February 15, 2004

Dear Friends,

I am writing this from Kinshasa. I have been here 36 hours now and am not so eagerly waiting to start on Monday the official courtesy visits and formalities.

But yesterday I started the real landing. I met my old friend Jean Masamba and his family and found comfort in our easy family chatter. We even discussed, with banter and passion, which of us was senior. It turns out I am about 30 hours his senior, and in the banter we reestablished with humor our kinship and the nonsense of one claiming precedence on the other. With him I found back some of his old family and helpers and we reminisced about those who have died in the last ten years. We also shared our common histories of joy and suffering, and had a good laugh at the relativity of it all. A real homecoming.

As I wandered with him through the Presbyterian-Methodist Center he introduced me to new acquaintances and some new friends or, better, siblings. Yes, in Africa friendships and kinship are still transferable. If Jean introduces me as his sister to his brother we become instantaneously brother and sister, and in fact we accept that we just discovered the truth rather than establishing something new. He is the vine and we are the branches—almost effortlessly the juices flow.

This morning a Cameroonian “sister” of Jean, told me I looked so familiar to her and we established that we might have crossed paths at the World Council of Churches in the 1980s. Perhaps not, but who cares? The spirit was moving between us and in us. We started discussing in more depth, exploring and reaffirming consonance and harmony between us. She and a Swiss lady came here to establish a prayer network for peace. Without my knowing this I talked about peace and my own and family’s commitment to peace and justice. They loved what I said and asked me to be their keynote speaker on 22 February in Kinshasa. I am thrilled and in awe. Please pray that I may be a worthy vessel so that people hear in their heart God’s suffering and call for positive peacemaking, not prayer as an escape or a passive appeal but an active commitment.

The Congolese adventure has started, and it seems to have been waiting to grab me as soon as I came.

I hesitate to ask, as it can sound so formal and trite in the American context, but can I please call you by your real name, my brothers and sisters?

Love and a big hug,

Cecile