DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO — Missionary kids Hazel and Stephen Parry, ages 13 and 12, were at boarding school in England when they heard the news: their parents and younger brother and sister in Congo had been killed. The day was Nov. 25, 1964. Leftist Simba rebels had rampaged through Kisangani (then Stanleyville) and murdered 13 Crossworld (then UFM) adults and six children.

An English uncle cared for Hazel and Stephen. They went to school, then university. They grew up. Got married. Years passed.

Then in 2008, Congolese believers invited adult Crossworld orphans to return. “Come back,” they said, “and see what God has done!”

Hazel, her husband Alastair King, and Stephen made the trip this June with Dr. Ken McMillan, a Crossworld missionary who, with his five brothers, lost their father in the 1964 tragedy. His decades-long medical work in Congo continues today, but Hazel and Stephen hadn’t been there since the early 1960s.

Since then, a wide network of 2,000 churches serving 200,000 believers has taken root in Congo. Many of these churches can trace their origin to the leadership or influence of Crossworld martyrs, and it was this that the local believers wanted the adult orphans to see. But for Hazel and Stephen, this trip wasn’t to view spiritual growth, but to say goodbye at the site where their family met Jesus.