May 2005
Dear Friends,
We all love great stories with happy endings but here, in Congo,
the realities of this land don’t allow endings to be always
happy. We want to tell the story of Fromina. We apologize for
not having a picture of her. We had planned to tell her story
after the happy ending arrived, but it never did. Fromina’s
story is one of war in the midst of poverty. She came originally
from Rwanda, one of our neighboring countries that is remembered
by some for the genocide that occurred there in the late 1990s.
Fromina fled from Rwanda into neighboring Democratic Republic
of Congo to escape the war. She was pregnant and went into labor
out in the forest, or as we know it, the jungle. She labored for
days, finally delivering a stillborn child. Then the death of
tissues of her bladder and rectal wall from the days of being
compressed and deprived of oxygen caused the development of fistulas,
that is, holes in her bladder, rectum, and vagina. She now leaked
urine and stool constantly.
She made her way to Tshikaji and was seen in our clinic by Dr.
Bukasa. He arranged for Dr. Kalume to perform a colostomy on her
to divert the stool and possibly permit a repair of these holes.
Dr. Bukasa soon fled this country to South Africa, seeking a better
life.
Mike saw Fromina after the recovery from the colostomy to plan
repair of the holes, called fistulas. These were the worst fistulas
he had ever seen. He was doubtful that these could be repaired
but he and Dr. Leon Mubikayi spent nine hours in the operating
room attempting the repair. During the surgery Fromina lost enough
blood that a transfusion was needed but she had no family and
there was no blood. Mike left the operating room, gave a unit
of blood, and returned to finish the surgery. Fromina survived
the surgery but she had so little bladder tissue left that this
repair failed and she leaked urine again.
During our time away on itineration, Fromina returned and her
colostomy was reversed, bowel reconnected, by Dr. Kalume. Dr Kalume
has also fled to South Africa now, seeking that better life. Unfortunately,
the closure of the fistula, a hole from the rectum to vagina,
hadn’t healed well, and Fromina leaked stool and urine still.
Mike saw her and agreed to try again to close off this leak. During
the prior surgery to close the colostomy, the ureters, tubes that
connect the kidneys to the bladder, were placed into the colon
so Fromina now would have her urine mix with her stool in the
colon. If the colon worked correctly, she would have some chronic
diarrhea but would not be leaking anymore. Unfortunately, the
healing of the rectal fistula was not verified before the colostomy
was closed and she now leaked stool and urine again. Back to square
one!
Dr. Mubikyi and Mike opened Fromina’s belly and tried to
dissect the colon well enough to close it but found so much tissue
destruction that they decided that it was necessary to do another
colostomy. Fromina now would have a colostomy that allowed her
to expel stool and urine together and would not leak from below.
Mike told Fromina that if she healed well, in 6 months they could
see if her fistula repair was healed. If it was, it would be possible
to undo the colostomy and she might be able to live without a
colostomy and without constant leakage but with some chronic diarrhea.
Fromina did not respond.
Fromina had known nothing but suffering for many years. Living
with a colostomy in the United States is difficult, but in Congo,
where there are no colostomy bags and you wad up some cloth to
block and absorb the discharge, it is awful. A few days after
the surgery Mike had to leave for a week. When he returned he
found Fromina with a badly infected wound from stool contamination.
They had found a colostomy bag but only after the wound was already
infected. Apparently, Fromina had lain in bed for the past 10
days without eating or drinking. She was severely depressed. She
was in a strange country, surrounded by strangers and “back
to square one” after so much suffering. There is no department
of psychology, no therapist, and she had no family. She was alone
and miserable. Suddenly she developed difficulty breathing. We
thought of a blood clot and tried treating her for that. We placed
an intravenous to treat her dehydration. A medical student came
to the door that night informing Mike that Fromina was worse,
she was dying. Mike went to the hospital and prayed beside her
in silence. There was no medical miracle. Fromina had no will
to live further. There is no drug or surgery that can treat such
profound depression.
Fromina is another unknown victim of war, of man’s desire
for power and wealth. This is the basis of all war. Here in Congo
it goes on because of the mineral wealth. Those that control the
minerals can get rich as they sell them to those of us in the
developed world, who accept no responsibility. You see this is
how it works. We need coltan to produce our cell phones or diamonds
for our “forevers.” We buy from the lowest priced
seller, whoever that might be. We pay through a “middle
man,” who pays some of the money to the rebel leader and
some to an arms dealer (whose arms end up going to the rebel leader).
Those arms are used to terrorize and control the people and allow
the rebel militia to control the minerals.
We mentioned Rwanda. This is actually Rwanda/ Congo. And the
conflict has never ended. There are still killings and things
unimaginable. You remember the old stories of people being boiled
alive and then eaten. They aren’t just stories. The militias
use many tactics to terrorize the citizens including mass killings,
torture, women being forced to watch as their children are boiled
and eaten or having parts of their genitalia cut off and eaten,
along with the theft of all of their belongings. To survive, people
flee. We call these displaced persons. Fromina was a displaced
person, displaced from Rwanda. Now she is displaced forever. Tens
of thousands of Frominas suffer every day as a result of the greed
of others who turn a blind eye to the fallout.
Is Fromina’s story one of failure in mission? Only if we
confuse being on a mission with serving in mission. Being on a
mission is a goal-oriented, getting-something-done behavior. Serving
in mission is, first, remembering that this is God’s mission
done through his church. Success is not measured in what we get
done but in how we do it. The goal is love. It is always what
Jesus preached and it is the good news. We were unable to save
Fromina’s life on earth but we always loved her. Given all
that she had suffered and the difficulty of language and culture,
it could not overcome her loss of will to live. She never once
complained. We know that she felt our love, the love of the church,
and God’s Love, but she also suffered the realities of her
life. We may not be able to perform miracles but we can always
love. Once we understand what love really means, there will be
no more war and no more Fromina stories.
From the Congo,
Mike and Nancy
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
318 |
