to protect their guests.

This mother (stripes) gave birth by candlelight with the help of this graduate of FPM's El Dorado Nursing School (left) who had received a scholarship from this donor (top right)

I don’t think there is an easy answer on how to live in solidarity with others. I could fast with my Djiboutian neighbors during Ramadan and some might appreciate the gesture, but I still wouldn’t really know what it’s like to enter into a long religious fast when there’s labor-intensive work to do and no air-conditioning. I could start wearing a hoodie when I’m state-side, but I’m still never going to know the experience of people suspecting me of being a criminal just because I’m not wearing my Sunday best. Even if I gave away everything I owned and made a vow of poverty, I wouldn't know the fear, anxiety and depression that accompany involuntary poverty.

All this to say that while attempting to live in solidarity with others is good, we must not romanticize our actions. I am now a member of the North Katanga Conference, and I have pledged to do my utmost to stand in solidarity with my colleagues. And while in some ways we are now in the same boat, I still have advantages that shelter me from the risks and difficulties they face (I have health insurance through my husband's job, for example).

We can pray and strive for the leveling of the playing field, but those of us born into privilege should never forget that God’s primary concern is for the less fortunate, and that means that as much as we may yearn to unite all of God's people and have the Beatitudes be about us too, sometimes the Gospel isn't talking to us.  Sometimes we aren’t invited.

 

(My father raised me on Field of Dreams. Just because God calls you to do something big doesn't mean it's all about you.) 

Note: In this post I leave several key things unsaid hoping that the reader will connect the dots.

Ordination

If you aren’t one of my active Facebook friends and especially if you aren’t FB friends with at least one of my immediate family members, you may have missed the announcement that earlier this month I became an ordained elder in The United Methodist Church. Now some of you may be thinking “Wait—weren’t you already a pastor?” Well, yes, but before I was a pastor in the way that an adjunct professor is a professor. Now I’m a full member of the North Katanga Conference (DR Congo), so this is a bit of a big deal.

Others of you know the backstory of this long journey—some of you much more than most. Just like many professors and pastors, I’ve fantasized about the day when I would be free to speak openly about the rings of fire I jumped through. Now that the day has arrived, I am torn between leaving the past behind me and sharing my experience as a case study for those in similar situations (or for academics critiquing the current ordination process). You see, while my story got its happy ending, I lament that I failed to blaze a smooth path for kindred spirits whose callings don’t fit into the dominant ministry paradigms. That said, to all those who advocated in board meetings and hallways for an affirmation of international itinerancy and to those who were heartbroken and angry when a battle was lost, I want to assure you that there’s no need to cry for me. I was commissioned in the state of my birth with extended family and childhood friends in attendance and ordained in my adopted home in a grand celebration organized by a leadership team that embraces my ministry and my globally nomadic marriage.  How lucky am I! 

Now that the anticipated day has arrived, I am starting to explore what life on the other side of ordination looks like. In case you are curious, I’m seriously considering applying to a doctorate in missiology program down in South Africa and eventually writing curriculum on missiology. This coming year, however, I’ll be busy helping my husband bid on his next assignment, attending my brother’s wedding, coordinating FPM, launching an FPM-owned business (with the end-goal of staff salaries being paid by its profits), assisting the Church in Djibouti, and preparing to move to another yet-to-be-determined country.

So, for the moment, I think I’ll simply celebrate this victory and leave my sermon about losing an incredible opportunity if we don't overhaul the system soon for another day.

Much Love,

Taylor

Why yes, Wesley Seminary classmates, that is Rev. Gertrude beside me.  She's on faculty at Africa University now.

Bishop Ntambo spoke about the over 20 years he's known me before asking me the historic questions--in Swahili.  

Yes, I did successfully answer all the questions in Swahili.

 

Wonderful to have my husband, daughter, and parents there.

My favorite person that day-- the chair of NK's ordination committee!

Gaston (the NK pilot) and Jeanne were able to come; Gaston has just returned to town after flying the new Cessna Caravan all the way from the USA to Lubumbashi.

So excited that Rev. Bondo could attend.  (FYI Plainfield UMC: You sponsored his studies at Africa University, and now he is on faculty there!)

Link to ordination day photo album

In the Flesh and the Red Road

Last night I somehow got sucked into staying up late and watching the pilot of a new television drama. It is a BBC show called In the Flesh; it's in the post-zombie apocalypse genre.  It's not the sort of thing I normally enjoy (hate gory scenes), but the premise intrigued me and there was so much heart in the storytelling I kept on watching. 

So the basic set-up we get in the first episode is that our young PDS (Post-Death-Syndrome) suffering hero, Kieren Walker, is tormented by guilt (and graphic flashbacks) of the horrific acts he committed in his pretreated state (calling him a recovering zombie would be politically incorrect). He and countless others with his condition have received government sponsored medical and cosmetic assistance and are being reintegrated into society.  The communities they are returning to, however, aren't all convinced that this is a good thing--especially since if PDS sufferers go off their daily meds their brains quickly slip back into a 'rabid' state. Tensions are high and lynch mobs aren't uncommon. Families struggle with how to relate to and trust their returned loved ones. It is even revealed that there is an underground movement of PDS folks who are preparing for some sort of rebellion.

Science fiction shows that resonate with the masses generally do so because they address real-world social issues in a thinly veiled form (Paulo Freire would say the writers identified generative themes and created effective codes for them).  Now I'm not exactly sure what specific generative themes this show taps into for folks in Britain, but after watching I realized that it is a very good metaphor for issues of communities living along the infamous Red Road in DR Congo. My Congolese clergy colleagues have raised my awareness of the extreme challenges of demobilizing and reintegrating militias that have committed horrific acts against their own people.  With the level of drugs and psychological abuse used to turn many young people into mass murders, it is not that inaccurate to think of them as recovering zombies.   The social harmony problems faced in many towns and villages in Congo are strikingly similar to the problems that play out in this fictional village in the UK.     

Based on the community development model developed by Freire and those who came after him, we can use 'codes' such as the show In the Flesh to safely explore the dynamics of and possible responses to our real world social issues. Thus, despite looking away from the screen during parts of the show and having some disturbing dreams afterwards, I'm very much tempted to watch the next episode.

"The Shooter" She's the #2 in the camp of the War Lord Vende, and you don't get to be No. 2 by going through charm school, and you don't get the nickname, "The Shooter" at the county fair. The good news is that she is enrolling in our (Friendly Planet supported) nursing school in Mulongo this next semester

Taylor

#ForeignServiceProblems

Lydia making my life easier

Earlier this month Lydia, my 'mother's helper,' said she had a bad toothache and needed to seek medical attention.  She didn't trust local dentists so had decided to travel back to Ethiopia--didn't know when she'd be back.  That was the last time I heard from her.   My back-up helper is currently helping the Marines get their place ready for official inspection, so she’s been too busy to moonlight for me these days either. This means that daytime housework and childcare are once again 100% my responsibility--making goals like ‘blog regularly’ fall to the wayside.  

I thought how petty complaining about this online would sound (“My househelp is sick so I have to do everything myself and don’t have time for blogging or my French studies” #richworldproblems), but then it occurred to me that my female colleagues in Congo would totally be able to relate. There is it common knowledge that no woman on her own could possibly juggle housework, childcare and income-generating work let alone be involved in things like church ministries. It takes at least two—ideally more—women in a household to get things done, and even then there is rarely time left for educational or creative pursuits.  When women get married in Congo they quickly summon another woman (usually close family relation) to come help.  This is partly why when I visit homes in North Katanga I often scratch my head trying to figure out who actually lives there and how everyone is related.

This is why polygamy—or household structures that resemble polygamy in everything but the sex—is still common in many parts of the world. Americans who think it is all about sex simply miss the point. A woman needs other women in the household to survive.

Now I’m sure a voice in your head is noting how many well-functioning households you know that have only one (or no) woman in it.  Such examples, I tell you, are made possible by outsourcing and technology. Who grew, harvested, plucked and prepared the food and drinks you consumed today? It’s highly unlikely there weren’t women (and children—especially if you consumed chocolate or coffee) involved in much of that work. Who made the clothes you are wearing?  Probably a sweatshop full of women. You might also have the benefit of washing machines, dishwashers, licensed daycare centers, potable running water, refrigerators and reliable electricity, and homes that are so well sealed that they don't have to be swept and scrubbed daily due to all the dirt that blows in.

I could go on and on the topic, but my daughter has recently discovered the joys of opening cabinets and tossing out all of their contents and has managed to make a huge mess while I was writing all of this. She might currently be holding a fragile/dangerous object. Have I mentioned how I'm now eating humble pie for all those times I silently judged Congolese women when I saw their toddlers 'alone' in a corner left to entertain themselves?