Story number 1 for 20 May 2002

(Democratic Republic of Congo)–We begin today in the Democratic Republic of Congo where peace accords are tenuously holding. Amidst reports of border skirmishes and broken cease-fires, security issues are causing concerns for humanitarian relief groups. Food for the Hungry’s Beth Allen says their work has been disrupted in a fairly significant manner. “We had an incident in the earlier part of April, where a man who had been an agronomist for us was killed in a skirmish. Then, earlier in March, we had to evacuate three staff members from the same region, because various armies were going at each other in that area.” Allen says Food for the Hungry is going back into the area May 22nd and 23rd. They will be partnering with the indigenous church because: “The church in the area was, in many cases, the one organization that did not pick up and leave when things got bad. It made an enormous statement about who Jesus Christ is, and about the love of Christ for people, that the church did not leave.”