Visited A Refugee Camp

So...yeah....yesterday I visited a refugee camp about an hour and a half north of Lilongwe. I was invited to go up there and tour the camp to take some pictures for a ministry called "There Is Hope" that is working with the refugees as a satellite ministry of Capital City Baptist Church in Lilongwe.

It was a soul shattering experience to say the least. Incredibly sad. This camp has been established for a long time, over 15 years I believe. It basically is this confined squatters village in the middle of no where. There is little connection with the outside world. As a result, many refugees are living isolated hopeless lives in this self contained environment. They are not treated as Malawi citizens, so they have limited jobs, if any, and very limited access to the outside world. Many refugees are hopeless because they feel like all their dreams have been lost now that they are refugees displaced by violence and upheaval in central Africa.

I met refugees from Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, and so many other countries. Many of these refugees are displaced from conflict over 20 years ago and have been moved from one international refugee camp to another because they cannot return home because they have no claim to land or business because others stole property and business ownership rights when they fled originally. Basically, many of these refugees do not exist technically and it is a huge battle to get them on as citizens and rightful owners of property etc. as refugees.

Innocent, the younger man in the pictures, was a refugee from Burundi. He was born in a refugee camp after his family was displaced into the Congo after tribal conflict errupted in Burundi and his father's life was threatened by the opposing tribe. Innocent moved from Congo, tried to re-enter Burundi, but his father's property and businesses were no longer legally his as others had laid claim to them. As a result, his family was sent back to Congo to the camp. Innocent and his family were then moved to Tanzania, and then on to Zambia. Innocent then left his family and ended up at this camp in Malawi.

As God would have it, Innocent met Pastor Henry from Capital City Baptist Church in Lilongwe. Innocent had a dream to start a ministry to give hope to refugees and help them get out of the camp and engaged back in society as a citizen. Pastor Henry worked with the Malawi government and was able to get Innocent out of the camp and give him a ministry position with CCBC. Now, Innocent is taking this opportunity to start "There Is Hope" by helping out other refugees trapped in the system.

Currently, Innocent is working with 2 Rwanda young men who have scored incredibly high on their high school education exams. They both want to study medicine and help others. Innocent has been working with the boys to get them admitted to the medical university in Blantyre here in Malawi. So far, the boys are scheduled to start school in January, though funds for their education are still being raised as the boys cannot afford university because they are refugees. Confusing I know. But trust me...this is a GREAT THING!!!

More to come....