by Tim Bayly on September 5, 2013 - 11:24am
Our son-in-law, Pastor Lucas Weeks, is the descendant of two generations of missionaries to the nation formerly known as the Congo or Zaire, but now variously referred to as the Democratic Republic of Congo, DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or the DRC. His parents, Ron and Doris Weeks, live in Kinshasa and Lucas just forwarded this piece from the National Geographic that does a good job describing life in Kinshasa.
A couple excerpts:
“I met an eastern Congo woman here in 1998, a pregnant rape victim,” Tsimba tells me. “I asked her if she would keep the kid.
She said, ‘Yes, he’s innocent.’ This became my inspiration. I showed her the sculpture when I was done. She was excited, even delighted, that someone was telling this to the world. She said, ‘Yes, this is how I suffered.’ I sold the sculpture and used the money to... pay for the hospital and for clothes, so that she and her baby could go back to Goma.”
And: