Deborah’s Story
They killed my husband.
My name is Deborah, and I am a widow. I have five small children.
My husband was a repairman, and also sold things. He slept over at his workshop to guard it from the Islamist rebels who were attacking villages in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
When I arrived one morning, I found blood all over. I said to myself, ‘Lord they have killed my husband.’
He had been hit with a hammer. I gathered up my children and came to a town called Oicha, to live in a camp for internally displaced people.
I’m not able to do any job. I don’t have strength to fend for my own food. I depend on people to give me food. It means I live by grace.
Today someone gives me a bunch of cassava leaves to eat. Tomorrow someone else gives me half a bottle of palm oil. It all helps me survive.
I still cry a lot. I have become a pitiful person. My children ask about their dad, and I say one day we will join him in God’s house.
I like to sing to my baby the words of Psalm 121, “Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord…”
Please ask the Lord to help me in my grief and trauma and give me strength to care for my five children.
