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Prayer

Small Miracles go unnoticed

We were in Lubumbashi. You know Lubumbashi; it used to be the Copper Capital, in the South East of the Congo/Zaïre, one of the richest and most beautiful towns in Central Africa.

Everything was paid by the copper money.

Then the copper market collapsed, the foreign investors were kicked out, equipments were not maintained, the road to Kinshasa, 2000 km to the West vanished, eaten up by Nature.

Remained Lubumbashi. Lubumbashi remained, what remained were unpaid soldiers, unpaid policemen, traders and exhausted, famished farmers. And grey children, and more grey children, roaming around the town looking for something to eat. Well I nearly forgot the over class, the European Government Representatives, as usually covered in wealth and disgust.

And us, the Non Government Organizations, trying to find some way to feed the farmers, protect the children and the women.

It was Sunday, we gather for the Sunday Service. It was a field in the suburbs of Lubumbashi. I cannot say that we were very poor; we all arrived in our duty cars. If you are scandalized by our duty cars, how else would we move around?

The service took place, a very simple service, people speaking of faith, of respect, of intentions for this and that person, of love for our neighbour, of listening to God.

They all knew one another, they all had the same background, they all were strong and faithful, I was kind of a strange duck, coming from another background.

Then the leader of the Service would say

“Let us pray”

All the heads bowed and looked at their shoes.

I do not know why I had never noticed before that the believers appeared to believe that God was housed in the shoes.

Then the Service ended, those sitting to my right turned to the right to speak with their friends, those sitting to my left turned to the left to speak to their friends and I was sitting there, like a kind of stupid left over garbage.

So I had time to reflect about “prayers”. What else could I do?

I had a kind of a vision.

I saw all these humans praying to god, sort of as if they were writing letters to the Superior Authority asking for this or that help, assistance, enclosing gifts, and, considering that all prayers are heard and get a reply, I saw God sending the answers, like Christmas gifts sent by DHL or Fed Express, and all these happiness wrapped gifts colleting in a huge warehouse as apparently all those having send a prayer never expected to get a reply and never bothered to open their “in ”box” to check for the reply and gift.

I really felt a huge sadness for God, speaking to his children, children who would ask for lollipops and when given them not even bothering to unwrap them.

Having had that vision, I started looking at us when we are in prayers, and indeed, nobody appeared to be willing to give God a chance to reply, it was a totally one sided conversation, they believed, but they did not believe enough to be willing to go and collect the reply.

I worked for 3 months in Lubumbashi, enough to get the seeds and fertilizers out to the farmers.

It was one of the strangest experiences I have had in my carrier of agronomist in Africa.

Normally the distribution of seeds and fertilizers should never have been possible for very simple reasons!

How do you distribute seeds and fertilizers that are 2000 km away?

How do you rent trucks and truck drivers in a town were a truck is something that is held together by rust and ropes?

How do you move the trucks when anytime there was a truck of gas arriving, the queue would be 2 miles long and this is without considering that anybody carrying a gun would drive up ahead of the queue.

How do you move seeds and fertilizers when those who are in charge are as hungry and starved as those who are to receive it? Why would they not steal the whole load?

In the morning, looking at the task ahead, it was very simple, it could not be done. In the evening, the job had been done. Not only had the job been done, but during our trips, our visits, we would have come across new persons, new friends. That of course does not mean that we did not have our fare share of drunkards and thieves and “astute” fakers.

All my life in Africa had been spent learning that what could no fail, would in the end be a miserable failure, and here, in that unsafe, terrified, starving region of Africa, projects that could not in any way be successful, just were successful.

After less than 4 months I was sent home with a flea in my hear.

I had lost 10 pounds which is very easy when there is no food to buy, and the food you can buy had to be bought in dollars and I had no dollars.

I did not belong to the "tribal" or "faith" circles, so my starving was nobodies business, except the poor ones of our group who wanted to share with me.

My father had entered into his agony, which was to last for another 2 years.

So they sent me home and forgot all about me.

But being sent home was in a way a blessing as it meant driving to Lusaka where I was given the joy to see that the trees and bushes I had planted on the hill behing my house were still there.