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Thornbloom Reports Sense of Calm in Goma Area
By Craig Pinley
GOMA, CONGO (February 9, 2002) - Residents are reported safe near a volcano that erupted last month near Goma, but housing needs and supplies for construction are in high demand, according to Covenant missionary Bob Thornbloom.
Thornbloom and fellow Covenanters Dick and Judy Anderson have been in the area near the volcano during recent weeks. Thornbloom will head to Kigali, Rwanda and Nairobi, Kenya, this weekend before returning home, he said in a special telephone interview with Covenant News Service Friday. The Andersons will remain in Goma.
In recent days, Luyada Gbuda, president of the Congo Covenant Church (CEUM), also has visited the site. He offered staffing from the Karawa station to assist with medical needs in the future. However, the larger need is medical equipment. Two hospitals in the area were leveled by
lava and finding replacement equipment quickly has been nearly impossible.
"We thought the CEUM could provide public health care workers, but there doesn't seem to be a need for people and the CEUM doesn't have materials to provide," Thornbloom said. "We're working on getting building supplies together - lumber for houses costs $2,000. The churches have construction people to build the buildings."
Since the 11,000-foot Nyiragongo volcano erupted 12 miles from Goma on January 17, thousands have fled their homes. This presents an interesting problem, said Thornbloom, because some relief agencies are less likely to help those not considered "refugees." Nonetheless, there are many that need housing, even if their families are intact.
"The situation is really calm," Thornbloom said. "We've had real good contact with the local churches and the apparent situation is that there is no real catastrophe on the ground. But a lot of families are jammed up with friends and relatives. They're living in horrible situations, but they don't want to stay in refugee camps (in nearby Rwanda). We're trying to get housing for them."
Many organizations are in the area to provide medical care, food and water. The World Food Program (part of the United Nations), World Relief International (with which Covenant World Relief partners) and World Vision are near the site of the volcano eruption, along with the Red Cross and others. Water is being transported by many non-government organizations such as Oxfam of England. Housing remains the primary need.
There has been a Covenant presence in Goma before. In 1994, Bob and Jan Thornbloom were sent on loan from the denomination in a cooperative effort with World Relief. At that time, the Thornblooms worked with orphans who had been separated from their parents when a civil war in Rwanda forced thousands to flee to Congo and other countries. Other Covenanters, including Dr. Roger Thorpe and nurse Mary Ann Ahlgren, were also part of the World Relief effort eight years ago.
"We're working with church people we've worked with in 1994," said Thornbloom. "The local Baptist church has lost everything - the church, the print press, everything. Lava has leveled everything. You see the tops of the roofs burned off. The eruption, out of the side of the volcano, has split the city in half. We flew over the volcano Thursday with Free Church Missionary Aviation Fellowship pilot Dan Carlson and saw the lava flow. Drs. Jo and Lynn Luci with Doctors on Call Services (DOCS) said that they lost both of their (local) hospitals and lava
covered everything. It came in about four feet deep and their house burned down, too."
Thornbloom said that the housing compound for the 1994 World Relief helpers is also completely gone due to lava overflows.
"The churches on the ground are responding really well and there weren't a lot of loss of lives because it was in the middle of the day," Thornbloom reported. "But they couldn't prepare for it. The lava covered the local airport and went right into the middle of the valley. Trucks were brought in and they couldn't drive out. The people ran away thinking it wouldn't get into the city. Where the Covenant people stayed in 1994, that whole area (the size of 20 football fields) has been totally changed. All you see is lava.
"The amount of damage is just fantastic, you can hardly describe it," Thornbloom continued. "But people had a chance to get moving. We only know of one family that was trapped - relatives of the dorm parents of a local orphanage." Additional aid personnel flew in from Germany and the U.S. on Thursday.
Thornbloom will compile a list of needed supplies on behalf of Covenant World Relief. Thornbloom will return to northwest Congo in mid-February, an area that is several hundred miles from Goma in the southeast corner of the country. He will keep in close contact with the Andersons to assess other needs.
"We've met many U.S. officials and now some things are coming into focus as to what response we can give," said Thornbloom. "We need prayer for housing, prayer for the caregivers on the ground to use the limited amount of supplies wisely and prayer for the suffering people. They've
been through an awful lot, but they've been terribly resilient."
Some Covenant churches also are trying to help people in and around Goma. Brookdale Covenant Church in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota, received a report from friends of the church stating that they've been preparing supplies to be sent from International Aid in Spring Lake, Michigan, to
Bukavu, Congo, not far from Goma. Medical supplies, medicines, rubber sleeping mats and clothing are among the items being sent from International Aid, reported Jody LeVahn in a
recent newsletter article.
For more detailed information on the Goma situation, visit the web site of Doctors on Call Services at www.DOCS.org. Weekly reports are available on the site, along with updated pictures of the damage and updates on relief efforts. To keep current with Covenant efforts to assist Goma, regularly visit the Covenant web site at www.covchurch.org.
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