Two Congolese medical workers attending a Christian conference have shared how they daily deal with pack rape and murder as their homeland suffers through the ravages of civil war.
Springwood Anglican Church has brought two of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s key health practicioners to the 8th International Christian Medical And Dental Association (ICMDA) World Congress, held at Darling Harbour convention centre, so others could hear their experiences.
Late last month "M' walked into a health clinic, located in the anarchic east of the DRC.
She complained of pain in her lower abdomen.
The cause: she had been gang raped by soldiers.
Not just once. But in three separate incidents in the past 12 months.
Sadly, M's experience is frighteningly common in a country racked by the world's bloodiest conflict since WWII, costing the lives of 4 million people.
"There are so many cases of rape going on by army people," says Baliesima Kadukima, Director of Medical Services for the Anglican Church in the DRC.
"HIV AIDS has been exacerbated by the war. The army is propagating AIDS throughout the country."
Baliesima oversees 3 hospitals and 51 health clinics across the DRC, which has a population of over 62 million.
"You have to understand that in DRC we have had a savage civil war for eight years or more and there is no government health program,” he says.
“It has been left to the churches to care for the people.”
Brass For Africa, a ministry of Springwood Anglican Church, is responsible for bringing Baliesima and his dentistry colleague Grodya Dhego to Sydney.
Dr Graham Toulmin, a CMS missionary in the DRC before war broke out, has been hosting the African medicos.
He says his friends at Spingwood Anglican Church have "been blown away' by Baliesima's moving stories of life in the DRC.
Baliesima says the ICMDA World Congress has helped him improve his knowledge of some significant medical issues, and how to provide Christian hope to patients, particularly people living with HIV AIDS.
One in 5 people in the war ravaged east of the country now have AIDS.
He says contracting AIDS really affects people's faith.
"They ask, "Is it right that God can still love me?'
Baliesima also has a particular heart for AIDS and war orphans and hopes to raise funds for his protection project.
"Funding will help us care for the orphans " we try to find Christian parents for them," he says. "We want them to believe that God is there for them, because the Bible says he is the Father of the orphans."
Gift from God
VIPs at the ICMDA World Congress included Canon Gideon Byamugisha - a hero for Africans struggling to live with AIDS.
Last month he spoke to the UN in New York, calling on world leaders to end their "token' approach to addressing the AIDS pandemic.
"The greatest and most obvious gaps that survivors, will wonder about " and be angry about—are the missed opportunities, the lack of political will and the lack of total commitment by those of us in leadership positions to use all that we knew and all that we had to fight the pandemic," he was reported as saying.
Gideon, from the Anglican Church in Uganda, is the first African minister to publicly declare he is HIV positive.
This is a courageous act.
Silence about AIDS is one of the most significant barriers to winning Africa's struggle against HIV.
Yet, there is widespread idea that HIV infection implies promiscuity, and that makes it hard for Christians to admit they are infected.
Just days after losing his wife to AIDS, Gideon learned that she had given him the virus. He still doesn’t know how his wife was infected.
Yet Gideon's ministry has had an extraordinary impact on Africans, with the Swazi people dubbing Gideon "Sipo' which means "Gift from God'.
So it was apt that Gideon spoke at the opening of the congress which has the theme of "hope and health' because he has done so much to shine the light of the gospel into the darkness of the AIDS pandemic.
Canon Gideon Byamugisha spoke at Darling Street Anglican Church, Rozelle, yesterday.
Brass For Africa would also like to raise funds to purchase Baliesima Kadukima a motorbike so he can oversee his clinics in the DR Congo.
Baliesima's medical ministry can also be supported through The Archbishop of Sydney's Overseas Relief and Aid Fund (ORAF)
additional sources: The Scotsman, CIA World Factbook, United Nations
