Grace Ministries International is helping provide reconciliation to Christians in war-torn Congo.

Congo-DRC (MNN) — Since 1998, war, famine, and disease have claimed the lives of almost four million people in the Congo. Sam Vinton with Grace Ministries International says that has left many unwilling to forgive.

“That is not really what the natural person would do. That is not what the tribes do that is not what the Clans do. They will hold that off from generation to generation. We can see that even in the Middle East, and other places in the world where these things have been going on year after year and generation after generation.”

Vinton says the gospel desperately needs to be shared. “We feel the church has to at least voice itself and express itself as to what we feel is a good thing for the community. But we have the word of God and we feel that the focus of the teaching, in the sense of the image of God that we’ve been created in, [must be] to try and bring in the idea of forgiveness and restoration.”

Grace Ministries has begun a reconciliation ministry, working with believers to start the he aling process by being the first to forgive.