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Report on Training of Rev Jean-Paul Aruna and PalukuBahbiraki
Laissez Vivre Les Enfants (LVLE)
Kigali, March 2016
Charity Registration Number 1073817
Introduction
‘There are no words to describe the disappointment of my people!’ exclaims Jean-Paul Aruna, as we sit together on a balcony at YWAM in Kigali, Rwanda, with his colleague PalukuBahbiraki. ‘Honestly. Some people cried when they heard that the workshop was cancelled and you were not coming.’
Jean-Paul is the leader of the newly-created organisation Laissez Vivre Les Enfants (LVLE),which aims to raise awareness of children’s rights and promote child protection in the city of Goma in eastern DRCongo. He is also a church leader. Paluku volunteers his help to LVLE and works as a computer technician.Today,I was supposed to start running a workshop in the city for 20 team members of LVLE. However, despite every effort to procure a visa, one had not been forthcoming from the Congolese embassy.Instead Ihave arranged for Jean-Paul and Paluku to come and stay with me here in Rwanda for three days.
The idea is that I will teach them everything I would have taught LVLE team members in Goma. Jean-Paul and Paluku will then go and pass on all they have learned to the other team members in a three-day workshop, in a couple of weeks’ time. It’s a challenge, but we will make the best of things, knowing that God can turn every situation to good. But it’s obvious there has been deep disappointment that the workshop had to be cancelled. I realise once again just how hungry these people are for training. ‘We get few visitors in Goma’, says Jean-Paul. ‘Many are afraid to come because of the security situation. Your visit meant so much to us.’
Reflecting the character of Christ and his Kingdom
The next day, we have our first day of training. I begin by teaching that our purpose as any Christian individual, project or church is to authentically represent and reflect the character of Christ and his kingdom, and to prophetically demonstrate what the culture of God’s kingdom is like. This then is the purpose of this workshop – to help equip LVLE to do just that and to enable it to empower churches to accurately represent Christ and to live out his culture, so that local communities and the lives of children are impacted.
Reasons to celebrate!
I then ask Jean-Paul and Palukuto describe what they have to celebrate in terms of LVLE developments in the past year. Jean-Paul waxes lyrical. ‘The teaching that you gave us last year on how to communicate well with children has made such a difference to my relationships with children and those of LVLE members. We have really been listening to children in our families, churches and communities. The more we have listened, the more we realise how much children have to teach us.’
Jean-Paul is in full flow, and enthusiastically continues. ‘In Mubambiro, where my church works, there is a tribe of Pygmy people. We have been talking with their children – really listening to them. They always have something worthwhile to say. I don’t think anyone has really communicated with them like that before. They respond well.’Jean-Paul shares that when he returns to Goma, he is taking the children from his church to play football with the Pygmy children in Mubambiro, who are so marginalised.
Recently in Mubambiro, three children were abandoned,having been accused of witchcraft by their parents. A local pastor took the children into his home so that he and his wife could care for them. Jean-Paul went and visited the families to counsel and listen to them. As a result, two of the children have now been reconciled with their families. One child remains living with the pastor and his wife, as her stepmother categorically refuses to change her belief that the child is a witch. Jean-Paul’s church is helping the pastor with material support like clothing and a mattress for the little girl.
It’s not all good news. A pastor, who attended the workshop last year and who was supposed to be developing a child protection programme in Mubambiro, joined some bandits and stole some of the material support Jean-Paul’s church sent to help with the work there, giving it to the bandits instead. ‘We have our disappointments as well as our successes,’ acknowledges Jean-Paul, wryly.
In the past year, Jean-Paul has done three training workshops in churches on child protection and how to communicate well with children. Those three churches now have Child Protection Officers. ‘We want this to spread,’ says Jean-Paul.
There are other outcomes from last year’s training. Emmanuel is a pastor who works with Jean-Paul and lives in Masisi, an area renowned for conflict and rebel activity. Consequently there is a lot of violence against children. Emmanuel has formed a group of six pastors who work together in Masisi to teach church and community members about child protection. They also speak up when cases of violence against children occur. ‘Emmanuel is really doing a great job,’ confirms Jean-Paul.
Another initiative that has been started is that every Saturday afternoon, a small group of LVLE volunteersvisit children living on the streets in Goma to listen to them, befriend them and to pray with them.
Good foundations
Finally, after a lot of hard work and help from BCT in drawing up the necessary statutes and documentation, LVLE has been registered as an organisation in Goma and can now legally operate. This is just the beginning, though. LVLE has a huge amount to learn about establishing an organisation based on good foundations. That is the topic of the first day of training. One of BCT’s purposes is to help Christian projects working with children at risk to develop good management and practices, so that they can reflect the excellence of Christ and be as effective as possible.
We cover a whole range of topics from strategic planning through to how to put in place activities to enable them to measure the impact of their work. I take the time to teach the same thing in different ways to reinforce understanding.Jean-Paul and Palukuare highly responsive throughout the seven hours of training. They ask lots of excellent questions and really appear to take on board and to understand what is being taught. It’s touching how grateful they are. ‘This is real training!’ declares Jean-Paul, ‘My people really need to learn this.I have learned so many things – especially about the importance of doing an initial assessment and research before starting the project, and taking baseline measurements. It’s amazing!’
Caring for the whole child
In impoverished societies, where getting through each day can be a hand-to-mouth affair, the sole focus may be on trying to meet the physical needs of a child, whilst their mental, emotional, social and spiritual needs are neglected. Churches, too, may have an over-emphasis on the spiritual and perceive meeting the physical or social needs of their communities as being too ‘worldly’.Sadly, in the context in which LVLE is working, children are often viewed as ‘second class citizens’. So on our second day of training, I focus my teaching on meeting the holistic needs of children – in other words, caring for the whole child – particularly those who are on the margins of society and who experience abuse and neglect.
We look at the changing needs of children as they go through the different stages of their development, and the impact of neglect and abuse on any child. We consider what happens when we fail to meet their needs and at what churches can do to support vulnerable children. Again, Jean-Paul and Paluku soak up all that I teach them and ask many insightful questions. ‘I cannot wait to put what I am learning here into practice,’ says Jean-Paul, ‘not only in LVLE’s work, but also in my own family and church.’
Caring for the traumatised child
We start the day as usual in prayer and with a Bible reading. Today, as we are in Easter week, I choose Matthew 21:14 -16:
The blind and lame came to him at the temple, and he healed them. But when the chief priests and the teachers of the law saw the wonderful things he did and the children shouting in the temple courts, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David,’ they were indignant. ‘Do you hear what these children are saying?’ they asked him. ‘Yes,’ replied Jesus, ‘have you never read, “From the lips of children and infants you, Lord, have called forth your praise”?’
The passage really hits Jean-Paul in a fresh way. ‘Our churches are like the chief priests,’ he says. ‘We gag children. We block and bind them. We have no love or respectfor them. We don’t even see that they have a right to be part of the church. We certainly don’t see that they are part of God’s mission. We want them silenced. I believe this is a key verse to unlocking the understanding of church leaders in Goma and I will teach from it.’
For the rest of the day, I focus on the impact of trauma on children and how to help bring traumatised children healing. The population of children in Goma is difficult to estimate because rebel incursions and conflicts have caused fluctuations as families flee and become displaced. But according to several commentaries,there are possibly around 200,000 children in a population of approximately 1 million people. Abuses against children in Goma range from rape, kidnapping and enforced enrolment into rebel groups as soldiers or sex slaves and ‘wives’, to branding children as ‘witches’ and rejecting or neglecting children living with disability. The prevailing climate is one of insecurity and low-grade unease. No wonder Jean-Paul and Paluku welcome the opportunity to learn about the impact of trauma on a child!
Amongst many things, we look at the physiological and psychological effects of trauma; the signs and symptoms of trauma in children at different stages of development and strategies for supporting a traumatised child and helping them towards healing.
‘This is so relevant,’ says Jean-Paul. ‘We have many traumatised children in Goma. But instead of helping them, we accuse them of being naughty or trouble-makers, because of the way the trauma sometimes affects their behaviour. We may even cause these children greater trauma by saying they are possessed by a demon or they are witches. We may beat or abandon them. Oh Lord! We have so much to learn!’
I demonstrate how to run a counselling session for a child and how to pray for them appropriately, knowing that many church leaders in DRC have a very violent way of praying. ‘You are right!’ laughs Jean-Paul. ‘Pastors shout and scream and may even handle a person roughly. I’m glad you raised this point, because it will be vital to teach church leaders not to pray for children like this.’
Our time together has been really worthwhile. It’s been an opportunity to build relationships with Jean-Paul and Paluku, give some counsel and advice about the development of LVLE and relevant teaching, and to significantly broaden their understanding of the holistic needs of children and the care and support of traumatised children. I know they will be faithful in sharing what they have learned with others and that, by God’s grace, these past three days will ultimately have an impact on churches in Goma and children’s lives there.
Certainly, the response of Jean-Paul and Paluku highlights that teaching and training are vitally important aspects of BCT’s work and ones that bring about the most change in understanding and, ultimately, in children’s lives.
‘The word ‘thank you’ will not leave our lips,’ says Jean-Paul as he prepares to return to Goma. ‘We pray that your next training will be with us in Goma.’