Hope Amid Horror:
Stories of Resilience from Christians in the Congo
Feb. 28, 2025
Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett
Co-host: Hon. Sam Rohrer
Guest: Doug Radford
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 2/28/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Isaac Crockett:
Well, hello and welcome to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and my co-host today is Sam Rohrer, the Honorable Sam Rohrer, who’s president of the American Pastors Network and the regular host of this program. And on this Friday edition, we have a special guest that’s going to be on with us, actually a first time guest. And we’re going to be looking at Hope Amid horror as we get an update on the situation that’s unfolding even right now in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is a nation in Africa, the heart of Africa, that has seen plenty of conflicts in the past. It’s a nation made up mostly of professing Christians. People would claim their religion is Christianity. Many of them think the majority of them. And right now they’re in the middle of horrific attacks from some different rebel groups. One of those rebel groups that’s active right now is associated with ISIS. And so that maybe gives you an idea of some of the horrible things happening. But first, let me introduce you to our special guest and welcome to the program my friend, Doug Radford, the executive director for Harvesters International. Doug, thanks so much for being on the program with us today.
Doug Radford:
Hey, my joy Isaac, and also Sam. I appreciate what you do and just a chance to share a bit about what’s going on in DRC.
Isaac Crockett:
Well, Doug, the group that you work with, harvesters International is a group that is near and dear to my heart, to my family, my wife’s family. We’ve been very involved with your group for a long time. One of her brothers has actually gone over and helped allocate funds and train people and do things. Has several different countries, but one country in particular with orphanages. And my wife and I have supported the ministry for a long time and her family have loved and supported. And we pray for you regularly at our little church, our little tiny chapel out in the hills of Northern Pennsylvania. But there are many people who probably aren’t familiar with you or with the harvesters International Ministry. And we want to talk about this is what the Lord has used to put you in a position where you are partnered with Christians over in the DRC, the Democratic Republic of the Congo. So just could you start us out by maybe familiarizing us with the Ministry of Harvesters International? Maybe a little bit of history background on the ministry and how you came to be a part of it.
Doug Radford:
Sure, man, I again appreciate you and your family very much, your support and I appreciate a chance to serve with harvesters. We were founded, oh a little over 40 years ago by a career missionary who served in the South Africa for a number of years. And when he retired from the field, he just had a heart to do things to support the indigenous nationals that he had raised up there, trained, equipped, and sent to do the ministry. So he came home with that vision and harvesters was born from that. The core focus of the ministry is to come alongside, again, indigenous national leaders who are serving in their own cultures, in their own context and to help them put their ministry forward with a focus on evangelism, church planning and discipleship. But beyond that, we’re very holistic, we believe was holistic. He cared for mind, body, soul and spirit.
And we do also as God gives us opportunities. So we have a number of humanitarian efforts that are associated with our church plantings and our evangelistic work. Things like orphan care, women’s initiative initiatives in various places, anti female genital mutilation programs and certain localities, schools and education, medical initiatives, water projects, putting in water wells if that’s the need. So just a whole variety of things again, but all pointing toward the center of knowing Jesus and becoming a disciple of him. Currently we have works in 12 different countries scattered about Africa and Asia. I became part in 2014. I have a pastoral background. I pastored for a number of years and was serving as an outreach and missions pastor at a church in Wilson, North Carolina. And the church that I came to in 2005 here in Wilson had a long background with supporting harvesters. And so I became knowledgeable of the organization through that. One thing led to another after a couple of missions trips in the early two thousands, 2000 teams if you will, and became a part of the group in 2014 and became executive director in 2017. So that’s our story.Sam Rohrer:
Duggan. That is a great story. Let me just ask you this to expand a little bit. How are you actually interacting as a mission entity now over the years? A lot of our listeners maybe where probably more would not be, but the model of sending an American missionary to a foreign land was the model for a long time and it worked very well. But as persecution increases around the world, that has shifted. Can you describe a little bit the model of how you are working with people on the ground in foreign countries now? And a little bit about that.
Doug Radford:
I kind of see harvesters as a bridge now. We have these indigenous national leaders in all these places in African Asia, interact with them on a regular basis. I visit these fields to see them, to meet with them and to help them assess opportunities, help them to look at what is happening and preferably discern paths forwards in certain circumstances in that way. So again, there’s that understanding through communication and knowledge what’s happening on the ground and then turning around and bridging that, if you will with the donor base, the supporters and potential supporters here in the US by again, visiting churches, sending out information through various channels if you will, to be that bridge of a communication. And certainly from that God blesses, people’s hearts are stirred. We raise the funds and then of course we’re disseminating those to the partners in the field, but we also become a bridge of accountability and we’re very big, if you will, on people being accountable for the funds they receive. And so we spend a lot of time and energy making sure that the funds we disperse to these various partners are utilized. And number one, the way the donor designated number two in the most efficient and effective way as well. We also take over short-term teams in certain localities for people to engage and to see what is happening on the ground. So it’s, I’m very, very involved on both sides of that equation, both here domestically and heavily involved with the people in the field that we are partnering with.
Isaac Crockett:
And I love how harvesters, it’s not just, oh, let’s write a check. And many of our listeners will remember the involvement we had on the ground with pastors over in Ukraine when the invasion was just starting. And we realized that the best way to get aid to people that needed it was to take it across to the pastors and churches and to work through them. And I love how with harvesters and what you’re doing there, it’s all evangelistic and gospel centered. So some of these things, medical things and using water and food and all these other issues are there to bring Jesus Christ to bring the gospel. So many times, supposed missions groups can get so busy taking care of physical needs that the spiritual need part gets put on the back burner. And that’s what I love about that comradery that you have that partnering with, but also holding accountable these folks that you’re dealing with is that it ensures the light of the gospel and it’s exciting to see, but because of that you have these relationships in places hard to go areas, places of war or other issues going on, sometimes persecution like we’re talking about today.
And so we’re going to take a brief time out to hear from some of our partners, but when we come back from that break, we want to talk about more of what’s going on in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, DRC, this recent Sangha massacre. People discovered on Valentine’s Day that over 70 Christians seem to have been killed beheaded by a vicious group. A lot to talk about, a lot to learn right here on Stand in the Gap today. Welcome back to the program. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and the honorable Sam Rohrer is with me again. He’s the co-host today. Normally he’s hosting this program and we’re looking at things going on over in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And I think a lot of people have heard of the recent Kasa Massacre. I first heard of it right around the middle of this month, around Valentine’s Day, and then I saw I think on Twitter and some different, or X formerly Twitter social media sites, started seeing it on some international sites, BBC, world News NPR Al Jazeera.
Then it was picked up by Christian Post I think about five or six days ago. And about seven or eight days ago, Fox News ran a story on it. And so it’s been getting more attention, but these 70 or more Christians found in a church, a protestant church, and apparently had been killed maybe a couple of days before that apparently beheaded and the connections with a very, very evil terrorist group. And so this is kind of shocking people and putting some attention on what’s going on in DRC, but even before that, one of the reasons I was focusing on it is because of Harvesters International and we’re talking with Doug Radford who’s the executive director there, ministry Harvesters International. And they keep me and others informed of what’s going on all over the world in countries where they’re involved. And one of those countries is the DRC. And so Doug, we want to go to you and get to know a little bit about what’s going on. But first to do that, we want a little bit of background. Could you maybe talk to us a little bit of the background of this country, DRC, and it seems as a nation that they have had a long history of violence and corruption, so could you maybe just talk to us about some of that?
Doug Radford:
Certainly. And certainly they do have a very long difficult history, shall we say. The Dr. Congo previously Zaire and before that, other names for the landscape there had a very difficult colonial period and followed by many, many years since a very, very poor, corrupt leadership. They gained their independence in 1960 and then went through several very violent transfers of power. Only recently did they really have a successful election and peaceful transfer of power. But as you mentioned, corruption, lack of effective governance, it’s just impacted everything there. Every aspect of life, education, infrastructure or the lack thereof, healthcare, economic development, any productive international relationships have all been hindered just by the ineptness and the corruption of the government. It is a very violent place at every level. I remember my first trip there was actually 2015 and I remember reading about it being denoted as the rape capital of the world with just many, many difficult things happening, happening every day. The DRC has very large undeveloped areas in the country. It’s a pretty good sized country if you look at the map. And these large undeveloped regions have become home to over a hundred armed groups with various objectives and purposes, if you will. But all of these groups really have one thing in common. They do render a lot of atrocities among the population in the rural areas. They rate pillage and plunder at wheel many times and it’s just a very difficult place to be.
Sam Rohrer:
Alright, and Doug, let’s pursue that just a little bit more. You and Isaac and I before we went on this program had a little bit of a discussion. I just want to clarify that because Isa got asked a question about the Belgian Congo and then another Congo, just for the sake of those who do not have a map up in front of them right now when they go to the continent of Africa and they look for this place called the Congo, describe where it is and are we talking one country called Congo, democratic Republic of Congo and then there’s something else or is there just one area? Would you just clarify that please?
Doug Radford:
Sure. If you look south of the equator on your map and sort of center part of the southern half of Africa, if you will, below the equator, the DR Congo is just a very, very large landmass there. It’s capital is consa, but it borders right across the Congo River. Another similarly named country, which is called the Republic of the Congo. So there are two distinct nations, two distinct geopolitical areas there, there in southern south Central Africa shall we say.
Sam Rohrer:
Alright, thank you for that. And then I think that’ll help. Now we’re focusing on here and where you’re focusing is the Democratic Republic of Congress, the DRC and the horrendous attack that took place not long ago where there were 70 some people that were beheaded that portion of the Congo. Is that the country that is generally the numbers are about 90% Christian answer that. And then the group that is taking responsibility or is thought to have responsibility beheadings sounds like Islamic groups, that’s what they like to do. Who was it? What do we know? And perhaps is there any no justification, but why perhaps did it happen?
Doug Radford:
Well, to take a step back and see there are, like I said a moment ago, there’s a number of groups there working with various theology I guess you would say or purposes. Now the A DF is a group that operates in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and they are the ISIS affiliated organization that works there. And they did indeed appear to perpetrate the recent beheadings of the 70 Christians up in the northeastern part of the country. My understanding from what I read is they’re actually stated motive or goal is to overthrow the country of Uganda and that’s what they’re targeting. Yet they remain in those undeveloped areas of the Dr. Congo. But honestly, the primary group that is causing the most conflict recently is the M 23 group. And this is not an ISIS affiliated group at all. They have their roots in the tribal and ethnic conflicts in the region and in the last month and a half they are accredited with or attributed to have killed over 7,000 people in and around the city of Goma in the more southeastern part of the Dior Congo. But yes, this country is predominantly Christians large Catholic presence in the country as well as Protestant presence of various flavors if you will. But yes, a lot of bad things happening and it’s very heartbreaking indeed.
Isaac Crockett:
Doug, I was just pulling up a map of Africa and it is kind of complicated. Some of the countries, there’s some really small countries near DRC at Rwanda, Burundi, and then you have Tanzania different ones, South Sudan and Uganda near it. So it gets very complicated. So you have the A DF that’s being blamed or maybe taking the credit for the petting of the Christians, but the M 23 especially are affecting the areas where you’re partnering at. And then you just said there’s actually about a hundred of these armed groups. So this really throws it into chaos here, but could you talk to us about why would these armed groups go around such a seemingly poor country? Where is the wealth of this country? Because if some people think about it, I think they’ve heard as we’re looking for sources for different sources of energy, there’s a lot of mineral wealth in this country. And so maybe talk a little bit about that as well as if there’s time, I know we’re running out of time, but how these armed gangs are things are increasing like food and prices and things like that.
Doug Radford:
Certainly the Dr. Congo should be the wealthiest country in Sub-Saharan Africa. And if it wasn’t for the conflict and the corruption it would be. And that wealth arises from the great presence of very, very precious minerals. In the eastern part of the country. It has reserves of gold, copper, 10 tungsten, cotan and other minerals, especially the cotan. The cotan is like an ore from which several minerals are extracted, including tantalum when tantalum is very common in mobile phones, computers, cameras, automobile, electronics. When I give my talks, I always tell people, most of us have a little piece of Dr. Congo in our pocket or our purse in our cell phones. It is just about every smartphone in the world has a little bit of these minerals in them. And the source there is from the Dr. Congo, it’s estimated that the mineral reserves run around 25 trillion, that’s trillion with a T dollars in value. So whoever controls Eastern, Dr. Congo is wealthy. Currently though most of that mineral wealth is extracted, it is black marketed, the local people are abused and forced to work in horrendous circumstances. And then it makes its way out of the country really without benefiting the population, pocketing the wealth is pocketed by a few entities and individuals if you will. So yeah, that’s definitely a drawing point to people wanting to be in control of those regions.
Isaac Crockett:
And real quickly, we have about 30 seconds, a little bit of the increases in prices, crimes, things like that as a result of what the M 23 and others are doing.
Doug Radford:
The big thing is the M 23 have taken over the city of Goma here in the last two and a half, three weeks, and that’s where our ministry partners headquartered at. And the violence there has resulted in, like I say, thousands of deaths. It’s also resorted in food prices going up one and a half times plus what they were prior to this happening. There’s a lot of violence, theft of the lawlessness that happens, just many, many atrocities being perpetuated on the people there. So on the scale it is born away. That area of gamma having the worst circumstances here since January one.
Isaac Crockett:
That’s what we want to talk about when we come back from this brief time out to hear more from our partners, we want to look at what’s going on, how we can be better partnered and prayer for them. If you’re listening right now, I would encourage you to stay tuned for the whole program or go back and listen to it if you can’t hear all of it because we want to talk about what is happening right now. Doug, you already mentioned that when you went over in 2015, VR Congo was known as the rape capital of the world. That has gotten worse with this invasion through 23, taking over, crime rates, increasing hunger, increasing price is increasing. We want to talk about all of this and what we can do to pray and to help when we come back from this time out. Well, welcome back to the program.
I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’m joined by the honorable Sam Rohrer. We’re talking with a first time guest, a friend of mine, long time friend of my family’s Doug Radford from Harvesters International. And going back into earlier this year, back maybe late January, I was seeing things on formerly Twitter X other websites and news, international news groups about M 23 and a DF two of the armed groups gangs or whatever you want to call it in the DR Congo. They were going around terrorizing people and I was starting to see more and more alerts about this. And then into February, even first second week of February, I started seeing more of this chatter and I was extremely interested when my mother-in-law sent me an email from our guest today from Doug. And in the email it says this was sent, I think February 12th is when my mother-in-law forwarded it to me.
It says, good morning everyone. Please know how much I and everyone in Dr. Congo appreciate your prayers and support, especially during the current circumstances. And here’s what Doug wrote. He said in the last few hours the M 23 rebels have taken over the home of our ministry leader in Goma. That’s that big city that we were just talking about has been taken over by this armed rebel group, one of about a hundred groups out there, but this one is really getting big. He says he was not there at the time in his safe. The rebels are also searching for some specific ministry staff. Please pray for their safety. Thankfully, power has been restored at the orphanage. Food is available in the markets, however cost talking about how much higher they are, it says M 23 Rebels took control of the city. This is creating challenges for us.
Please pray that the supply soon, the increases in prices are reduced. And he goes on and explains some of the looting, the robberies, rape and murder and all these things that are starting to go on. And then the N 23 is demanding in the middle of all of this. Things need to go forth as normal. They’re trying to make schools reopen and all sorts of things that are very dangerous for the community. And so now this is what we’ve been talking about. If you’re just joining us right now, our guest today is Doug Radford from Harvesters International. They partner directly with indigenous national leaders working through churches and church planting and evangelistic efforts. They do all sorts of other things to help get the gospel out, but the heart of all of this is the heart of Christ in salvation for unreached people. And so Doug, I’m so thankful for what you are doing.
I’m so thankful for what you’re able to get in. And I know it’s not easy right now, but getting things into your partners over there and being able to open up lifelines to these Christian people, to suffering people. Some of them would be dying without your help, but also to be able to shine the light of the gospel in this very, very difficult time. So could you tell us a little bit more, Doug, about these partnerships? And again, you have them in countries all over the world today. We’re especially highlighting what’s going on in the Dr. Congo, but if you could maybe talk to us again about some of the kind of partnerships you have there through harvesters and maybe other areas that are similar to what we see happening in DRC.
Doug Radford:
Yeah, certainly in the Congo we partner with a group based there in Goma. The group has a total of 425 churches that are spread up and down the eastern part of the DRC, including those areas up north where the A DF is operating. And we’ve experienced atrocities and churches being torn down those sorts of things and occupied by some of these rebel groups. But we’re heavily engaged in evangelism, supporting those pastors, training pastors, certainly enhancing churches as far as the buildings go and church construction. God’s blessed us to have a radio station there. We called the Voice of Comfort Radio there in Goma covering about 2 million people. Just incredible stories of how God has used that to spread the gospel to minister to people’s needs and encourage them involved in education in the Dr. Congo with a number of schools serving over 20,000 students. And one thing that’s really dear to my heart is the orphan care work we have there.
We have two orphanages with a little over 200 and teenagers, if you will in the program. And these are children with very, very difficult paths. We have children in our orphanages there who witnessed their own parents being beheaded by some of these rebel factions. And the local pastor there would see these children, these orphans and connect them with us in the city of Goma and able to move them there. And man, just beautiful, beautiful stories, how God has touched and restored those young people and to see them grow up in loving, nurturing homes, learning about Christ and progressing in their lives and just the visions and dreams that God has paced in their heart. It is truly, truly a blessing indeed. So we’re heavily involved. God has really been faithful. He has, even though banks have been shut down, we’ve been able to find routes, shall we say, to get support to them. The children are well cared for and we’re thankful for that and we’re looking forward to doing more to help the people there that are truly suffering as a result of the recent violence.
Sam Rohrer:
Doug, it’s great to hear a frontline view of what’s taking place in that country because so many countries are in a similar condition as this. And so we’re focusing here on this country, the fact that it’s a Christian radio station, that’s an amazingly wonderful thing and we know the power of radio we’re using that right now. The orphanages, these churches you’re talking about and all that is wonderful and it’s fantastic in our conversation when what we’re hearing is we are hearing these terrorist groups that are committing great atrocities, yet you have the ability to actually have churches though it appears there is a Christian radio station that is communicating. So here’s my question. We talk a lot about authority here. We know that God established a home in the church and you’re part of working with the church and civil government whose purposes to keep the law praise those who do well and punish those who do evil. Alright, so here would be my question as our listeners are understanding the country and what’s happening is the government helpful must be doing something not to allow a radio station, but they appear to be unable to limit the terrorists. So would you explain the authorities that are on the ground, are there other countries there or what’s happening? Who are the protectors from a governmental perspective of the people and what you’re doing with the churches?
Doug Radford:
Well regrettably, the government there either lacks the will of the resources to effectively manage their own country. The Congolese army has folded time and again in these circumstances and been totally ineffective and inept at preventing the spread of the rebel groups, even limiting the perpetration of these atrocities in the country. Now there is actually a large United Nations contingency. For years the largest peace keeping force in the world was headquartered there in Goway, the DR, but again have not proved effective in preventing the spread of the rebel groups and them taking over large parts of the country. Most recently there’s been a multi African national force there with forces from Burundi, South Africa or the localities. But again, they just have not been effective. One thing that certainly impacts the current situation is the influence of Rwanda, the neighboring small country you mentioned and who has been accused and the UN report recently documented approximately 4,000 Rwandan troops are fighting alongside the M 23 and funding their weaponry.
So obviously that makes a big difference and it’s a source of great tension in the region because of the Rwandan role there. And a lot of that goes back to the ethnic nature of this. The M 23 are primarily led by the tootsies, whereas which are the ethnic group that sort of stopped the Rwanda genocide back in 94 and took over leadership of that country. The Congolese government is accused of supporting the Hutu’s, which has a militia there in Congo and they are the enemies of the Rwandan government. And so there’s that tribal influence in all of this and it just results in a very dire situation where like usual, it’s the innocent population that gets caught in a crossfire and bears the brunt, bears the burden.
Isaac Crockett:
It’s so interesting and we don’t have enough time to ask all the questions I would like to ask. I would encourage folks to go back and download our app too, to listen to this if you don’t already have it. If you want to listen to the whole program if you’re just now tuning in. But just real quickly, the lack of dependence on American missionaries because harvesters works directly with the pastors there. How is that an advantage? And maybe later in the program we can talk too about the advantage of giving through churches to churches rather than to government. But we saw the government’s not doing what they’re supposed to be doing in infrastructure and protection and much less with aiding the people. But just a little bit about that direct access you have to pastors and to get the aid to people that way.
Doug Radford:
I mean our conviction is that’s the strength of our model and we certainly don’t begrudge across cultural missionaries. I love them dearly, have great friends on the field I support, but especially in circumstances like this and other circumstances that are closed country and open persecution of Christians, it really works well to have those local partners who are serving where they’re living, they’re there, they’re going to be there. They’re going to obviously know their culture. They’re also going to know how to navigate things in the local system, shall we say. And to deal with political strife in a much better way than outsiders could ever do that just because of a lack of knowledge, lack of connections, and lack of relationships. So again, we see God using these local ministries in wonderful ways to grow the impact of the kingdom there in a way that I can never do as an individual going over and trying to set up shop and operate a ministry there in Dr. Congo.
Isaac Crockett:
Well thank you for that. And as you said, we thank the Lord for all sorts of different missions, partnerships and agencies, but we are extremely grateful for the pastors and leaders that you all are working with in Dr. Congo and many other nations that are staying there during the time of crisis and persecution. They’re not leaving because this is home and we want to look for ways that we can help. And one of those is being aware of the situation, knowing about it, praying about it, sharing it with others. But when we come back from this quick time out, we want to talk about ways that we can be involved, ways that we can help and talk through some of the worldview of what’s happening here and why it’s happening and why a group like harvesters the Lord is using. Welcome back to the program.
I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett, joined by Sam Rohr and our special guest today from Harvesters International, Doug Radford, talking about the horrible things that have happened in Dr. Congo and things that harvesters is able to do over there. And this is a country and a situation that I’ve been trying to follow for a number of weeks. I’ve read a lot of information about it. I’ve spent a long time talking to Doug about it and reading things from him. And right now as we’re discussing this with him, and I think Sam would probably say the same thing, I am learning a bunch of stuff I didn’t know and a bunch of stuff that I haven’t heard anywhere in the news because Doug has been there on the ground. Doug is dealing with partners there, he’s getting things done even though the banks and things are closed, the Lord has allowed them to have partnerships and ways of getting supplies and help to where it needs to go.
And so I know how important it’s having spent time with a lot of persecuted believers. I know how important it’s for us to know what’s happening and then to pray for it. And Paul tells us in Romans 10 that even when we have uttering that we don’t even know how to pray. The Holy Spirit takes it and he runs with it. And there are times I’ve talked with people who were isolated in prison cells, but they could just know the Holy Spirit, let them know that people, the church was aware and the church was praying for them and God was working even in their persecution and difficulty. And so that’s very important. But Doug, I want to ask you, what are some of the opportunities that people listening today, maybe a pastor of a church or a leader in a church could share with the pastor, they can share with others. And again, go download our app if you don’t already have it. Go to our website, get a link of this program, share it on Facebook or somewhere, text it to friends so people can hear about this. But Doug, what are opportunities that our folks listening today could take to partner with harvesters and partner directly? Pastors and Christians and orphans right there in Dr. Congo?
Doug Radford:
Well certainly Isaac, we do solicit the prayers. Every one. We believe in the power of prayer and know that’s what changes. Changes lives and changes situations, specific things. Currently our orphan situation is the great increase in food cost has really resulted in the shortfall for us of around $4,000 per month to be able to feed clothes and care for these children that we feel that God has put into our charge. And so that is one specific thing. If people had a heart to come alongside and help us to continue to nurture these children and to bless them with life of safety as much as possible and certainly being taken care of, we want to have damaged churches to be rebuilt. Some of that is dependent upon what unfolds in the next number of weeks as things settle down and some stability begins to occur. We’re certainly want to be able to bless some of the churches out in the rural areas, places where property has been confiscated in the process of the rebels moving in.
And our prayer is that things change. The M 23 are actually setting up government now. I mean they plan to stay and be the governing force there. And our hope and prayer is as they migrate away from the invasion type of mentality to that of governing that things will open up for us to be able to do things. We certainly have pastors in needs, pastors families in need again as a result of the increased cost of living there and other stresses that have been perpetrated there in the last few weeks. There’s horrendous needs among the refugees. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in this region and living in some unimaginable circumstances. And we do all we can to help them to help the vulnerable such as widows and others within our churches and within the communities there that we’re serving. So it’s just about an unlimited brother what can be done. So if people have a heart, we would love to share with them directly about these opportunities and help them get connected and what God is doing there to bless these people.
Sam Rohrer:
Doug, that’s excellent. And correct me if I’m not right here, but people can find out more about you. They can connect financial giving, all that@harvesters.net, is that correct?
Doug Radford:
That is exactly correct. Harvesters with an s.net.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay. And that’s one of ladies and gentlemen, if God lays any of this on your heart, then follow that up harvesters.net and you can go specifically find out more about what Doug is doing and all that we’ve talked about here today. And certainly we can all pray we don’t all have the means to give perhaps or maybe we’re already supporting something else, that’s okay, but perhaps you’re not and you can do that. We’ve got a couple of minutes left here, Doug, but in the last segment I ask you about whether or not the government was doing anything to provide protection for those who do well and bring punishment to those who do evil. The very purpose of government. Well over the last weeks, we all know here since there’s been an investigation done into foreign monies or monies coming out of particularly US aid just made known today that for instance, money, American money, taxpayers money here have been going to enemies of freedom.
As a matter of fact, 2.1 billion has flowed through US taxpayer dollars through USAID to Hamas just since October 7th when they invaded and did their atrocities against Israel. Now that’s just an example you mentioned about the United Nations being on the ground there at one point, the largest force, but nothing has really happened. I don’t know what you are able to say, so say whatever you want. But the incidences of understanding of how much USAID among other money has actually been flowing through even somewhat quasi-religious organizations, but actually into the pockets of terrorists, perhaps the very ones who committed the atrocities to the church leaders in the north. Have you seen any evidence of that or anything that you perhaps can talk about? Because as we pray for people on the field like you and those persecuted, we also need to be praying that God’s justice be done here to stop the fuel that’s actually been helping some of that people can’t put their heads around it.
Doug Radford:
There’s really nothing specific honestly that I could speak to in regard to circumstances that I’m aware of. I do know for a fact that there has been aid from the US and other international entities flowing into Dr. Congo. We’ve never been involved with that aspect of things whatsoever, just not in our scope or rim to do that. And again, I just don’t know of anything specifically I could speak to that would add anything to the comments that you just made being perfectly honest with you.
Sam Rohrer:
Okay, that’s fine. And I didn’t want to put you on the spot, but I just wanted to use the illustration of that there’s a need there in your nation. Christians are being persecuted like they are in Nigeria and other things we’ve heard in the break earlier we talked about that. And as we in America pray, we’re now finding that lo and behold, a lot of our own money has been going to actually help the enemy. It’s a hard thing, as they said, to get one’s head around. So as our listeners, you’re listening, we deed, there’s a lot of things to pray for. Pray, give harvesters.net, and then that God’s justice would expose things that are happening here that it would work out for good. Isaac, I’m going to turn it back to you here.
Isaac Crockett:
I just have amen to say to all that. It’s been such a blessing, Doug, what you have shared with us and hearing what harvesters is doing even able to do in a hard time like this. And it just reinforces what Sam, you talk about on here with the biblical worldview so much. And that is that God ordains family, God, ordains, church, God, ordains government to certain roles and they shouldn’t be messing with each other’s roles. And as Christians, as churches, it’s important for us as Christians and churches to be directly supporting groups like harvesters where the money is going and it’s allocated correctly and it’s going right to the Christians in the greatest need when some of the greatest needs of the whole world. And so again, I would just encourage you, listen to this program, share this program, go to harvesters.net to find out more about all sorts of situations, but especially Dr. Congo. Pray for them. Give as you’re able and pray for us right here at the American Pastors Network and stand in the gap media. Doug and Sam, thank you so much for being on. I hope this has been a blessing to you. It’s been to me learning opportunity and a great blessing. I don’t think you’re going to hear this kind of information anywhere else, but stand in the gap today. So until next time, stand in the gap for truth where you are.
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