NASHVILLE (BP) — March 8 holds painful memories for Ezekiel Batsi Batende, pastor of Swahili Baptist Church at Woodmont. On that day in 2008, he and his family fled their home in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as rebels burned Machumbi village.

“The enemy came in one day, killed a lot of people, burned houses, destroyed everything,” Batende told Baptist Press (BP). “It was a very dangerous time. We were running through the bush. You don’t know who you’re going to meet, what you’re going to meet. You can (dodge) the gun, but you can be killed by very dangerous animals.”

Batende, who was already an ordained pastor when he fled the Congo, was referring to the first phase of fighting in the Congo, a country that is 95% Christian and noted for rich mines including cobalt, diamonds, tantalum, tin and gold.

Today, Batende is ministering in Nashville as fighting intensifies in the third phase of the war, centered in North Kivu and involving the March 23 Movement (M23) rebels, the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and other rebels. Death tolls vary, but DRC Prime Minister Judith Suminwa said 7,000 had been killed through Feb. 24, including civilians.

Members of Swahili Baptist Church at Woodmont have family and relatives in North Kivu, church leaders said, but no reports of their untimely deaths have been noted. North Kivu is the state where the bodies of 70 beheaded Christians were found in mid-February, a mass murder blamed on the ADF.

Batende offers the hope of the gospel and sends whatever financial aid the church can muster to family, friends and other survivors in North Kivu, using direct transmission means by phone apps that evade other routes for mass humanitarian aid that reportedly has been intercepted by rebels.

The weekend of March 1, Swahili Baptist joined about 200 Swahili Christians from two other Nashville Swahili congregations (non-Southern Baptist Convention) in a 48-hour period of prayer and fasting from food and water. The fast was only interrupted by a small drink of traditional porridge in the evening on March 1 before ending after 48 hours on March 2. The sanctuary for the March 2 service was full, holding more than 200, Batende said.

“We prayed for the country,” he said, “so that God can give us the leaders who can be able to fight for the people. We fast Saturday morning ‘til evening, and we take a little porridge, and we continue the whole night, ‘til Sunday evening. … We read the Bible, we pray, we sing.”

The congregation read Scripture of God’s deliverance of Israel when the nation faced powerful enemies, Batende said.

“It was a good time for us to stand for ourselves, to pray, to ask God and tell God what we are feeling right now,” he said. “When we pray, we give people hope that God is everything. God can make a way where there’s no way. And we pray that God give somebody in us, people who understand what is going on. We pray so God can raise somebody who can stand for the nation. So we’re giving people hope.”

M23 began targeting Christians in 2009, Batende said, after the group changed its name from the National Congress for the Defense of the People, and continues with the support of the Rwandan Tutsis. M23 has seized the capital cities of Goma in North Kivu and Bukavu in South Kivu and continues to advance, Al Jazeera reported March 9.

Hosea Mtendelwa, a minister at Swahili Baptist, is among members who have family in North Kivu. His brother, who has a wife and family, lives there, Mtendelwa told Baptist Press.

“The killings, the rape cases every day, the children are kidnapped from the streets,” he said. Young boys are kidnapped to fight as members of rebel groups, and young girls are captured for sex slavery, he said, crimes that are widely reported. “The situation is very, very, very, very bad every day.

“We talk a lot on the phone,” he said of his brother. “Since the rebels took control of the state — they took control of the province — they don’t allow people to leave the state to go to other states. The problem is, they keep taking people, and they take them by force, to join the movement.”

Mtendelwa fled the war in the Congo in 1996 at age 14 and stayed in a refugee camp in Lugufu, Tanzania, before coming to the U.S. as a refugee in 2010. He arrived in Michigan, he said, before making his way to Nashville and Swahili Baptist Church in 2012.

“This situation is different from when we fled,” Mtendelwa said. “What’s going on today is very, very bad. This is worse.”

Southern Baptists can help relief efforts through donations to Swahili Baptist Church at Woodmont, 2100 Woodmont Blvd., Nashville, TN, 37215, said Nick Bushey, a member of Woodmont Baptist Church who helps the congregation with his wife Connie as members of Woodmont Baptist Church.

While safely providing aid is difficult, Batende said the church still finds a way. To date, Swahili Baptist at Woodmont has given about $46,000 to plant Baraka Baptist Church in Baraka, South Kivu, with the sanctuary nearing completion, Nick Bushey said.

Aid to individuals in the war zone is given by direct means, Batende said, emphasizing the needs of widows and orphaned children who lack medicine, shelter, clothing, shoes and other necessities.

“If there is help, that the Baptists are able to help those kids that are living without parents in this area (North Kivu),” Batende said. “There are a lot of women that we put together that they don’t have husbands anymore, their husbands were killed.

“These people, they don’t have hope anymore,” he said. “If there is a way they can have something to help them — like clothing, shelter — if Baptists can help, because we are trying so hard.”

(EDITOR’S NOTE — Diana Chandler is Baptist Press’ senior writer.)