“In giving to others, you will receive more in return."
~ Luke 6:38
In
many ways, Eden was like her own nine year old son. He had a ready smile, was unable to sit still
for long and loved horsing around in ways that tested authority.
Before he became a 'soldier,' Eden used to get up in the
morning and grumpily head off to school. He’d wave to his parents as he skipped down
the road - just as Nancy’s son did every morning back home and then reappear a
few hours later, keen to do anything except homework.
But on July 8th Eden didn’t come home. Days later his parents would learn that their
son had been abducted on the way home from school by an armed rebel group who enslaved
him and taught him how to handle an AK47 Assault Rifle. Atrocities like this are not uncommon in the
Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
But despite the horrific levels of violence and millions of
people displaced from their homes, such mayhem rarely makes the headlines of
the world's media. The conflict in the
DRC has claimed more than five million lives making it the planet's deadliest
conflict since World War II.
Eden was one of the ‘lucky’ ones; only 20% of the DRC’s
children live to see their fifth birthday.
Before his 10th birthday, he became the rebel
commander’s ‘bodyguard’ and personal ‘assistant.’ That meant he was forced to take part in gunfights
against other rebel groups . . . until he was seriously injured on the
battlefield and left for dead.
Eden recovers now in a make-shift hospital run by Missionaries. One broken leg has healed; the other leg
still has some drainage and pain when he puts weight on it. Third degree burns cover his entire right arm
and hand.
On ward rounds, Nancy a volunteer nurse, looks beyond burns,
open fractures and infected wounds. She’s
thankful for the healing that finally allows her to touch these brave children
to provoke smiles and laughter instead of screaming and crying.
As she changed Eden’s dressings, his little voice was
intense but not loud, "Yo wei, yo wei" ("Oh, it hurts, oh, it
hurts."). Nancy leaned close and
whispered to him as she peeled each layer of gauze off his burnt flesh. "Tens tao coragem, (“You have such
courage,”) she said in a gentle, soothing voice. “Yes, I know it must hurt. I'm sorry.”
“Tens tao coragem," the child whispered back. And Nancy realized the badly injured boy was
echoing back to her what she’d said to him.
He appreciated her courage as well.
In giving we receive.
And sometimes one is allowed to touch the hem of Christ's garment and accept gratefully God’s plan for the universe.
Lord, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to
be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving
that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned. (St. Francis Prayer)
