A Compass of Faith: A Man’s Journey To America

Chapter: 1 First Night On The Boat

Death was sleeping all around us. I could feel her in the high cries of uncomfortable babies and the low moans of old men as they fight the pain and discomfort of dysentery. This would be a trip through hell, and perhaps some unfortunate souls on this boat would make not make it out alive as is often the case on the Congo River. Perhaps, we all knew that some of us wouldn’t all arrive at our destination and that we would meet our Lord, our Maker, here on this black river of death and hope.

Death and hope. Can it be one and the same? With this river, the answer is yes. People lived and died under the power of this powerful river every single day. It was now my turn to make this journey on its surface. Despite my deepest fears, I feel the warm breeze of God’s grace lingering around me in the air. Yes, hope is a powerful element in each of our hearts and that is what everyone here now clings onto tightly and with both fists, even if it means kissing death right on the lips. There are very little options for people here in the Congo. There are often no “take backs” or “returns” – no second chances here. People invested “all their eggs” in a single basket because many of them only have one single egg, if they are lucky.

For me, I would have to turn this mighty river of death, into my trickling stream of faith. I am certainly no fool - the cards are certainly stacked against me – a young, African man, with no money, no connections, no family with me, and no real plan to work from – except for the keen smell of freedom and opportunity, headed for an unknown and unseen destiny. Where my journey would end, I had no idea. But that is what faith is about, moving forward even when you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. All I knew was that I was heading north; knowing that if I would stay in my home, death would come way too quickly. If it wasn’t death, than torture or imprisonment would be my sentence. Life in the Congo is valuable to the individual. But, collectively, in our collective thinking, there is a clear disconnect of the value of life. Sadly, life is often thrown away like dead leaves in the wind. This fact is hard for me to swallow and it makes me sad every time I think about it.

There are times when life presents you with the easiest decisions to make: either stay and die or face imprisonment, or step into your faith and survive a mysterious a horizon that is reluctant to reveal itself, and leave. My choice was always clear. With all of my dreams and hopes, and little else, I look North-east slowly pushing through the imposing Congo River, which slithers like a giant serpent on the African continent.  The river itself, vast and dangerously beautiful, carries both death and life, and at the moment, most specifically, my future. I would ride this snake as far as it would take me. Limited in options, this giant river would be my only way to freedom.
    
It is my first night on this weathered boat, a long flat cargo ship which the locals refer to as a “baleniere,” manned only by a small crew of three.  Consisting of two deep barges in front and connected to a powerful pushing vessel in the back, these ships are designed to carry tons of cargo up and down the river. Hundreds of boats make the trip on any given day on this river, and because of the dense forest, jungle, and notorious bad roads, boating products and people is the optimal choice. Yet this boat looks very old, beyond weathered, and hardly maintained. It feels that river itself would love to swallow her up as payment for traveling one too many times on its waters. The metal is rusted and corrosion is so bad, you could poke a hole in it in some spots. Though it is constructed of metal like other shipping vessels, they have been known to sink quickly under the pressure over-zealous crews wanting to make a little extra money loading up more passengers and cargo than they can handle. It is no secret this boat was over capacity, but what choice did we have? In the Congo, when the opportunity arrives, you take it. And that is exactly what I am doing now.

The moon has climbed high into the night and glistens back off the cool, black water which will carry me further away from the family than I have ever been and which I may never see again. It was a chance that I was willing to take. A chance I had to take. I get comfortable in my little perch, a top some heavy cargo of textiles, which are making its way deeper into the landscape to be made into number of products and resold downriver once again.

My journey nearly got me killed before I even had started. My brush with death yesterday at the hands of street thugs still have my adrenaline and anger pumping through my veins. I was exhausted, but buzzing off of the euphoria that nothing – not even the threat of death or being robbed of my money at the end of a gun’s barrel – would stop me from taking this forced trip out of the Congo – it was enough to keep my mind from turning off and falling asleep.