I was born in Kamituga, South Kivu Province in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in April 1965. I grew up in a family of 10 children; I was the sixth of 6 boys and 4 girls. My family was Roman Catholic, and I received baptism when I was a month old. I attended church every Sunday and started the catechism when I was 7.

When I was five, my parents moved to Bukavu, the capital city of South Kivu Province. I studied quickly and completed high school in 1985. I went to college to study nutrition and chemistry for one year.

During college, I met with a Roman Catholic priest, who served as the college chaplain and helped me to know Jesus. He initiated me in meditation prayers and in praying the Psalms. I discovered that through the Psalms, King David wrote down the greatest way to communicate with Jesus. I decided to pursue philosophy at seminary and, by God’s will, serve the Lord as a priest.

I left my country for a neighboring country, Rwanda. There I started my study at the Major Seminary of Nyakibanda in Butare Province. I spent four years studying philosophy and African cultural history. The Lord showed me that this wasn’t His plan, so I left the Catholic seminary in Rwanda to return to my hometown, Bukavu, in the DRC.

Back with my family, I had time to pray and to ask the Lord, “What do you want me to be?” I found that I needed to study again. In the meantime, I found a girl who believed in God and who was Christian—not by name only—and who served Him with all her soul and her heart!

The story of how I met my beloved wife differs from how dating takes place in the United States. In my country and in most African counties, a girl isn’t supposed to date a man or tell him what she feels. She couldn’t be trusted; by talking that way, she would be considered a prostitute. She would lose her dignity and all men in her area would talk about her.

In Sunday mass, I saw Aline; she was so beautiful that I couldn’t resist, but unfortunately her face was strange to me. I was afraid to approach her after mass, but I prayed, saying, “Oh Lord, I am in trouble since I saw this girl, my sister who is unknown to me. But if it’s Your will, help me to find her, so we can meet and have time to talk.”

When I had left seminary and returned to the DRC, I had become a drunkard. I had belonged in a group of young men who loved to go to nightclubs every weekend so we could meet many girls, drink, smoke, and get prostitutes. I was lost and despaired like a prodigal son. As I restarted my life, I couldn’t focus in prayer. My girlfriend, Aline, changed my life! We went to church together every Sunday. She told me that, if I wanted to stay in love with her, I must quit alcoholism and the group I belonged to. Quitting all the bad habits I had was not easy, but because I loved her much more than anybody, I did.

We got to be together at the same college. Then there was a challenge in our relationship: Aline doesn’t belong in my tribe, and conflict arises when young people who are from different tribes want to marry. The problem I faced with my family seemed to be what Aline faced with her family too. We were rejected, and nobody wanted to listen to us or direct us.

In Africa, when the wedding approaches, there is a process to follow. First, each must go to his/her family to announce that he/she has a fiancé and to discuss the need for a presentation at the girl’s family. If both families agree, messengers are sent by the man’s family. At the presentation, the discussion focuses on dowry; the bride’s family must receive an amount of money. (In early times, men gave cattle, goats, suits, and African clothes for dowry.)

We got married and started a new life together. We were married customarily and religiously. Back at college, we were praying when the same passage of Scripture struck both of us: the Parable of the Great Banquet (Luke 14:12-23).

Before telling this parable, Jesus gives some instructions to the guests. He says in verse 12 that, when organizing a banquet, one should not invite only people who have the means to return your generosity. In other words, do not do things for the sole purpose of being rewarded by those who have benefited from your kindness. And why not? In doing so, you show the selfishness of your intentions. Your focus is more on material gain than on the person to whom you give. Be aware that the search for human rewards in this life has consequences for the rewards that we can get in the life to come.

This is the lesson we got from Scripture, so we set up a nonprofit organization. The aim of our organization was to reduce the misery and poverty of women and girls.

Numerous years of ongoing conflict in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo have taken a tremendous toll on women. For 20 years, the DRC has been the scene of a conflict characterized by sexual violence of unprecedented scale and brutality, constituting crimes against humanity and war crimes. Fighters use violence as a weapon of war to enslave the victims and terrorize the population. “Hundreds of thousands of women are raped; girls to older women, all are concerned,” according to a speaker in Bukavu. In the DRC, victims of sexual crimes face insurmountable obstacles to obtain justice and reparation. The cost of procedures is prohibitive and court decisions are rarely enforced. Rape victims face exorbitant costs. But these legal costs are essential for businesses to make ends meet.

Victims of sexual violence are particularly stigmatized. They are often rejected by their families and communities. They need great courage and determination to go to court and try to break the cycle of impunity. At each stage of the proceedings, victims must pay court costs and other costs to the Congolese administration so that investigations and prosecutions are effectively conducted. Even with a certificate of poverty, which reduces some costs of the proceedings, victims must spend between $25 and $50 (in U.S. dollars). In a country where 67 percent of the population lives on less than $2 a day, the payment of this sum is simply impossible. In the absence of this certificate, and as a precondition for any reperation, victims must systematically advance 6 percent of the total amount of compensation decided in their favor to proceed. This prevents victims from actually receiving any compensation.

The strongest gains from these programs have been in the medical and psychosocial support sectors of gender-based violence (GBV) response. The quality of medical response has significantly improved in the past five years. Funded programs allowed more than 7,186 survivors and members of their communities to participate in village savings and loans associations (VSLAs), business skills development, vocational training, or literacy programs, all of which contribute towards social and economic reintegration. These programs have the added effect of protecting and empowering women by strengthening their decision-making power and increasing access to income-generating opportunities and savings.

Instead of working in medical and psychosocial support sectors, we worked in legal and education sectors and partnered with local hospitals so we could send women to them. We had to fight with the government and the army because of armed groups perpetrating rape with impunity. We worked with churches and local communities to raise awareness against the evil. We broadcasted on the radio to warn all those who commit abuses against women and deprive girls of schooling.

In December 2007, a group of women were coming back from the market to their village. A battalion of soldiers arrested and searched them and took everything they had brought back from the market. Then they raped them. In the group there was a 12-year-old girl who suffered the same fate.

We received the news the next day and we brought the victims to the hospital so that they could receive proper treatment. In the meantime, we made inquiries to discover the perpetrators and bring them to justice. Then we began to receive anonymous phone calls and messages forbidding us to pursue the matter under pain of death.

The high authorities were implicated in the case: they knew the chief of the army was among the battalion. But the chief did not show up to court. He fought back through intimidation. We were warned of all the political authorities and military hierarchy could do to us. And our efforts for justice precipitated an attack at our homes. Armed men came for the first time; they shot bullets at our house and opened our doors. We were tortured and robbed and told that if we began the trial we would die.

We did not quit. We went to the court, the trial continued, and justice was done.

They came back for the second time. It was horrible and our lives were almost ended. We experienced a crucial moment of torture and violence that I will not translate here. After the attackers left, I made the decision to flee to a friend who lived two miles away because I sensed that the attackers would come back. They returned one hour after we left, but they did not see us. They burned our house, the organization’s vehicles, and the office housing the official documents of our organization.

As we hid at our friend’s house, we prayed and found peace when we meditated on 1 Peter 3:17: “For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.” In other words, it can be in God’s will that Christians suffer for doing good. But the persecution of Christians is a sin because Christians do not deserve this treatment. We paid the tribute for the good we did for our compatriots who didn’t have a voice to raise against the government.

We endangered our friend by staying at his house, so we left. Traveling by car was too dangerous, so we went on foot. We walked for 10 days. We walked only at night, hiding during the day, and arrived at the border of neighboring Rwanda. After paying a bribe to cross, we took the bus to the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where we spent two nights before continuing to the Ugandan capital, Kampala. While we rested and recovered in Uganda, we met a fellow who told us that we would have been killed in an attack by the Congolese army.

The Congolese government sends spies into neighboring countries to shoot people who they think have harmed the state. With the participation of a Catholic priest, Father Benoit Bujiriri, whom we knew from his work in the DRC, we came into contact with people who helped us get visas to Thailand. We left for Bangkok in separate groups in April 2008. My wife, my five children, and I spent over five years in Bangkok, seeking asylum with the United Nations High Commissioner of Refuge (UNHCR). We lived in fear because we were living illegally in Thailand. It took three years and many interviews to obtain UNHCR status. We were subject to arrest and were put in jail. Our kids noticed that they were not free and tried to be polite and well-behaved toward the Thai because of fear.

At that time we were worshiping God at the Evangelical Church of Bangkok, where God’s Word was realized. Proverbs 17:17 says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”

In January 2014, we arrived in the United States—our new home after a long and destructive life of suffering and life lessons. We are integrated into Christ Church (Providence, R.I.) RPC and live a holy life with our brothers and sisters who welcomed us in the joy of Christ Jesus.

Clement lives in Providence, R.I., where he attends Christ Church RPC with his wife, Aline, and their six children. He works as an interpreter at a hospital for patients from the Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi, and he is also a guest speaker for Dorcas International Institute.