Virginia Episcopalian Magazine Summer 2013 Issue | Page 25

A ‘Boundless Faith’ in the Congo
The Rev. Deacon Carey Chirico
There is silence among the 50 or so
women gathered in the large room as
20 of their number file in. Dressed as
village women, rebel soldiers, a village
chief and village members, the women
take up positions and begin the most
important and realistic teaching we,
visitors from the Dioceses of Virginia
and Southern Virginia, would get on the
experience of the women of Congo.

Women hoeing in the field. Women,
backs bent , miming the actions of

some missing. The village chief prepares
to go to the rebels to bargain for the
release of the women with all the cash
the village can raise. One husband
shows up at the local clinic and berates
his raped wife, telling her that she is no
longer his wife. While the village chief
risks his life in the rebel stronghold,
being beaten and robbed and left to
return to his village empty handed, the
women of the village try to reason with
the husband, who is among other things

Photo: Buck Blanchard

Kathy Klein, a member of the Diocese of Virginia Women-to-Women Ministry, presents the
vicar of Kabushwa Parish, home of the Tamar Project for Women, with gifts from her home
parish of Abingdon Church, White Marsh. The Rev. Deacon Carey Chirico of St. George’s,
Fredericksburg, looks on.

planting by hand, moving in unison
up and down the fields. Suddenly
soldiers, “the negative forces” – so
called because no one is really sure
who they are – burst upon the scene.
After killing several women and raping
others, two women are taken back to
their leader. The woman miming the
leader has a mock cigarette sticking out
of the corner of her mouth. She presses
against the women, telling them what
she plans for them, and they begin to
sob and beg for release. Meanwhile,
across the room, the villagers have
gone out to the field to find out why
the women have not returned. They
walk into a scene of devastation – some
women are dead, some badly injured,

terrified of the disease his wife might
now carry.

As the play continues, I glance
around at the faces of the women
watching. Some faces are stony and flat
while others cheer wildly and others
shake their heads in grief at the truth
before their eyes. These are the women
of the microfinance group run by the
Mother’s Union of Bukavu, our partners
in ministry. Numbering about 75, they
range in age from 14 to possibly 80. All
have been raped and all have been cast
out of their villages and families, the
youngest with a baby on her tiny hip.
Destitute and without hope, the women
have been brought or have found
their way to Mme Bahati, head of the

Mother’s Union and wife of the Rt. Rev.
Sylvestre Bali-Busane Bahati, bishop
of Bukavu, to ask for help. The Church,
with its meager resources, mobilizes to
protect and to heal. This is important
because it is the Church’s call – and
because there is no one else.

At the conclusion of the play, we
thanked the women for sharing their
story in such an important way. We
spent several hours talking about the
work the Church is helping them to
begin, how the loan is working, how
it is never enough, how children need
school fees – roughly $3 a month – and
how many have injuries that prevent
hard labor. There are no easy answers
here, but the fact that we are there to
listen, to learn, to share stories from our
lives is crucial and entertaining. “How
many children do you have?” they want
to know. “Why so few? Don’t you want
lots of boys?” “Who cooks for your
husband when you are here?”

These are the women of the Tamar
Project, which takes its name from
2 Samuel 13:1-22, the story of Amnon
and Tamar. Their lives are difficult and
complicated. Yet they long to laugh with
us, joke with us, play with us. They are
people whose faith has been tested in
the most challenging of ways.

Our diocesan ministry group,
Women-to-Women, a partnership
between the Diocese of Bukavu
and the Dioceses of Virginia and
Southern Virginia, seeks to support
the work of the women of the Tamar
Project through fundraising for their
microfinance, vocational training,
literacy education and care of orphans.
We also advocate on behalf of the
women of Congo. And we are educating
ourselves, our congregations and our
youth about the high cost women pay
for the conflict minerals in our Xboxes
and cell phones. Yet perhaps most of
all, we seek a deeper understanding
and friendship with the women of the
Tamar Project, that our faith in God’s
great mercy might become as deep and
boundless as theirs. t

Summer 2013 / Virginia Episcopalian

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