Pastor Marrion P'Udongo has been called the "Oskar Schindler of Congo," a man who's helped save and nurture hundreds of lives in a country where war has claimed millions. And to journalists like myself, he was an ace fixer and translator -- one of the few people to offer access into this complicated and often incredibly dangerous conflict. For the pastor, working for journalists was just a way to finance his own war against the war, a battle he waged alone and most always at the risk of his own safety. In early May 2003, his town of Bunia was invaded by ethnic Lendu militia looking to gain control over area gold mines. With no place to turn, many ran to the home of Pastor Marrion, whose own wife Juliette was a Hema. He sheltered around 70 people for about a week — with little food or water but plenty of prayer — until fighters kicked down his door. "I'm not feeling that I should die now," the pastor said. "This is a good man doing good work in a place where there isn't a lot of goodness left," he said. "He said, 'we know this pastor, he's a good man so we cannot kill these people here,'" P'Udongo recalled. Once they were gone, the militia returned and looted everything in the pastor's house. And on May 26, he received a new kidney, donated by his nephew. In the following years, as fighting caused millions to flee their homes and into the bush, only to be raped and pillaged by soldiers and militia, the pastor became a kind of lighthouse for the multitude of scattered souls. He’ll be returning to the St. Kizito orphanage that he helps manage in the Democratic Republic of Congo, home to over 100 kids whose parents perished during the war. "We should not just preach that people who believe in God will go to Heaven," he once said. His doctors say that in order to live, he desperately needs a kidney transplant. The price tag for such a procedure is about $76,000. His colleague there, Elysee Pifwa, volunteered and matched as his kidney donor — a testament to pastor's impact, according to Mealer. My colleagues and I have since started a campaign to raise the money. Many people responded with such amazing generosity that we managed to pull the funds together for Marrion’s procedure. In your lifetime, there are few moments when you're given the opportunity to directly save another person's life. Mealer said small acts of kindness to help save the pastor's life would reverberate and benefit the orphans, prisoners and countless others touched by P'Udongo and those who could be helped in the future. Even the most wicked militia guys, they loved him." Go to Indiegogo.com/The-Pastor-Marrion-Fund/ to make a contribution.
– Marrion P'Udongo is recognized simply as "pastor" by many and has pulled off a laundry list of heroic acts in the war-torn Republic of the Congo, including assisting child soldiers and rape victims and helping manage an orphanage, per NBC News. His other nickname, the "Schindler of Congo," came about after a 2003 massacre of ethnic Hema residents in Bunia by ethnic Lendu militiamen: P'Udongo housed 70 or so frightened Hema for about a week, but militiamen forced their way in and threatened to kill everyone—until P'Udongo successfully pleaded for their lives and they were all brought to safety. But now the people's savior is the one who needs help as he languishes in Uganda hooked up to a dialysis machine, the result of a failing kidney he received in a 2011 transplant. But while a new donor has been secured and a hospital in India with a high success rate for his type of procedure is ready to perform it, the $35,000 price tag is overwhelming for P'Udongo, who makes $200 a month, NBC notes. The people he's touched are doing whatever they can to help him: The same reporter who helped fundraise for the pastor in 2011 is doing it again. "Look at the world right now … you don't see a lot of really good people left," Bryan Mealer says on Generosity.com. "This is one of them." P'Udongo even has a friend in Hollywood: Ben Affleck, who founded advocacy group Eastern Congo Initiative and met P'Udongo in 2008, when the actor visited northeastern Congo. Meanwhile, P'Udongo continues to fight, mostly for his wife, four kids, an orphan he's taken in, and all the others he advocates for. "If I am not there … who will fill that gap?" he says to NBC. "No, I should not die now … There's still a lot to do." (Read what Bryan Mealer wrote about the pastor in 2011 for the Huffington Post.)