Mangina Mayor Nicolas Kambale said the attackers came "wielding knives and firearms," set on killing villagers and burning their houses. On July 14, the first raid left six people dead, including the elder and the worship leader, along with six wounded and one person still unaccounted for. Two days later, on July 16, the militants returned and killed ten more before soldiers of the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo drove them back into the bush.
The two assaults on Mangina were part of three separate attacks the ADF carried out on Christian communities in the area over those few days, leaving more than twenty people dead in total. International Christian Concern says victims and survivors describe a campaign aimed squarely at Christian leadership, with houses set ablaze and believers targeted by name.
The ADF has terrorized North Kivu's largely Christian population for years now, striking churches, hospitals, and Bible schools across Beni Territory. It is one of the deadliest Islamic State affiliates on the African continent, and eastern Congo has become one of the bloodiest mission fields on earth.
A Church Elder Does Not Die for Nothing
Now hold that in your mind a moment. A church elder. Not a soldier, not a politician, not a man who ever raised a weapon against anybody. He was killed because he had spent his life teaching his neighbors that Jesus Christ is Lord, and there are men in this world who cannot let that word stand. A worship leader died the same night, for the same crime — lifting up the name that is above every name.
You and I live a long way from Beni Territory. Most of us will never smell smoke from a burning house or bury a friend killed for singing a hymn. But do not let the distance fool you into thinking this is somebody else's trouble. It is the family of God being cut down, and when one member of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it.
The Lord Jesus told His own men plainly what following Him would cost some of them. He did not sugarcoat it. He did not promise them an easy road paved with comfort and applause. He told them the world hated Him first, and it would hate them too. That word has come true in Mangina.
"And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." (Matthew 10:28)
That is not a soft word, but it is a true one, and it is the only word big enough for a night like the one Mangina endured. The men who came with knives and rifles could take life. They could burn a roof and scatter a family. What they could not touch was the soul of the elder who taught the gospel, or the soul of the worship leader who sang it. Those souls belong to Christ, bought with His own blood, and no militia on earth has authority over that.
This is the hope the church has always preached in the worst hours — not that suffering is pretend, not that grief should be swallowed down, but that death does not have the final word over a believer. "I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live" (John 11:25). The elder in Mangina is not silenced. He is home.
My friend, do not read a story like this one and simply feel bad for a few minutes before moving on. Let it press a question on you: is your own faith worth what it cost that man his life? He held to Christ when it meant everything. Most of us are only ever asked to hold to Him when it costs us comfort, or pride, or a little embarrassment in front of people who don't believe. If he could keep the faith facing a blade, surely you can keep it facing far less.
Pray for the believers still standing in Beni Territory tonight, rebuilding what fire took, burying who they must bury, and still, somehow, gathering to worship the same Lord that cost them so dearly. The gospel that got that elder killed is the same gospel that will raise him up. It has not lost, and it will not lose.