Imagine the scene: You’re hiding under a mattress, fearing for your life, as you dial the number of a colleague. Bullets pound the wall above you, showering you with plaster and dust.
The phone is answered. It’s almost impossible to hear the person on the other side, who exclaims: “What are those sounds I’m hearing?”
“Those are gunshots! Right now I’m hiding under a mattress that we pulled off the bed!”
Believe it or not, this scene was reality for a Trans World Radio technician. A recent trip to the Eastern Congo to help install a satellite downlink at a Christian FM station unexpectedly became a defining moment in David’s life as he got caught in the middle of a full scale war.
When David arrived several days earlier, the city of Bukavu looked anything but chaotic. He had casually walked the streets with his colleagues, looking for a hotel room and enjoying several meals along the way. But on the third day things changed – drastically.
After lunch that day, David began setting up the satellite dish. While working on the roof, he heard the sound of a crowd running toward him. The station director frantically motioned for him to come down, so he grabbed his equipment and rushed to a waiting car. After dropping people off at their homes, they headed for the compound where the director’s family lived.
They were met by government soldiers who ushered them into the compound as bullets began to fly and continued into the night. Once fighting subsided, they were served dinner, but no one except David seemed to be in the mood to eat. “I still hadn’t gotten the message that this was a full scale war, and I was in the middle of it,” he said in retrospect.
After dinner, David, the director, a pastor and a driver left the house and drove to a hostel amidst the distant sound of gunfire. When they noticed someone following them, the driver increased his speed; so did the car behind them. Panic rose when a fresh round of gunfire ensued as they approached the gate.
Amidst continued gunfire, the four took shelter in the hostel. To avoid being hit, they pulled a mattress over themselves. It’s from here, on the fourth day, that David made his phone call. No one in the hostel ate that day.
At 6 a.m. the next morning, the bombardment of bullets became heavier than ever. The woman in the next room sobbed loudly as she cradled the body of her dead husband.
In an attempt to help his colleagues relax in the midst of the tears, panic and terror, David compared the sound of the persistent gunfire to rainfall, and the bombings with an endless round of applause. Smiles crossed weary faces and another night passed.
The next morning, David called his boss, TWR–Kenya’s IT manager, and he learned that people were trying to get him out. He also called his distraught wife, who had been receiving conflicting messages; he continued speaking with her and his brothers regularly as the day passed.
On the seventh day of David’s ordeal, the United Nations had arranged to collect them and get them to the border. Around 9 a.m., the shooting having subsided, David and the pastor left the compound to retrieve David’s bags. About 30 meters from the gate, gunshots rang out again, too close for comfort. They left the belongings and sprinted back to where they had been. Soldiers then relieved David and the pastor of their money and documents. David felt stripped naked.
The UN arrived, distributing helmets and bulletproof vests. David made it out on the second trip that left the compound. As they drove through the streets, the UN staff told them that they had cleared the roads of hundreds of bodies. “Then how many people died?” David silently wondered. How many hundreds of souls had gone into eternity without the hope of Jesus?
Four days later, after sorting out his documentation, David arrived back in Kenya to find his wife eagerly waiting for him. His eyes glistened with tears and his voice trembled as he looked in on their sleeping children. Suddenly he began crying uncontrollably as he patted his son’s hair and held his daughter’s hand. For two hours he wept; it struck him how close they had come to losing him, had he not made it back. But he also realized that God gave him the strength to go through that very traumatic experience.
David’s close encounter with death brings home the stark reality that Africa needs Jesus. It is only when hearts are renewed through a life-changing encounter with Christ that Africa will be saved.
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