Kinshasa, DR Congo

Imagine for a moment – New York City. Picture the traffic, the honking, the city shops, the street vendors, the pan handlers, the homeless, the garbage, the sheer multitude of people – the sea of faces.

Now take those aspects of the environment in NYC and wash away all the glittering lights and glamour – and forget the concept of garbage cans, traffic lights, and right-of-way for pedestrians.

Displace NYC to a developing country in Central Africa. Add multiple wars and a financial crisis due to political strife.

This is a picture, in part, of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Eight to ten million people reside in the capital, Kinshasa, not to mention the population in other towns and villages in the Congo.

In addition, 80% of the population in the Congo is unemployed.

In contrast to the conditions and chaos in the Congo, Dr. Tudiabioko Bilombi (Hyacinthe) is a bright light in Kinshasa. A visionary who believes in the restoration of the Congo, he is working toward his dream of a healed DR Congo by focusing on the restoration of the people in his own neighborhood.

Nonetheless, his ministry reaches far beyond the borders of his neighborhood. People have come from as far as Angola and Brazzaville to receive treatment from Dr. Bilombi’s Hope Clinic.

“The ministry has really come at a time when the Congo is in great need,” Dr. Bilombi said.

“Our ministry is a restoration ministry. God brings restoration in His time to meet the needs of His people. This country has to be restored in every way. There is great need. People who come to the clinic are expecting more from the Son of God – to be restored, people are desperate.

Our vision is to touch lives by giving them hope. When we started, people were amazed to see we could do service without money, to show the love of God for them. In the hospital, if you don’t have money no one will attend to you, they want money first even if someone is dying. The clinic works the opposite way – to serve first,” he explained.

The Journey – Picking up the Cross and Following God’s Call
Dr. Bilombi did not always feel called to a ministry in the Congo. Less than 15 years ago, he and his family were moving away from the Congo and looking forward to moving out of Africa completely.

When Dr. Bilombi moved his family to Zambia in 1995, they planned to be in Zambia for only a short time before immigrating to either Canada or the United States. His friend Vincent, who had been instrumental in bringing Dr. Bilombi to Christ, thought God’s plans for his friend would be different, however.

“Even though you want to go to America, God may call you back to the Congo while you’re in Zambia,” Vincent had told Dr. Bilombi when he left.

For the next seven years, Dr. Bilombi and his wife lived in Zambia and their family grew while they were there. Didier, Dr. Bilombi’s wife, worked as an x-ray technician at the government hospital. Their three children were content and lived a comfortable life. Dr. Bilombi also had a steady position with a government hospital.

During the Christmas season in 2000, Dr. Bilombi’s mind was drawn back to the Congo – more strongly than it had ever been.

“One night, God spoke to me in a dream about what I had to do,” Dr. Bilombi said. “I have to do this and that – I have to put in place this ministry to look after the social life of the people, looking after evangelization and the human right.”

“One day it was too much for me, looking at what God had for me,” he explained. “I was crying like a child for two days.”

His pastor in Zambia told Dr. Bilombi God was calling him back to the Congo.

When his contract at the hospital in Zambia ended, he refused to sign a new contract. Dr. Bilombi encountered opposition and astonishment from a number of people – his co-workers called him crazy for considering a return to the Congo. For one year,
Dr. Bilombi prayed and reviewed God’s will for his life.

Meanwhile, Dr. John Boateng, Africa Regional Coordinator, and Dr. Wrede Vogel, Executive Director of the Luke Society, had traveled to Zambia to visit with a different doctor working in that country.

After talking for a while, the doctor made it clear that he did not have a desire or calling to leave his work in a government hospital to start a medical ministry.

Nonetheless, as the three men continued to discuss the potential for a new ministry another door began to open. The doctor, who was originally from the Congo, said he would never go back to the Congo – not even if he was offered a house. But, he said, he had heard of this crazy doctor who wanted to go back to the Congo – Dr. Bilombi.

When Drs. Boateng and Vogel met with Dr. Bilombi, he was still unsure of whether he was being called back to the Congo and actually thought his call to a medical ministry might be for Zambia.

“I continued in Zambia,” Dr. Bilombi explained, “I had a fear of coming back. I didn’t have conviction.”

After about five or six months, Dr. Bilombi felt God’s hand tugging him back to the Congo again, “God showed he had already put a way for me.”

In January 2003, Dr. Bilombi met with Drs. Boateng and Vogel in the Congo. Following their meeting, Dr. Bilombi began to make preparations to begin a clinic in Kinshasa. He planned to spend one or two weeks in Kinshasa to prepare for his family to move back to the Congo and begin the ministry – instead he spent three months in the Congo.

In October 2003, Dr. Bilombi opened the clinic and it was fully operational by November. Nearly seven years later, the clinic is a flurry of activity with patients and clinic staff bustling through full waiting rooms and hospital rooms. Hope Clinic is serving such a tremendous need in the community that it is constantly exceeding its capacity.

Be Fruitful and Multiply
With the economic issues in the Congo this past year, the hospital was unable to repaint the walls as they normally do every year. Instead, chipped yellow paint covers the cement walls of the maternity ward. White mesh mosquito nets hang bunched above ten metal frame beds with red plastic mattresses. The entire maternity ward consists of one room, ten beds, and 20 to 40 women each accompanied by their newborn baby. At least two women and their babies occupy each bed – sometimes as many as four women and their newborns have to share a bed.

Directly attached to the maternity ward is the delivery room. Tiles cover the bottom half of the walls and the same soiled yellow paint covers the top half of the cement wall. Bright green and yellow African fabric covers the barred windows. In this small room, barely bigger than most bathrooms in American homes, two metal reclining chairs/beds are covered with strips of brown plastic. Two metal bars used as stirrups for the women’s feet extend from the ends of each table.

These metal frames serve as the delivery beds. Often two women deliver babies side by side on these delivery beds. Occasionally, a third woman will be laboring on the floor of the same room.

With plans for an expansion already in progress, Dr. Bilombi said, “The number one priority is the maternity ward.”

Last year was a slow year for the clinic due to a financial crisis and the high rate of inflation, which often increases on a daily basis. Each month in 2009 the staff at the Hope Clinic delivered approximately 150 babies, monitored the antenatal needs of 700 women per month and cared for their babies after delivery.

The new year is different, however. The staff had already delivered 73 babies by January 17th, 2010. In addition, women who come to the clinic for post-natal care have told Dr. Bilombi they would also like to deliver their babies in the clinic, but they would be more inclined to come if the conditions of the maternity ward were not as crowded. The expansion of the maternity ward would then result in an increase in patients and subsequent increase in the clinic’s income.

Dr. Bilombi’s dreams for the clinic involve the eventual construction of a larger hospital. For now he realizes that in both function and form, the hospital should expand gradually – one step, one department, at a time.

He plans to increase the capacity of the maternity ward to 50 beds. He is also evaluating the most efficient and safe options for waste management – including a more sanitary replacement for the septic tank he is using.

Although there is a company Dr. Bilombi could hire to deal with waste management, the cost is significant. He is pursuing the possibility of obtaining or building an incinerator for the disposal of the placentas and other medical waste.

Currently, Dr. Bilombi contracts with a few local men who provide waste removal. But he suspects that much of the waste is dumped in a stream in Kinshasa –this is typical Congolese waste management. Many Congolese use this same stream to bathe and wash their clothing. The stream then leads into the Congo River where people swim, bathe, and fish to obtain their food and livelihood.

Another waste problem for the clinic is the system of collecting and draining used water. The large number of patients at the clinic makes this issue especially significant. The clinic needs a sanitary way to dispose of used wash water, toilet water, and even placentas.

“We need some system because there is absolutely no sewer system,” Dr. Bilombi explained.

Currently, the used water and placentas are dumped into a three foot hole with a concrete cover located in the ground in a walkway in the clinic. When the ground is unable to absorb more water, one or two workers then use a pail to drain the septic tank and bury the waste in holes dug next to the walls of the compound.

“People like our clinic. They like coming to the clinic. They want better conditions for the clinic, but they appreciate so much the work we are doing,” Dr. Bilombi said.

Beyond Birth – Dealing with Disease in the Congo
While the first priority is the expansion of the maternity ward combined with more sanitary waste disposal, Dr. Bilombi is trying to address other major issues in the Congo as well.

The first major problem throughout the Congo is malaria, he said. Another major concern in the Congo is HIV. The clinic is not yet equipped to begin testing for HIV, but Dr. Bilombi said the project to begin an HIV program is a high priority.

“We currently don’t test any women for HIV. This is a major problem because of the safety of the staff, etc.,” Dr. Bilombi explained.

The clinic must not only have the ability to test for HIV, but also the capacity to counsel and educate patients regarding HIV. The two, testing and a complete HIV program, have to move together – there cannot be one without the other, Dr. Bilombi said.

“We have to have a program,” he explained. “We can’t just test for the sake of testing. We have to give an education and be able to help the person. We won’t start testing just by itself because we want to have a program with it.”

In order to begin an HIV program, Dr. Bilombi is examining the possibility of partnering with the University of North Carolina, which has an HIV program in the Congo. Students from the university visited the clinic and talked to Dr. Bilombi about his desire to begin an HIV program. He hopes to begin working with the students within the next few months.

The government has also promised to help Dr. Bilombi begin a relief program for malnutrition, but that commitment was made over one year ago and the clinic has never seen the fruit of that promise.

Dr. Bilombi also lowered the cost of clinic visits because the government promised to subsidize the fees in order to offer patients more affordable care. The government never followed through on this promise either, leaving a large deficit in the clinic’s budget.

A Life Touched and Dreams of a Broadening Ministry
Though the government has made a number of promises to Dr. Bilombi and failed to follow through, the U.S. Embassy was impressed with Hope Clinic and donated a generator to Dr. Bilombi.

The stories of various patients are also encouraging to Dr. Bilombi. One day a woman came to the clinic when she was two months pregnant. She was planning to divorce her husband because she had already had eight miscarriages. She believed the miscarriages were his fault.

Dr. Bilombe and the clinic staff promised to pray for the woman and offer her quality care. But the woman was used to miscarrying and did not believe she would be able to have the baby.

“I will help you differently,” Dr. Bilombi promised the woman.

Seven months later, the woman was able to have her first healthy baby. She chose not to divorce her husband. Since then, she has also had another baby boy. Though Dr. Bilombi said he does not know if the woman came to Christ, he is confident in the fact that they showed her Christ’s love and He showed Himself to be faithful.

Dr. Bilombi is taking the first steps to fulfill his vision for a three-fold ministry – caring for the social life of the people, evangelization, and addressing human rights issues. The two areas he is currently able to focus on, he said, are the social life of the people and evangelization.

In the future, he hopes to be able to address the call to care for human rights issues. He has seen an intense need for prison ministry in the Congo. A number of prisoners are held on false accusations. He knows this from personal experience as he was put in prison and accused of supplying money to a relative who had been accused of criminal acts.

“They are suffering and languishing and no one will speak for them,” he said.

“We need to assist those in prison who have yet to receive Christ. We need to assist them in the Word of Christ, then give them a lawyer, then we need to assist in medicine.”

Dr. Bilombi hopes to assist prisoners by providing lawyers and giving them hope.

Over the years, Dr. Bilombi has learned to put his dreams in perspective and follow God’s call step by step in each new day. He has made a gradual plan for building his ministry and following the dream and vision God has given him.

“It is not easy here,” he said, “but we look ahead to what God has for us.”