Listening Centers

100%!  The answer she finally gave was 100%.

Want to know what the question was? You’ll have to read to the end of this blog.

It’s not every day that I get asked to host someone on a first-time visit to Kinshasa, DRC. For the past couple of days, that’s what I’ve been doing-- introducing two representatives of a significant, mission-minded American foundation to key national church and ministry leaders from this huge country. One of those is Bishop Nyamuke, who has been sharing about five different elements of a national evangelization strategy that includes helping children develop a healthy, Christian world-view.

“We have over 18,000 schools in our country managed by Protestant churches,” he explained. “But even though we are free to teach biblical truth, it’s not happening. Over five million children enter our schools as pagans at  first grade and leave twelve years later still as pagans.”

To emphasize the need for youth outreach further, Nyamuke arranged an entire afternoon for us with school children from two different churches. Through songs and testimonies and even a fiery mini-sermon by a sixteen year old boy, we learned about some of the cool things being promoted among Congo churches. One is the eleven Listening Centers that have been established recently throughout the city of Kinshasa.

Yvonne and her children groups sharing with us in Kinshasa, DRC

“We have learned that many children struggle with deep emotional needs and yet have no place within their families, schools or churches to talk about it,” said Yvonne, one Nyamuke’s designated youthwork trainers. “Now we’re training school chaplains specifically how to listen and sensitively deal with children who are willing to come and open up about their issues.” As we probed further with Yvonne about the types of things children grapple with, we learned that a big one is the sexual abuse of young Congolese girls by fathers, uncles, brothers and other males in their community. 

That’s when I asked my question: “Yvonne, what would you guess is the percentage of teenage and pre-teenage girls in Congo that experience either sexual abuse or harassment?” She paused for a long time before answering, her face becoming quite sober. “Basically one hundred percent,” she said.

For the next three months, I have the privilege of having my four-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth, living in our home while my daughter’s family is in the USA on furlough.  When I stop and think about Elizabeth growing up in an unsafe world that that had virtually 100% certainty of sexual abuse, it just turns my stomach. And yet, it sounds like that is what every young girl can expect growing up in Congo—and I would suspect a good share of the rest of Africa as well.

If there ever was a time, place and reason for biblical transformation of cultural values, even in African Christian communities, it is this issue in the Congo and it is now!  Thank God for Bishop Nyamuke, Yvonne and Listening Centers that are now beginning to do something about it.