Congo V

On Thursday the 26th we relaxed and pretty much hung out. We drove out to the Elikya (means “Hope” in Lingala) project to see what is being developed for the widows and orphans. They have 120 acres on which the church is building a community to house and train widows and orphans. The idea is to build homes that will have two widows and three or four teen girls. They will also have gardens and a training center for sewing and other skills.

Habitat for Humanity has the property across the road and there is probably enough space there to put up about 1,000 homes. Unfortunately Habitat has decided to close down its operation because of all the difficulties they have experienced. So Tom is talking with them about the possibility of the church building on the property.

As the church has worked on this they realized that teen-mothers are also in very real need. Like the orphans, many of the teen mothers have had no life-skills development and so they will be included in the project, too.

Thursday evening the two people who are HIV positive visited with us. The man is/was a priest who somehow contracted HIV (sexual activity as a teenager is widespread so perhaps it was prior to his entering the ministry, he did not say and we were told it would be inappropriate to ask). The woman was infected by her husband. She had asked him if he was clean prior to marriage and he said yes, but it was not true. This is not unusual here and in fact is a major problem. Her husband died of AIDS and his parents blamed her. As her in-laws they were able to take all the property, leaving her destitute. Both are on drugs, but only a few can get them. Jesus did not factor in to the discussion at all, which was too bad.

Rachel Martin would like to see the clinic in Gemena dispense drugs, but that requires refrigeration and the cost is about $60/month (the average pastor salary is $30-40, so $60/month exceeds the monthly income of the majority of people). Because they can’t dispense drugs, people won’t get tested. Why be tested if there is nothing that can be done if the person is positive is the reasoning.