Three Promises

Reflections on Goma and HEAL Africa by Laura Sera.
I am normally very careful about making promises and I am certainly not given to making them when I am a visitor in another country. I learned early in life about the value of promises and yet while in Goma with Global Strategies for HIV Prevention I made three promises: one to John Bizi, one to Joseph Ciza and one to myself.

John Bizi
John Bizi is a very busy man at HEAL Africa; he is in charge of keeping the medical equipment in working order. This is no easy job. The equipment he has to work with comes from other’s cast offs from all over the world. The equipment that finally makes its way to Goma often arrives incomplete or without operating instructions and it is John’s business to try to figure out a way to make it work. He is gifted and tremendously skilled but some things are just too difficult without written instructions. This patient and generous biomedical engineer had one request of me and that was to encourage someone with a background in medical equipment to volunteer in Goma for a couple of weeks and work with him. I promised him I would put the word out. As we said our farewells he prayed for me, for my health for the journey home, for my family waiting for me and for God to send me back.

Joseph Ciza
I first met Joseph Ciza in Nigeria last November and spent 2 weeks with him in PMTCT training for Global Strategies for HIV Prevention. Seeing him again in his homeland of DR Congo was truly joyous. He is an amazing man of courage and compassion and his journey with God and HEAL Africa has led him into the tremendously dangerous work with the rebel armies of North Kivu province. Before we arrived in Goma he had held a 3 hour workshop with rebel soldiers on the topic of human rights and gender-based violence. I have never known a person like Joseph. We visited his home and met his wife and children and heard about his dreams for the future. My promise to Joseph was a silent one. I promised to pray without ceasing for his safety and the wellbeing of his family.

Me
As for my last promise, it was to myself. I didn’t know it then but it would be a promise that would be made easier by the movement of this people and place into the far reaches within my core. It’s almost like there has been a stretching out of memory deep within, making itself right at home in my heart; faces, stories, need, pain, joy, suffering all mixing into a poultice that covers me like a balm. So my promise is this: to remember all I have seen and all I have met and to give those memories feet.

Laura