Several years after Christian doctor Denis Mukwege won the Nobel Peace Prize, Mindy Belz traveled to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to report on his medical practice and ministry to victims of sexual violence. Mindy writes: 

Bukavu is a city without running water, even in hotels—by night a young woman brought a tall thermos of hot water to my room for bathing. That’s just one of the challenges facing Dr. Mukwege and Panzi Hospital. I jumped at the chance to spend time with him and his staff because for years I’ve wondered what keeps him going. Why does a doctor of world renown, with millions of dollars in humanitarian prize money, keep showing up in scrubs to treat women the world scarcely notices?

For Dr. Mukwege, I learned, the reason is the women themselves. They look like victims of war, but they also hold a God-given power. Rape in war is systematic. Soldiers destroy communities and take territory by destroying those who hold them together. When women overcome the brutality—with medical care and healing together in the wards at Panzi—they get back their dignity and their power to restore communities, even amid war.

Mukwege knows something other world leaders should learn. Upholding the most vulnerable is a way to win battles. The women “are a blessing for me,” Mukwege said at the end of a long day. To lose hope for them? “Then I just finish and leave. I’m not ready to do that.”