Story number 1 for 8 Dec 1999

We begin today’s newscast in the Democratic Republic of Congo where renewed violence is jeopardizing a signed peace deal there. The new fighting is also causing mission groups to question their future. Sam Vinton is with Grace Ministries International. “It puts us constantly as a mission organization to decide what the situation is — when do we restart activities? Though I must say that the national church has returned from the forest. So, this is a wonderful thing to see the church going ahead and doing these things even though no missionaries are there.” According to Vinton some of their schools and one of their medical clinics are open, but supplying these works isn’t an easy decision. “There is equipment that we need, but are we going to put equipment back into our stations when tomorrow there could be bombing of the city or locations where we are working, or would this get the rebels or other factions to come in an loot as they’ve done before.”