Visit to Goma's Volcanoe

To continue on from yesterday.... we visited Mount Nyiragongo, a volcanoe which erupted in 2002 devastating the surrounding area on the outskirts of Goma. Apparently the lava also flowed underground and exploded out of the ground and proceeded to snake it's way into the villages destroying everything in it's path. Fortunately people were evacuated in time but many were made homeless. Not what a community needs when it's recovering from war. The lava rocks have since been used to rebuild the area. We saw children doing the difficult job of breaking up the rock for use.


Yesterday, we began making our plans for the work we will be doing and decided that today we would visit a refugee camp 10 miles from the town center. It is a quiet and green, natural landscape in contrast to the busy and crowded streets of Goma. There were 4 different camps altogether. We met with the chief of the Kivu Baptist Church camp who made us very welcome. He spoke about a generator which is relied upon for water and how it has been out of use for a number of weeks. In the meantime people have had to carry the water from a lake which is a 12 mile round trip before boiling it to make it drinkable. They need 300 dollars for it to be repaired and at the moment only have 50. This camp have received no support from any aid organisations so we will be focusing some of our work here.


We were told we will need a permit to gain access into the other aid organisation camps which includes UNICEF. So tomorrow we will get the relevant paperwork needed and made headway with the healing work we have come here to offer. We were told that women in the camp are not comfortable speaking about their rape experiences to people within their community and so they hold the secrecy and trauma close to their hearts. We hope they will be able to open up to us and be receptive to the healing we are offering.


The itinerary for our trip is as follows:


Friday - Introduce ourselves to women at the Kivu Baptist Church Camp



Saturday - Visit the UNICEF camp at Magunga



Sunday - Attend a local church service in the morning and visit Heal Africa Hospital in Goma



Monday - Back for follow up and more healing work at the Kivu Church Camp



Tuesday - Back for follow up and more healin work at the Magunga camp



Wednesday - Return to Heal Africa Hospital



Thursday - Back to the church camp and UNICEF camp at Magunga



Friday - Visit a local school and one of several orphanages in the local area



Saturday - Drive back to Rwanda



Sunday - In Kigali until we fly back home on Tuesday



I'm publishin this post on Friday morning and have some great news to tell you!
Kristen posted a request to her friends and family last night for donations to fund the repair of the water generater...and this morning it has already been raised!! Fantastic news!!

We are off to the church camp now so will write again tonight hopefully

Love & blessings!