I am Blessed

I am sorry that it has taken me this long to post something new. As you all know, college life is hectic. It seems as if there is not enough time in the day or night to get anything done. I can’t describe to you how many times I’ve been like; it’s two o’clock in the morning already. This week, I was reminded of how blessed I am and so I’ll share that with you.

The bank that I use is Wells Fargo and the closest location is like 10 or 15 minutes away from Trinity. I can easily take the bus there and so I did, one afternoon. I needed to set up a savings account. While talking to the financial banker, I was reminded of how awesome God truly is.

This week was Congo Week. I learned about this at the conference I attended in September. Friends of Congo describe the purpose of this week as, “The purpose of Congo Week is to educate the global community about the situation in the Congo and mobilize support on the behalf of the people of the Congo who are fighting for peace, justice and human dignity.”

A couple students and I got together to put on events on our campus about Congo. Monday night, we showed the documentary, “Crisis in Congo: Uncovering the Truth.” On Thursday, we tabled. This means that we had a table outside the dining hall with information about Congo Week, the situation in Congo, and things like this. On Saturday, we had A Night in Congo. We had Ethiopian food, Congolese music, listened to a student from Congo, watched the documentary once more and talked about the Congo and what we can do.

Before even going to the bank, I already knew that God had a plan for me and my family. It wasn’t easy watching this documentary because I knew that I could have been one of those girls or my mom could be one of those women who were raped. I couldn’t separate myself from the story because I was there and knew exactly what they were talking about. The only difference was that God had moved me and my family out of Congo.

The lady at the bank just reinforced my idea of how blessed I am. I am a loved and blessed child of God. I have been given the opportunity to explore this country, learn more about myself and what I want to do in life. I have a family, friends, clothes, food, and the security of knowing that rebels aren’t going to come into my dorm and destroy our community.

Maybe this is why I got so involved with Congo Week. All I know is that 6 million people have died since 1996, thousands of women, girls and children have been raped and we have remained silence. I knew about these things because I lived there and my extended family still lives there. We have said that it’s okay for people to die because they mean nothing to us. They are nothing more than bodies standing in the way of the coltan, the diamond and other resources that we need. I don’t even have to be educated to know that this is wrong. We can’t just have people die and have us not do anything. What kind of people are we?

This week at Trinity, I helped educate others about what’s going on in Congo. I was also reminded of how blessed I am. While I had a fulfilling week, I know that the fight is not over. We need to do more on the behalf of Congo. I am not sure what the next steps are but Congo Week was just the beginning of something. As a blessed child of God, I have been given the resources to do something with my life, and for right now, it’s for the people of Congo