Ebenezer—A Testimony by Rev Mutima Kinaya Vincent
Our God is wonderful! He fights for us, and he does things beyond human understanding.
As if in a dream, on Sunday afternoon, 26 January 2025, our city of Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, was attacked by the rebels of the mixed Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and M23 (a Congolese revolutionary army) movement. The fighting lasted for four consecutive days, 26 to 29 January 2025, leaving many civilians and soldiers dead. This ongoing conflict in the DRC has claimed as many as 7,000 lives in recent months.
Given that our church in Katindo is located on the main road, next to the military camp in the area where the government army’s war arsenals were installed, it was not spared from this tragedy. A bomb (shell) fell on the church, piercing the wall and reaching the other side. The shrapnel caused enormous damage, destroying all the windows, sheet metal and part of the building’s framework, electrical cables and the even the windows of my vehicle, the Zanner Institute* bus and the DS’s office were also hit.
Because God is so wonderful, when we saw the damage, together with the church board, we decided to celebrate the following Sunday’s service under this debris, as a sign of divine protection (Ebenezer). We experienced another dimension of God’s greatness and goodness (Alleluia).
Following the damage caused, the members responded positively to the pastor’s appeal by giving offerings to God by way of thanksgiving, in order to repair our place of worship without waiting for outside help.
Today, we worship our Lord in the church that has already been repaired. Everything was put back in order in just one week. Glory to our God!
This initiative has also served to strengthen our collective faith. By working together, we have created a stronger bond of unity and love, a symbol of our resilience.
Every blow of the hammer, every pane of glass was marked by our attachment to God and our hope for the future.
We would like to thank all the members of the Church of the Nazarene in the Africa Region, especially those in our Africa Central Field, for their compassion and spiritual support.
We remain committed to our vision of developing and expanding the church within the next five years, but also to ensuring that our church remains a refuge for all the people in the city of Goma.
*The Zanner Institute is an NCM project in Goma, DRC.
