I have had the incredible opportunity to direct this podcast for the last two years. Over that time (which I now realize as I write this is quite a while to be doing one thing) I have also had the opportunity to lose focus on why we embarked on this journey at all. BUT - As I work on each episode I get to re-learn why we are doing this - and Episode 13 was no exception.
REWIND ONE YEAR… I got to go to the DR Congo last summer while Robin and Wendy were still there. Our goal was to film some of the footage that you see in the podcast, helping them fill in the blanks in the videos they had shot. As you’ve seen - R&W had been working with women living in the area of Panzi parish who had been raped - and had brought some of these women to a house they had rented to give them and their families food and shelter.
We slated one of the days I was there to visit with some of these women, hoping to help Robin document their stories. So we set up our camera, we hooked up our microphones and got out our pads of paper. Each woman sat down in front of the camera prepared to tell us about her life. We began with “What’s your name? How many children do you have? What was life like before the war?” All of these seemed like simple questions - nothing out of the ordinary.
But then came the most horrible of questions. It seemed as mundane as the prior - but wasn’t as easy to ask. “Can you tell us your story?” The pit of my stomach would drop. As we interviewed the woman, one after another, I felt like I was asking them to re-live the most traumatizing events that had shaped their lives. Behind their eyes you could see it unfold. Some of them had detached from the events - but as they would see the details in their minds - the walls they had placed around the memories would be chipped away. I felt sick.
It was like when someone says, “What if these walls could talk?” As I looked in to their eyes - I thought of all the things that those eyes had witnessed. It was hard to look into these “windows to the soul” - these eyes were now our lens to the past - revealing the most depraved of deeds. I detached from it. The drain of hearing the horrible things happening in the DRC had gotten to me. I like you - had listened to the stories of the women of the Congo - but with each one I seemed to close off a small portion of my heart to the words I would hear - hoping that the nagging feeling of rage mixed with helplessness would somehow not haunt me again as I opened my ears with each interview. I put up my wall.
ONE YEAR LATER… I sat watching these interviews again, seeing the past unfold through the looking glass of these women’s words. I even delayed editing the episode - I didn’t want to hear any more stories. I didn’t want to be angry. I didn’t want to wonder all over again what I could do.
But as I watched the stories again - something new jumped out. It was the mundane. The ordinary. I couldn’t detach from them now. It was their stories of life before the war that started to chip away at my bricks. Jeorgette was married in a church - just like me. Vumilia had had a business, her husband was a merchant. Joni was a pastor’s wife. Faida’s husband had worked for a company as the local manager. They sounded like my friends, my family.. like me.
If you watch this podcast - you have heard the stories of rape in the Congo. With each one - a part of you places up the same walls that these women had to place around their own stories to help them move on. But as I sat I across from them that day in the DRC - they were willing to break down some of those walls - so that we would know what had happened to them the day the rebels came to steal their lives away.
As I edited this episode - I realized that my life wasn’t that far removed from theirs. I saw again why I was doing this. I had been given an incredible gift in their story. They had entrusted me with something very precious. It isn’t just a story of rape. It is a story about husbands and wives. Of people who had jobs, and children, and families - that ended - but are now being re-built. They told me about their lives, their faith, their hopes - and I am helping them tell it to you. You have been given their story now.
Don’t let the hopelessness that settles in and tells you that you can’t make a difference deceive you in to thinking that you can’t help.
PRAY for these women if you pray.
GIVE to help the “have nots” if you have.
SHARE the stories of these women if you can speak.
Don’t let the walls get to high. As I watched Robin tell me about her experience with these women - I remembered why I do this. These women have a story that began long before they were raped… and a life that CONTINUES in the face of all that tried to end it. We have an opportunity to help by being the arbiters of a narrative that is far bigger than us.
So steward it well.
Evan
WAYS TO HELP:
Julie Project (Shelter for Rape Victims in Congo)
Pray (Maombi Mission)
Share (Check out our new stories page for unedited interviews with the women of Panzi Parish)