Heart and soul

By Mark Bennett
THE TRIBUNE STAR (TERRE HAUTE, Ind.)

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. January 17, 2008 12:09 pm

— Plans aren’t easy to understand, sometimes.
Take an architect, for example. In a burst of inspiration, he might scratch out a design for a dream home on a restaurant napkin. No one else, though, could decipher such a rough etching. Only the architect.
The same goes for lives, sometimes. We wonder if ours will benefit those who follow us, even just a little.
In her hometown of Terre Haute and in a war-torn African country, Tracy Miner’s life continues to inspire and help others. No one could’ve predicted how it all unfolded, though.
Last May, Tracy accompanied her husband, Doug, on a trip to The Congo in west-central Africa. Doug works in business communications, and a Terre Haute-based missionary group, the African Christian Mission International, had asked him to trek to The Congo to install cables and build a computer network there. The problems, however, go far beyond the technological desolation of that nation.
The Congo has become the deadliest killing field since World War II. More than 4 million people have died since war migrated from adjacent Rwanda into The Congo a decade ago, pitting invading rebels against the Congolese army and local vigilantes. All sought control of a land ripe with coveted natural resources — tin, copper, gold and diamonds. That bloody chaos has a heinous subplot. As a means of intimidation and domination, the warring factions have adopted a tactic of gang raping entire communities of women. It’s systematic and ruthless.
The ACM International missionaries, led by Terre Haute couple Ed and Brenda Buell, were trying to build a safe house in the town of Bukavu, where the rape victims could find medical help to repair their disfigured bodies, and psychological help to deal with the horrific trauma inflicted by their attackers.
Doug’s work would give the ACM haven a connection to the outside world.
Initially, Tracy was a bit hesitant to venture to such a far-off and tumultuous place, Brenda Buell said. But after the Buells and Miners began planning in October 2006 for the trip, Tracy, who worked as an office assistant in ACM’s Terre Haute headquarters, warmed up to the idea.
“She was fairly reluctant, but she figured if God was taking her husband there, she would go, too,” Brenda said.
Once they reached The Congo, Doug got busy with outlets, cables and electricity issues, and Tracy spent time in the safe house with the Buells.
Over her six-day stay, Tracy met a few of the victimized women. One, a woman named Diadata, told Tracy her story, which was heart-wrenching, yet typical of the hundreds of thousands of women attacked.
A gang of soldiers raped Diadata. Her children were forced to watch. When her husband refused the soldiers’ demands for him to join in their assault, they shot and killed him. They took her to a camp, where the rapes continued daily. Eventually, Diadata, disfigured and ostracized, and her children wound up living on the streets.
Listening to such a saga “is highly emotional. It’s very difficult,” Brenda said. “It’s something you don’t get out of your mind easily. And that’s when Tracy said, ‘Something’s got to be done.’”
Just as Buell said, the plight of those people stayed with Tracy after she and Doug returned home to Terre Haute.
“That’s what captured her heart,” Doug recalled Tuesday.
Caring and motivated by nature, Tracy was anxious to make plans and set them into motion.
Then, just three months later, Tracy died suddenly on Aug. 22. An enlarged heart was the cause. She was just 50 years old.
Her loss has been hard, emotionally, for the Miners’ close-knit family, which includes four daughters, ages 28, 24, 20 and 17, Doug said.
Soon afterward, though, a project in her memory began. Called Tracy’s Heart, its mission is to remodel two dwellings in eastern Congo — the safe house for the rape victims, and a house for the Buells, from which they’ll oversee that refuge, beginning in 2009. Along with physical and mental help, the women and their children (many of whom are the unwanted offspring of the attackers) will get job training.
In the months since Tracy’s death, nearly $22,000 has been raised. Memorials generated $8,000 initially, and another $2,000 came in later. Members of Maryland Community Church, where the Miners worship, contributed $6,000, as did a church in Illinois. Additionally, a Pennies for Change drive, with donors dropping off coins to First Financial Bank or Maryland Church, has topped $2,300 for Tracy’s Heart.
“It all goes directly to rebuilding the homes or helping those women,” Brenda Buell said. “It doesn’t go to us at all.”
Others will donate some precious time. A contingent from the Maryland and Illinois churches will go to The Congo from Jan. 28 to Feb. 13 to do the remodeling work along with Ed Buell, who’s already returned there, and Brenda. Those volunteers, including six men from Terre Haute, are paying their own way.
The project has been a moving experience for Doug and his family. Doug, a Minnesota native, met Tracy in 1975 when they were students at Minnesota Bible College. Later, they married, moved to Terre Haute and raised a family. They had 30 years together.
This cause, Tracy’s Heart, allows her caring nature to continue in, as Doug and Brenda Buell put it, “a country the world has forgotten.” Tracy did not forget those people. And, clearly, she’s not been forgotten.
“Just to have a legacy for her is part of what I wanted to do,” Doug said. After a pause, he added, “It’s tough to lose somebody. And then to realize her death is going to have such a profound effect on so many people … that’s the tough thing. That’s the tough thing.”
The atrocities blanket The Congo. The turmoil is volatile and unpredictable. The hope, through this small project, is to help a few of the rape victims, said Vince McFarland, senior pastor at Maryland and one of the traveling volunteers. And to “help some of Tracy’s hopes and dreams for the future come true.”
Doug shares his late wife’s hopes.
“It takes a lot of faith to believe that God will bless it,” he said. “That’s the big unknown, whether what us humans seek or wish is part of God’s plan.”

Mark Bennett writes for The Tribune Star in Terre Haute, Ind.

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