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TRAGIC GOOD NEWS
Deo Mwamba trudged through the Equatorial Forest. He and his missionary team had been braving the elements for three days. The intense heat withered their bodies, but their souls were hydrated by God's Spirit. They knew that God had opened the door for them to reach a neglected people, the Pygmies of Central Africa. Deo was a Bantu. Pygmies and Bantus did not get along because of years of severe persecution and cannibalism. Before Deo had given his heart to the Lord, he would not have given this primitive tribe an ounce of attention, but after his miraculous conversion from Islam to Christianity, he began to sense a divine Call. He knew what God was asking him to do - lay down his life for his Pygmy brothers and sisters.
“How much further?” Deo asked.
“According to the map, we're almost there.” His assistant answered.
A shrill whistle interrupted the missionaries. Suddenly, they were surrounded by hundreds of Pygmies. Men, women, boys and girls stared at the foreigners. Quickly, Deo identified the leaders and began to shower them with small gifts. Laughter replaced suspicion.
“We've brought you some crackers to eat. Sit down and I will give you some and tell you a story.” Deo declared as he slipped a cracker into the hand of a young boy. Sniffing the mysterious gift, the boy began to lick the salt and cooed, “Mmmmm!”
“I want to tell you about the one true God.” Deo addressed his new friends.
A woman stood, “I Isokee. I understand what you say. I help you tell my people about your God.”
“Thank you, Isokee.” Deo said as he continued, “The one and true God  loved you so much that He sent His only Son into the world.”
Isokee repeated so the Pygmies could understand. One little girl stood and chattered in her foreign tongue.
“What is she saying, Isokee?” Deo asked.
Isokee smiled, “She say. True God gave Son. What did people do to Son? They worship Him? They build huge house for him? They make King out of Him? She want to know what people do to Son that true God gave?”
Scalding tears fell from Deo’s eyes as he spoke, “They killed Him.”
JESUS LIFTS THEM UP
India has a caste system with the
“untouchables” at rock bottom. The Democratic Republic of Congo has its own caste system, where the Pygmies are the people down-under. In this world someone must be keep down or placed below, so others can be positioned above. Jesus upset this hierarchical positioning when he said, “the first shall be last and the last first.” Paul added to this paradigm shift when he wrote the Galatians, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, (and may I add, Bantu or Pygmy,) for you are one in Christ.”
When Deo Mwamba came to know Jesus, he was an esteemed Muslim Imam, who enjoyed wealth, power and an esteemed position. When he realized the God of the universe died for him, he humbled himself and bowed a creature before His Creator. His world turned upside down when he internalized the truth of Philippians 2:5-8 and John 3:16, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. God loved the whole world and gave His only son for them.”
God loved Deo, a powerful Bantu Muslim Sheik, enough to die for him. And this God also loved the Pygmies, his despised and persecuted fellow countryman, enough to die for them. God loved them with abandon: equally, unequivocally and eternally. Deo’s heart broke for the lost in his country… for the Bantu Muslims blinded by the power of Islam and for the Pygmies blinded by inferiority and slaves to animism.
In Central Africa there are two main people groups: the Bantu who comprise 90 of the population of the DRC and the Pygmy. Most Bantus despise Pygmies and see them as wild dogs rather than people. Edward B Rackley, Ph.D., while doing research in the Congo, was struck by the automatic and fierce prejudice held against the Pygmies.
A primary characteristic of their misery was the degree to which they had internalized the Bantu discourse of their inferiority and ignorance. They were at such a low point that they actually believed the racist slander to which they were constantly subjected; their inferiority complex was total and all-consuming. Every aspect of their lives was to them proof not of the injustice of the discriminatory discourse around them but of their own failure, their incompetence, their baseness. They believed the insults of their Bantu neighbors. It was stunning and tragic—they were totally brainwashed to believe they had no worth or value.
One night when Deo was praying, God overwhelmed his heart with a compassion for the Pygmies. He knew that even if the Bantus did not love the Pygmy or the Pygmy love themselves, GOD loved them enough to send His son to die for them. He knew God's love for the world included the Pygmies and out of his love for Christ, his heart broke in love for them also.
In 2004 Deo and four missionaries from Campus Crusade flew into the rain forest of Central DCR, bringing medicine, food, clothing, a 16 mm projector, a generator and the JESUS film. In the midst of a jungle full of lions, crocodiles, panthers and large poisonous snakes, they brought God’s love to the Pygmy village they discovered. They brought the light of Christ into the dark jungle and many Pygmies responded to their Father God’s love.
Deo continues to visit the “untouchables” of the CONGO, evangelizing, educating and discipling his new brothers and sisters in Christ.
The luxury of arriving by plane has been expanded to include motorcycle rides over log bridges and riding in a dugout canoe through dangerous waters. Deo and the DRC-ICM team are praying for an outboard motor to simplify and speed up the trips.
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Story by Dixie Phillips, who co-authored From Islam to His Lamb, a book on Deo’s journey from Sheik to Priest…from Allah to Jehovah.
Deo Mwamba, ICM-Director of Francophone Africa, is a Muslim sheik who came to know Christ in Africa. Deo is now working with the Pygmies in the Equatorial Forest and seeing hundreds come to know Jesus.
 
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of CONGO
* The Democratic Republic of the Congo, also referred to as DR Congo or DRC, and formerly called Congo Free State, Belgian Congo and Zaire, is the third largest country by area on the African continent.
* The name "Congo" (meaning "hunter") is coined after the Bakongo ethnic group, living in the Congo river basin.
* Kinshasa is the capital and the largest city.
* Gained independence from Belgium on June 30, 1960.
* First Congo War led to the overthrow of President Mobutu in 1997.
* From 1998 to 2003, the country suffered greatly from the devastating Second Congo War, the world's deadliest conflict since World War II.
* Related fighting still continues in the east of the country.
* Set amongst the waters of the two rivers, the Congo Heartland boasts the second-largest contiguous moist tropical forest in the world.
* The Heartland is home to indigenous Pygmy people.
* The Heartland is home to a wealth of African wildlife, including the endangered bonobo, forest elephants and more than 400 fish species.
**Please continue to pray for Deo and his Pygmy ministry.
Hope of Africa Fund
The Hope of Africa is Jesus, nothing more or nothing less. We in ICM are committed to partnering with you and those in Africa to ensure that every man and woman has a chance to hear the Good News of Jesus and to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. Your donation to this fund helps make this goal a reality. To donate on-line just click here.
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