Stunned. Numb. I was stupefied. When people would ask me how
I was doing, I couldn’t give them a straight answer; instead I resorted to
relaying the facts: A couple weekends ago, the missionaries who are invested in
Vanga held a retreat in order to be refreshed, renewed and refocus our mission
and vision. Lydia, a missionary kid from Kinshasa, who also happens to be one
my friends was here on vacation.
One morning while my family, Lydia and I were getting ready to go to the retreat, Benvenu, our cook said to me, “Nancy, I just heard this morning that there was woman found dead. She was a student at ISTM (the nursing school). She was found this morning dumped in someone’s yard.” I stopped gathering my things, confused. Did I hear him correctly? Murder in Vanga sounds more like a mystery novel than real life. I snapped out my thoughts and thanked him for informing.
Later at breakfast, it had been confirmed, that morning a young woman’s body was found beaten around the head dumped on mission property (which is the land around the hospital and the missionaries’ houses as well as several schools). But who did it and why? We didn’t have much information, but as is common in Vanga, news comes in spurts and isn’t always reliable. Slowly, news trickled in and a couple days later we had the actual story.
It was an act of passion. It all started off with one man and two women. The man was married to woman #1 who worked as a nurse at the hospital. However, he was having an affair with woman #2 who was working at the hospital as a nursing intern. Somehow woman #1 got wind that her husband wasn’t being as loyal as she thought and decided to investigate. She confronted her husband and they decided that woman #2 needed to go. Together they went to her house and killed her. They, then, took her body and hid it in their house, only to be disposed the next day. Both Bonnie and Clyde were reprimanded and last I heard they were waiting a hearing.
Now, I know there’s been some social media posts circulating
around about Dad and his potential arrest but here are the facts: Visas.
They’re an interest document and also a key factor in this whole story. When we
arrived, my parents and I came on a tourist visas with the plan to get our
long-term missionary visas while we were here. When we arrived, the head of the
DGM in Vanga informed us that he needed to fill out some paperwork before we
shipped our passports to Kinshasa. The week of crazy also happened to be the
week that our visas needed to be renewed. We made arrangements with Matthew
Lind, a missionary in Kinshasa, to take our passports back to the Kinshasa DGM
after his 3-day visit here.
(While writing this, I was interrupted by a whacking sound coming from our front steps. My dad and I ran over to our front door and sure enough, our night guard was killing a poisonous green snake! My mother advice, “Beware of whackings!”#missionarylife)
On the Monday before sending our passports, Dad ran into the head of Vanga DGM in the hospital. When asked the price for the paperwork, he assured Dad that it would be $10 per person and that he would send the paperwork that afternoon. Well, he didn’t show up till Wednesday morning and gave Dad a bill for $1050, which is 18 times the total price before! My dad told him that this was unreasonable and would need to talk to the authorities in Kinshasa. Not knowing the impending doom, my dad went ahead and sent our passports with Matthew. Late that afternoon, the DGM scouted out my father who was in the middle of our weekly missionary meeting. When the meeting was finish, my dad went out and talk with him. The head of DGM was furious that my dad had sent on the passports without paying. My dad calmly told him that he was waiting for confirmation from the authorities that this bill was accurate, which infuriated the DGM officer more. At that point, he announced to Dad, that he was under arrest. One of the other missionaries then suggested that they go speak with the AG (2nd, or 1st depending on who you ask, in command here in Vanga). On their way, they got news that the AG had already left work. The people there told the head of Vanga DGM, that he needed to wait until the next morning to have the meeting.
The next morning, Dad showed up for the meeting. The AG tried to convince the two DGM officers that they needed to back off. Then, the DGM said that Dad needed to be on house which the AG would not allow. The AG was going on about how important Dad was to the well-being and functioning of the hospital, when Dad got a phone call. It was the hospital calling Dad about an emergency! The DGM decided that Dad could go but needed to come right back so that they could talk with him and the head of the hospital, Dr. Mpoo.
When Dad exited the hospital, there were two DGM officials waiting to escort him to the meeting. At the meeting, Dr. Mpoo starting going off on the DGM and when Dad tried to cut in, Dr. Mpoo told Dad to let him deal with it. After a while, the DGM excused Dad to go home and continued to talk to Dr. Mpoo.
The next day, the DGM sent what looked like a signed confession that Dad broke the law by not having his passport at all times. Dad refused to take it from their messenger and sent him away. At that same time, Dad received an e-mail with the actual paperwork he needed that cost only $50 per person. He sent on a copy of the real paperwork and since then all has been quiet on the subject.
P.S. We heard today that this was all highly illegal and
that the missionaries in Kinshasa had report this. They were supposed to file a
complaint, but the high-ranking official from C.B.C.O (the Baptist
organization) wouldn’t write it. Sadly, the system here is very corrupt and
it’s hard for justice to reign.
Normally, after relaying these long stories, the people who
would ask me how I was doing would be satisfied and I could go back to lying in
bed staring at my mosquito net. I knew I should be feeling feelings, but I
didn’t. There was too much. It was bewildering. One on hand, I should be scared
for my dad who was in trouble and could go to jail, but he wasn’t scared and
didn’t feel like they had the authority to do anything. Then, people who
message me would be concerned about Dad and confused on what on earth was going
on. My own personal experience of the injustice and criminal activity of the
DGM kept bobbing to the surface. There were so many should and ought to feel
this way and that. But I didn’t. It didn’t feel real. I couldn’t feel anything
towards it.
But there were some highlights to the retreat we had, the
main one for me was having Jonathan and Lydia here. Jonathan is another MK, we
met back at Greenlake a year ago, but didn’t really get to know each other
until we moved here. He is working in Kinshasa with the famous Aunt Katherine
and Uncle Wayne Niles. Aunt Katherine was a former Fountain. He visit here
every so often to hang out at retreats, work, and jump into the Kwilu, usually
from 30 feet in air, hanging from a branch! Lydia is MK who lives in Kinshasa
as well. She’s in a very similar situation as me and we’ve become fast friends!
The three of us would spend hours, after the retreat was over sitting on a
porch swing talking about everything under sun. We connected in ways that I
think is unique to us. I am so thankful for them and their beautiful souls!
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| Just the sunset from our yard... |
P.S. I’m sorry this was so late. I had it all written up and
was waiting to post it on Wednesday, but life got busy, I turned 18 and we’re
all getting ready for the big inauguration of the salle technique at ISTM, the
nursing school.
