Widowed mother Gertrude: “Only God gives me strength”

Congolese Gertrude (pictured) has witnessed several violent attacks against Christians in the Congo. During one such attack, she lost her husband and her son disappeared without a trace.
In eastern DRC, more than half the population lives on less than $2.15 a day and the cost of living is prohibitively high. Living as a Christian is at least as expensive, if not more expensive. Christians can also be targeted by rebel groups.

27-year-old Gertrude* and her husband took a risk and started farming to support their family and sell something at the market.

The man stayed mostly in Beni, North Kivu province, and Gertrude and the children were in a neighboring region. Her husband often traveled between home and town because he went to town to sell agricultural products.

“Most of the time we went to the farm together, but once we agreed to meet at the farm.”

People cultivate plots of land between the village and the forest. Husband had decided to take his family to Beni the next day despite his young son’s objections.

“Our child refused to leave. I wish we had listened to the boy.”

Everything changes in an instant

When they arrived at the lot, they heard gunfire. On the other hand, there was nothing unusual about it.

“My husband said: “No, a man dies in one day and a man is born in one day. If death comes now, I will not be afraid.”

They had almost finished their day’s work, but just then the armed men attacked.

Several rebel groups operate in eastern DRC, but it is the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) that are known for their attacks on Christians.

Gertrud’s husband tried to protect his wife and son when the men attacked.

“He protected the boy when he fell. I crawled into the bush, hoping to escape to the mountains, but they shot me in the leg. I tried to climb up again, but I got another bullet in my leg.”

Gertrud refused to give up. She hesitated for a moment, but tried to find a new hiding place despite the two hits.

“While climbing up the slope, I got another bullet in my stomach. Then I lost my strength and fell to the ground.”

Survival against all odds

Gertrude watched from her hiding place as the men beat her husband and took her son away.

“When they killed him, I felt dead too. Like I lost my mind. I didn’t know where I was or where I was going. My first thought was my children. How can I support them?”

Miraculously, Gertrude managed to crawl and find a hiding spot on the edge of a nearby road while shots rang out all around. She remembers that the shooting lasted from eleven o’clock to four in the afternoon. Gertrude remained in the asylum the whole time. Only after the shooting was over, she took her jacket and tied her stomach with it. She had lost a lot of blood.

Gertrude assumes that the ADF took the boy with them because her body was nowhere to be seen.
“I pushed myself to the side of the road, where I saw many soldiers.”

Fortunately, they were government soldiers. The soldiers took Gertrude back to the field where they had been working as a happy family a few hours before. But there was no sign of the boy.

“If he had been killed, he would have stayed by his father’s side,” says Gertrude.

Prayers help recovery

As the noise of enemy fire grew louder, the soldiers said it was time to leave. Gertrude was first taken to a nearby UN-run MONUSCO camp, where the bleeding was stopped. She was then taken to hospital for appropriate treatment.

Before the attack, Gertrude lived with her five biological children and her sister’s six children. Her sister had also died as an ADF victim in May 2018. Now her son has been kidnapped and as a young widow she has to take care of the rest of her children alone.

Despite all the uncertainty and complexity, Gertrude holds fast to God.
“I haven’t been to the farm since my husband’s death. My feet start walking when I walk too much. I have had to leave my children’s schooling because I can no longer afford to pay the school fees.”

Since 2014, the ADF’s brutal attacks in eastern DRC have only increased with no end in sight.

“When I hear about such things in the surrounding areas, I get scared. Sometimes I go to another place for a few weeks and monitor the situation closely. When peace returns, I will return home.”

Gertrud’s village was attacked only a month after the death of her husband and the abduction of her son. That night she and the children ran away. When they returned the next morning, they found all their neighbors dead.

To survive, Gertrud’s children do various odd jobs. They do farm work on foreign farms, fetch water, clean water from sand and grind gravel.

With the financial support of Open Doors, Gertrud has established her own company – a store where the villagers can buy what they need on a daily basis. However, Gertrude and many others like her need the support of the community to continue to be witnesses of the Gospel and to be confident in their faith in their area of residence.

*Name changed for security reasons.

Source: Leskeksi jäänyt perheenäiti Gertrude: “Yksin Jumala antaa minulle voimaa” | Open Doors Finland