God used it for good

Junior was just 12 years old when he was asked to identify his father’s body. It seems impossible to imagine, but in war-torn Congo, where Junior grew up, there was no grown-up to step in. Junior’s mother had left the family when he was just seven years old, and, as a public sector teacher, Junior’s father was required to move all over Congo, lending support to deprived schools. His work eventually took the family east, to an area ravaged by fighting between rebel militia groups. The violence was indiscriminate, and one day, armed gunmen entered the school where Junior’s dad was teaching. Junior remembers anonymous adults coming to find him, and telling him in a blur that his father had been shot.

Junior and his sisters were sent to live with a grandmother they had never met before. “She couldn’t really take care of us,” Junior explains, his words skimming over years of emotional and physical neglect. “We just ate our next meal whenever possible.” At just twelve years old, Junior couldn’t work, but felt an enormous burden to look after his family. “I was the ‘man’,” he explains.

Junior’s story paints a heartbreaking picture of life in Congo, a country wracked by a humanitarian crisis stretching back decades. Violence, especially in the east, has killed hundreds of thousands, and left over 27 million people struggling for food – people like 12-year-old Junior. It would only be years later that Junior could look back on the grief, the hunger, the heartache and fear and see that God did have a plan for his life. That somehow, someday, God would bring about good.

“The idea to leave Congo didn’t come from me,” Junior continues. “It came from my grandmother.” After four years living alongside constant violence and struggle, Junior’s grandmother told him that she was making plans for him to leave Congo. If he could find safety in Europe, he would be able to send help to her and his two younger siblings. Furnished with a passport, Junior was given instructions by more anonymous adults – more grown-ups treating him like a grown-up – though he was just sixteen. After saying goodbye to his sisters, Junior was hurried out of the country and away from the life he’d known. “It was only when I arrived in Cyprus that I was told my passport wasn’t legitimate,” Junior explains. “It stated I was an adult, and I was put in prison.”

As a sixteen-year-old refugee, Junior spoke neither English nor Greek, and had no knowledge of the legal system he was told he had broken. No-one in his family in Congo owned a mobile phone, and without any proof of age, Junior was placed in a detention centre. It’s an experience he describes as being like a prison – an experience that would be both the lowest and most life-changing period in his life.

It was while in the detention centre that Junior met a man who was happy to teach him English. The man had a Bible in his room and Junior asked what it was about. “The man told me he was a Christian,” Junior says. “But I couldn’t really see God’s love or his justice in my life. I thought: if he’s really ‘Love’ as you guys are saying, why can’t I see it? He took that opportunity to explain to me about Christ dying on the cross as an atonement to redeem people. I saw clearly that I was guilty, and I repented.”

Watch Junior’s story, in his own words

It took nine months before Cypriot authorities uncovered their error and Junior was released. By God’s grace, he was able to step out into a new chapter: one living as a child of God. Through the kindness of Christians in Cyprus, Junior found accommodation and enrolled in school. Finally, he could see some of God’s love in his life. It was through believers that Junior first heard about the BMS World Mission-supported welcome centre that would become, over the next three years, a place he could call home. Offering practical support to refugees such as a clothing distribution, food bank, IT lab and sewing machines, the centre also gives much needed emotional support to those beginning again with nothing. For Junior, it’s provided friendship, support to finish his education, and become a place he loves spending time every week.

“We come from different places, but the one thing that binds us together is love for people,” Junior explains. “We have a great example in Christ himself who gives himself to people and serves”. It’s this desire to serve that has led Junior to volunteer at the welcome centre three times a week, alongside refugees from places like Palestine, Somalia, Syria and Afghanistan. And it’s this desire that motivates Junior’s long-term dream, of training as a pastor and moving back to Congo. “No-one is safe in the east part of the Congo,” he explains, “but I would like to go back and help people with what I’ve learned here.”

Junior is now 19 years old. Life still isn’t easy, and he longs to reconnect with his sisters, still at risk back home. Yet, for all the pain he has suffered, he radiates warmth and smiles easily, joking with those around him. Junior began life in the hardest of circumstances, but is on track to becoming an incredible man of God, wherever his Father leads him. Looking back at his journey to Cyprus, he can truly say: “God used it for good.”