Here at last

The past week has been both a rush and a slow march through time. Regardless, on Tuesday morning we woke up in Rockford, IL and now on Saturday we are finishing our first full day in the Congo at the Elikya Center. Here's how it all went down…

We took a flight from Chicago to Washington DC for a brief layover then boarded another plane for the overnight to Paris. We arrived early on Wednesday morning having hardly slept at all due to the change in time zones (I think that's the definition for jet lag). We then wandered around Charles deGaulle airport like zombies looking for Jim Snyder who was flying in on a separate flight. A German missionary we later met in Bangui described Jim as our "shepherd" on this trip and that's a good a description as any. He will be with us ten days to help us get settled and will then return to the US. Anyways, we finally found him and took the train to Paris for a day of sight-seeing. Those sights included the Eiffel Tower (of course), Notre Dame (of course) and L'Arc de Triomphe (of course). That night we caught the weekly red-eye to Bangui in the Central African Republic, arriving at dawn on Thursday. We spent the day and night catching up on sleep at a guesthouse in the city and the next morning crossed over into Congo. This consisted of taking a 7-seater dugout canoe with plenty of cargo space across the river to the town of Zongo. Following the traditional border-crossing nightmare that is customs we took a 7 ½ hour truck ride to the Elikya Center in Gemena. It really was a great experience and/but we are glad to be "home".

Today has been a day for unpacking and rejuvenation. We really are being spoiled here. Everybody in town was talking about how quickly our housing was built. It has electricity (from a generator for 3 hours each night) and will soon have a solar power connection for charging our laptops, keeping a micro-fridge cool and other uses during the day. We are sleeping on an air mattress in a frame that was built custom for it. "Armoires" were finished today and we enjoyed the sunset from the chairs on our porch. Mowa is the director of the Elikya Canter and we are at his house for every meal, all of them delicious. We have been overwhelmed by the welcome we have received here and the incredible kindness and warmth of our hosts and our neighbors.

Continue to pray for us! Praise the Lord for our safe trip and for the blessing of being with our Congolese brothers and sisters here in Gemena! We are ready to dive into Lingala Monday morning and are excited to move ahead in this transition.