Soleil Elikya Larsen

Soleil Elikya Larsen
Born December 30th at 8:40 AM
20.9 inches
8 lbs, 14 oz.

The full story and many, many more photos still to come...

Christmas at Gamboula

Though there was no snow and though there was no Christmas conifer and though the rest of our family was thousands of miles away, we did have a very merry Christmas.

When my family was in Congo when I was a kid we had a tradition of doing work projects during the afternoon of Christmas Eve before opening gifts later that night. Not my favorite tradition at the time but a good one to emulate. This Christmas Eve I got to help pass out soap, rice, sardines and sheets to the patients at the hospital here. I manned the pushcart as we wheeled our way through the different wards. Read this post from the Danforths, another missionary family here, to find out more: Merry Christmas!!

Driving Santa's sleigh

On Christmas Day I woke up a little earlier and walked just outside the mission to buy some beignets from a roadside stand. Once back at the house we had a breakfast of beignets, pineapple and Nescafe instant coffee. We read the Christmas story from Matthew and Luke--another family tradition--and then moved to our Christmas tree in the living room. Yes, we did have a Christmas tree, put together from the tips of some cut palm fronds. We even had some presents "under" the tree, received unexpectedly from some of the fellow missionaries here. They included this baby hat and a few other baby clothes which qualify as her first Christmas gifts...and she hasn't even been born yet!

Our Christmas tree

Baby's 1st Christmas present

In the afternoon we relaxed together and that evening all the missionaries celebrated with a big meal at the Danforth's. Instead of a Christmas ham we enjoyed a Christmas goat. Also stuffing, corn pudding, dinner rolls, green beans, cranberry sauce, etcetera, etcetera. Fortunately we were able to save some room for dessert. For that we walked over to the Wester's for coffee and pie--five different kinds of pie. We also did a White Elephant gift exchange where we parted with a bag of mints and a holographic Obama belt and received a scented candle and a Norwegian finger-warming mug.

The highlights of the day were talking to our parents for about fifteen minutes each. And though we couldn't be in either Denver with Michelle's family or in Wisconsin with mine, we were happy to celebrate with each other and with the missionary families of Gamboula, most whom I have known as my friends' parents since I was a kid in Zaire. God is good and while we look forward to celebrating with our family back in the US in the future we are happy to make some new (and very different) memories too.

Merry Christmas!

Once again, time for an old favorite. Happy Holidays!

Hippo Hunt!

On the night of Thursday, December 9th I was invited by Kim Cone, one of the ReachGlobal missionaries here at Gamboula, to come along on a hippopotamus hunt. Naturally, I was very excited. No matter that we would be leaving around 5:15 the following morning. So I was awake by 5 AM and after a short walk to the Cone's house was ready to go. Our guide from the government wildlife bureau arrived with a letter from the regional sous-prefet giving Kim permission to bag a hippo. Hippos (and elephants) are protected in the Central African Republic and cannot be shot without special permission from the authorities. In this case, the CAR Independence Day celebration on Saturday called for a round of hippo to be served to the "bigwigs" in town for the occasion. With permission in hand we set out for the river.

Our transportation was an Alpha jeep, one of those put together through TouchGlobal and shipped to missionaries or ministries where roads are bad or virtually nonexistent. In this case it was the latter. There used to be a decent road from town down to the river due to a tobacco plantation down there or tobacco transport or something of the sort. It had since devolved into a one-track path mainly used by motorcycle taxis. The Alpha handled it well, though, shaving back the undergrowth on both sides and filling our laps with leaf shavings and litter and insects. A tree frog ended up on the windshield.

We arrived outside of a village on the river and parked in a recently cleared and burned garden. A short walk later and we were on the river. Our party of three had by now grown to about seven. We had left for the hunt early to avoid becoming a main attraction and drawing a crowd. The men that were along, however, were much needed. Once we arrived at a popular hippo hang-out and saw no hippos, scouting parties started out in both directions by canoe, searching for hippopotami. We waited for about two hours and then went back upstream. Kim went with three men from the village by canoe to do the shooting while I waited with the others, now about ten or eleven. Soon enough there was a single shot and short while later a canoe picked up myself and a few others and deposited us on the other side of the river where Kim was standing.

A few things about hunting hippos. Sure, it sounds easy enough to kill a hippo. These animals are not small nor are they considered to be particularly fast, elusive or smart. After all, their brains are not much larger than a man's fist. But that's the problem right there because that is the hippo hunter's target. And hippos don't really spend much time outside of the water. The vast majority of the day is spent not only in the water but underneath the water, surfacing every five to eight minutes for a quick breath. When they do come up for air it is only their ears, their eyes and their nostrils that breach the surface of the water, and that for generally no longer than 10 seconds. So for the hunter it is a waiting game. Not just before the shot but even after. Once the hippo is shot it unfortunately doesn't simply do a barrel roll and float there waiting to be pulled to shore. If it is done in by a clean head shot the hippo will go straight to the bottom. So then you wait until he begins to bloat and slowly resurfaces. This takes no fewer than 50 minutes and can even be as long as two and a half hours.

Once I arrived on the other side of the river we waited, standing on a reedy mat of grass that was slowly sinking under the weight of the crowd. We waited. A hippo was seen not much farther upstream and there was speculation that it might be the same one that had been shot at. It had gone down immediately after the shot but perhaps had moved on underwater and unharmed. So after a couple hours Kim went off the to the other side and set up for another attempt. He took the shot but it looked to be a bit in front of the hippo. Still we waited and no dead hippos surfaced. So we moved back downstream where another hippo had been sighted. Getting there involved a combination of canoe rides and walking along the banks in ankle-deep muck and clay that threatened to suck the sandals right off our feet.

Once at the new hunting grounds Kim took another shot and the hippo vanished. More waiting. And then we noticed another hippo a little farther downstream. Coincidence? I think not. He went off again by canoe and took another shot. The hippo vanished. More waiting. An hour passed. Then two hours. It was growing dark.

We finally called it a day and left for the truck, leaving the crowd of villagers (which had grown to about eighteen by this point) with their butchers knives still waiting for the pink belly of the beast to break the surface of the water. We arrived at the truck in the moments immediately before complete darkness fell and drove back to the mission.

Kim said that his scope was probably off. He had sighted it in the week before for one kind of ammo but had run out of time to sight in for the kind he wanted to use. He felt bad for not having been able to show me a dead hippo up close. I didn't mind. It was a good experience. I spent most of the day waiting, standing in muck or in water or sitting on shore surrounded by people I couldn't communicate with. I should have brought lunch too. But, hey, I got to go on a hippo hunt in Africa and of course, I would do it again.

I don't know what the government "bigwigs" ate on Saturday but I don't believe it was hippo.

*No hippos were harmed in the making of this blog post*

November 2010 Update

11/27/2010

Dear Friends and Family,

Happy Thanksgiving! Michelle and I will actually be celebrating the holiday today, along with the other missionary families here at the Gamboula mission station in the Central African Republic. So though all of your turkey and pie has been eaten, ours still await us (with chicken and duck substituted for a turkey). We hope that your holiday was blessed and that you continue to thank the Lord for who He is and for the good things He has given.

We arrived on Wednesday by way of a small 6-seater Cessna operated by SIL. Our departure from Gemena was delayed a bit by some hoopla at the airport. The President of the DRC, Joseph Kabila, is due to arrive in Gemena next week for some pre-election campaigning and as we waited at the plane his pre-arrival delegation arrived from Kinshasa and the army was practicing a welcome march for his arrival, complete with a band, a saber-wielding commander and synched high-stepping. Once we received clearance, it was just a two hour flight to our destination in CAR.

We have been here in Gamboula for nearly three days now but it took us a matter of minutes to realize that this is nothing like the ELIKYA Center. Everyone who had ever been to Gamboula said that it was a “paradise” of a mission station and they were right! We are staying in our own house, fully furnished with a wrap-around porch and set in a yard of fruit trees and flowers. There is 24-hour electricity thanks to a nearby hydroelectric facility and that means we have the use of a fan during the night. There are also hot showers and water that you can drink right out of the tap. We also happen to be located in what must be the “fruit tree capital” of Central Africa. Case in point; yesterday I ate some inga, some eta, several langsat, two varieties of guava, several strips of dried jackfruit, a boiled palm nut, a starfruit, a slice of velvet apple, some coconut and a banana. And I drank some passion fruit juice. I didn’t even know what several of those fruits even were until a couple days ago.

The prevalence of fruit trees here is due to the Centre d’Agroforestrie and its showcase, the “Garden of Eden”, that are located mere steps from our front door. Two of the premier (missionary) agronomists/arborists in Central Africa, Roy Danforth and Paul Noren, are here right now and I will have the opportunity to tag along on some of their ongoing projects. I hope to be able to use this month or so to get a better handle on how to begin an agricultural program at Elikya upon our return. Both Roy and Paul have been working in the Congo and CAR since before I was born so they have a wealth of practical knowledge that I hope to be able to tap into. Needless to say, I’m excited about the opportunity to get my hands dirty and get learning!

Michelle has been doing very well with the pregnancy and is glad to be going through her final month of it here in Gamboula. She has some back pain, tires more quickly and has had some aching joints in her hands but has been dealing with the discomfort very well. One week ago we made a trip to Camp ECHO, a cave 5 km from ELIKYA where CECU hosts a youth camp in the summer. Michelle, with the rest of us, climbed up a rock wall in the back of the cave that exits through a hole in the roof. She’s a true mwasi makasi (tough woman).

The one thing that is difficult about being here is that we are away from the people and the ministry at the ELIKYA Center. Sam and Sarah are continuing the English classes in our absence so they shouldn’t skip a beat. Their teaching load, however, will be quite heavy as they will be doing all of the lesson-planning and teaching in every class period for the next month and half to two months. Remember to keep them in your prayers as they “hold down the fort”. Pray also that the time that Michelle and I spend away from the work at ELIKYA would ultimately bear fruit for that ministry. There is plenty to do still as Michelle maintains contact with several potential short-term teams due out in the Congo next year and as I try to learn all I can for initiating the agricultural program there.

The month since our last newsletter has been a good one. Some highlights include our trip to the cave to explore its potential as a weekend day trip for visiting teams, finishing the beginning phonics portion of our class and advancing to more dialogues (listening and speaking) and treating the class to a cultural tutorial on Thanksgiving complete with a pretend pumpkin pie, cinnamon rolls and an American history lesson. We are anticipating a very busy 2011 as there looks to be several short-term teams and individuals coming out to take part in ministry at the ELIKYA Center. The first will be arriving in the middle of January. Pray that the preparations for hosting this team will be completed and that God would be preparing the way for their ministry to bear lasting fruit.


Please keep us in your prayers as we approach the time for the baby to be born. After the birth, we will head to Bangui where we will apply for the baby’s passport. This looks to be a rather lengthy process as the application must be sent to the US embassy in Yaounde, Cameroon to be processed. So we’ll have to send it in and wait, possibly up to a month. Pray also that that process would go smoothly and quickly. If necessary, I will meet the January team in Bangui and accompany them to Gemena while Michelle continues to wait, accompanied now by my Mom who will be coming out to see her new grandchild and to be a help to Michelle.

Once again, we covet your prayers and we know that God hears them. We are privileged to be a part of what He is doing in the Congo and we thank you for your involvement. We truly have a lot to be thankful for this Thanksgiving!

In Him,

Aaron and Michelle Larsen
ReachGlobal Africa
Centre ELIKYA

Off to Gamboula!

Please keep Michelle and I in your prayers as we are on the road again tomorrow. Actually, we will only be on the road for 1o km as we are flying the rest of the way. Our destination is Gamboula, a town in the Central African Republic, where we will be having our baby. Dr. Tim Wester, who was in the Congo with my family in the 1990's and now works at a mission hospital in Gamboula, will be delivering the baby. The plane comes in to Gemena around 9 AM tomorrow to drop off some other passengers and to pick us up.

The Church is Beautiful

A couple Sundays ago there was a region-wide church service for a baptism celebration.  That meant that something like 31 CECU congregations in the greater Gemena area gathered together in one church, Paroisse Centrale, for worship.  The church was absolutely filled.  The pews were full.  People were sitting in the windows.  There was a shelter of palm fronds built on one side of the church that held more people.  And all around the church worshippers were gathered together in small and large groups.  Over 270 believers had been baptized the day before.  At one point they all filled the open space at the front of the church and in the aisles and doorways to publicly affirm their decision to follow Christ.  The rest of the congregation was called on to help them fulfill that calling. 

 

Yes, the numbers were impressive: 31 churches;  270 believers baptized; 1500 people in attendance; 5 hours.  But the day was special for so much more than that.  As we sat and listened to the choirs, or stood for the hour and a half offering time or prayed together and confirmed our support of our new brothers and sisters there was the constant, overarching thought, “This is the Church.”  It was like nothing I have been a part of previously in my adult life.  The singing was completely Congolese.  The beat of the drums and the dance steps of the choirs were completely Congolese.  The processional for giving offering was completely Congolese.  The swaying, the movement, the joy, the colors, the whole thing was Congolese and completely beautiful.  Here in this country that has been through so much, where there is so little hope at times and so much trouble, here in one of the poorest nations on earth, here is the true church.

 

The true church dwells also in America and in every country on earth.  And that is part of what makes it so beautiful.  For she is made to be the fullness of him who fills all in all.  She is not constrained by borders or cultures or races or languages but is transcendent like her Lord.  She is joined together in Him, one holy temple.  She is one body, made holy for one Lord, who loved her and gave Himself up for her.  And to think that one day we, the church, will be presented to Him in splendor, without spot or wrinkle but holy and without blemish. 

 

To see the Congolese part of that body has been one of the great joys of my life.  It has helped me to understand even just a small bit more what the “fullness of Christ” is.  We are all members of the same body and partakers of the same promise through the gospel.  To see the transcendence of Christ in the life of his many-cultured body is a glimpse of the glory that is to come and a testament to the magnitude of the riches of His grace.  The household of God, like His love and compassion, surpasses understanding.  There is no perfect church but a church being made perfect and rejoicing for it.           

Paroisse Libenge Moke

This is our church, Paroisse Libenge Moke. Libenge Moke is a small town located on the outskirts of Gemena and the church is about a twenty minute walk from the Elikya Center. On any given Sunday there are about 200 people in attendance. The bricks that are piled up around the church are for the pastor's house which is going to be built in the near future. The church is currently underoing "Operation Manzanza" to replace the thatched roof (manzanza is tin roofing). Each member of the church is being encouraged to purchase a segment of roofing or, if the means are lacking, to go in with a couple fellow worshippers for the purchase.

October 2010 Newsletter is hot off the presses! Click to view. Past newsletters and donation cards are available to view or download on the sidebar.

A Quick Report from the Classroom

I just wanted to send out a real quick update. We are in the middle of our third week of English classes. They have been a lot of fun and everybody seems to be enjoying them and learning a lot too. See below.

Most classes involve repetition of selected vocabulary to supplement the phonics lessons we are working through right now. We are also practicing dialogues, singing songs and playing games (all educational of course).

We are hoping to send out our latest newsletter within the next week. As usual it will also be posted on our blog.

1 class down, 311 to go

Okay, that’s not entirely true.  We have just completed teaching our first English class.  But we don’t know how many more will be taught.  The 311 figure is just a rough estimate based on our schedule of teaching 3 times weekly (Monday, Wednesday and Friday) over the course of two years.  We may be here longer, who knows.  And I’m sure we’ll have some days off thrown in there too.  Not just for our sake, but for the sake of the students as well and, of course, for holidays and the like.

 

But having one under our belt is a good feeling.  We’re starting slow and focusing on pronunciation here in the beginning.  It’s slow but foundational and will help down the road.  So for now we are beginning with single letter sounds and accompanying vocabulary.  Prayer is a part of every class and we are beginning each class period with a Bible verse read in English and in Lingala.  Over the course of the week, the passage is then divided into phrases and the vocabulary in it is explained, translated and defined. 

 

There are 10 people in our class.  Five are members of the Hospitality Team that we are training to welcome work/teaching teams from the US.  The other five are people within CECU whose ministry leadership feels would greatly benefit from English training.  This includes Director Mowa, one of the teachers here at Elikya (Mama Susa) and others that will be introduced later.  They are a great group of people that we are privileged to have in our class and to work with.

 

Keep these English classes in your prayers.  As you would expect, it is rather difficult teaching in a language that you do not yet have fluency in.  It is a challenge and yet also one more great opportunity for us to get better at Lingala.  This is one class where absolutely everybody is learning, students and teachers alike.    

The Lord will guide you always; He will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.

Isaiah 58:11

Getting into the Swing of Things (Even More Photos)

Michelle preparing the seedbed

Work or play?

No shortage of helpers

Getting into the Swing of Things (More Photos)

Sam shows off his defensive stance

A lot of fuss over a little foam wheel

Swinging for the fences

Getting into the Swing of Things (Photos)

Tearing up the soil...and our hands

Our Garden...

Of Bananas, Pineapples and Weeds

Jeffu wielding his hoe

Turning the Soil

Getting into the Swing of Things

As I write this it is 12:30 in the morning, Saturday, August 28, 2010. Of course, for those of you on the East Coast it is a mild 7:30 PM on a Friday night and those of you in the Midwest have probably barely finished supper by 6:30. Here it is past midnight and yet all is not still at the Elikya Center. Some of the sewing students and teachers are working on some items they will send back to the US with Jim Snyder and Kevin Kompelein, two visiting EFCA leaders who are flying out of Gemena tomorrow. Their sewing machines are busy. The generator is running through the night as well, to power some of the machines and enable them to see what they’re doing. And that’s why I’m writing now- so this computer won’t run out of juice.

I wanted to write in order to get you caught up on how things have been progressing here. In short, slowly but surely. Our EFL curriculum arrived with Jim and Kevin so we are now beginning to wade through the materials, getting familiar with them in order to start lesson planning in earnest. We will be using materials from the Ohana Foundation that are largely DVD based. This, along with the training we received in July, should enable novice EFL trainers like us to effectively facilitate the subject using a wealth of resources including songs, stories, video instruction, games and workbooks. Like so many other things, we’ll just have to wait and see. We are all excited about getting the classes rolling and hope to begin the third week of September. Until then we will be lesson-planning, continuing our Lingala learning and working in our garden.

Speaking of the garden, it has been one of our great opportunities here. It is an opportunity to learn more about Congolese life since so much revolves around the subsistence garden. It is an opportunity to get some good physical exercise and to toughen up our hands. My hands are currently covered with healing blisters (7 in all), proof that they have a lot of toughening up to do. Apparently, the local trick to the dilemma of soft hands is to do the following: 1) Rub palm oil all over hands, 2) hold hands over hot coals until they feel like they’re burning, 3) remove hands from heat, 4) hold hands over hot coals again until they feel like they’re on fire and 5) remove hands. The last step is very important. Sam and I tried this treatment out a couple of times and it seems there may be something to it. The specific activity that was causing our hands such grief was turning the earth with our garden hoes.

It is pretty hard, tedious and back-breaking work, especially knowing that it is to be done for every inch of the garden. And we had it easy; we only had to turn a small portion of earth since our garden is quite small. We also had helpers, which brings me to another great opportunity- the chance to meet people, work with them and practice our Lingala with them. It seems that every time we went out to work we would soon be joined by anywhere between 1 and 8 people. Our Lingala teacher, Guylain has been helping, Several of Mowa’s kids have helped, though Jeffu is barely as tall as the hoe he was using.

Eyenga and Kongba, two Global Fingerprints sponsored orphans have helped and some of the orphan students here at the Center have also chipped in from time to time. Right now we are trying to reclaim the pineapple, banana and plantain rows from the weeds that took over in our absence.

We are also constructing seed beds for our kitchen garden and will soon be planting vegetables, herbs and some trees that may be useful for soil building, living fences, charcoal or firewood and forage for livestock. We have really enjoyed the chance to get out and get our hands dirty. It has also been a good outlet for physical activity and its value as such will certainly be appreciated throughout our duration here.

Another good outlet for physical activity has again been soccer. But another sport that has joined soccer as a hometown favorite is the venerable tradition of Ngba ba. I should preface this by stating that Ngba ba is actually a real game. The first time we saw it being played we thought it was simply a game that Mowa’s kids came up with to play amongst themselves. But it turns out it is known throughout the Gemena region, though not much beyond that. The premise of the game is this: Players use sticks to try to hit a foam wheel onto the opposing team’s side. If they clear the field or if the lagome (the foam wheel) comes to a stop on the opposing team’s side, they get a point. It is actually both surprisingly fun and difficult. We look downright silly out there but we have a good time and the kids really enjoy it too.

Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to adjust after our first month in-country. Lingala learning is a constant effort. Pray that we are bold in seeking opportunities to use and grow it. We are preparing to teach a subject none of us have ever taught before. Pray for wisdom and discipline as we make preparations for the classroom. Also, we ask for your prayers concerning Michelle’s pregnancy. Pray that Michelle and the baby would enjoy good health and that all the necessary arrangements would be made for the delivery. The plan is that we will fly to Gamboula, in the Central African Republic to be under the care of a ReachGlobal mission doctor there when the time comes for the baby to be born. We are expecting to leave for the CAR either the last week of November or the first week of December. Once the baby is born we will fly to the capital city of Bangui where we will apply and wait for the baby’s passport. Then it’s back to the Elikya Center. As of right now, flights still need to be arranged as does our housing in Gamboula and Bangui. These plans are in God’s hands and we know that He will provide.

Finally, drop us a line if you think of it. We’d love to hear from you and we crave news from “back home” more than we crave roast beef and home-style mashed potatoes…And that’s saying a lot! So keep in touch and keep us in your prayers. Let us know how we can be praying for you as well.

Ekstrands in Congo

See this blog post by some missionaries with Covenant World Mission. They are also serving in the Gemena area and we had supper with them this past Wednesday evening at a local restaurant.

http://blogs.covchurch.org/ekstrand/?p=751

Making the Most of a Rainy Day

Getting water for dishes, laundery and filtering

Doin' dishes

Michelle and Sarah doing dishes behind the house

Pictures of Home

The following pictures show our house again. There have been several improvements including a nice green lawn (and healthy fruit trees and bushes), an extended roof over our future cooking area out back, a completed front porch and shower barrels on stands at either end.

Home at Elikya

We are finally home at the Elikya Center. Our travel this time around was, in some ways, easier than the last and in some ways more, shall we say adventurous. Our flights were on time, all of our luggage arrived with us and we had only a couple hours layover in Paris. Once in Bangui, CAR we settled into the Brethren Mission guesthouse for a couple nights. We ate our evening meal (chicken and French fries) at a local restaurant. As we were waiting for the food to arrive I felt a tickling on my toes. I pushed back the tablecloth and leaned over to take a look, expecting to find a cat or a small dog sniffing my feet. Instead I saw a large cockroach crawling on my toes, welcoming us to Africa.

Our first full day in the city we took a walking tour of Bangui, visiting such hotspots as the US embassy, the fridge store and a grocery store. That night both of us got only about 3 hours of sleep. As I lay wake my mind was busy with Lingala words and phrases. I ended up with a song in my head and even tried translating that into Lingala with mild success.

The next day we crossed over the Ubangi River into the town of Zongo, Congo. We were hoping to cross the river at 8 AM to get an early start but…As usual the customs process took awhile on both sides of the river. When we finally got on the road it was about 1:30 in the afternoon. We were anticipating something like a 9 hour drive given the report that a bridge was “out” along the way and it was the rainy season so the roads were bad. Michelle quickly showed us all that she was the possessor of an important skill: the ability to fall asleep anywhere. I think it is a safe assumption that if you can sleep in a truck bouncing along Congo roads, you can sleep anywhere.

The bridge required some minor adjusting before it could be crossed. We got out of the vehicle and walked across, though, just in case. We were delayed a couple times for minor repairs to the suspension and changing out the bulbs in the headlights. Finding a place to go to the bathroom was always an adventure. At one point we walked back off the road a ways through two people’s yards and to a third house where the man in charge got the generator running, turned the lights on and let us in. He yelled something about a scorpion to somebody right before he invited us in so we were left guessing a little bit about that.

Back on the road it got dark and we finished the trip, most of us nodding off from time to time (except for Edison, the driver, of course). We had a few encounters with animals on the road with a chicken and a cat being the sole casualties. A cow once suddenly and unwisely averted course and turned immediately in front of us. It got knocked on the head but walked away from it. We arrived at a checkpoint in a town just over an hour from Gemena around midnight. There we were taken into a small room and looked over by an official who registered us after examining our passports and shining a flashlight in our face to confirm our identities.

By the time we arrived in Gemena we had been on the road for 11 ½ hours. We made a stop at the CECU President’s house for a very late supper (or early breakfast) of goat, rice and plantain. Then we finally got to bed and ended up sleeping until just before noon the next day. Now we are continuing to unpack and put everything in order. This afternoon we will register with the regional chef du poste and apply for a residence visa.

The Days Ahead

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9




The months of waiting have turned to weeks, to days and finally to hours. We have made our final purchases, checked in for our flight to Paris, weighed every piece of luggage to within ounces of 50 pounds, scheduled the termination of our phone service and car insurance and a million other little things that must be done when leaving the country for two years. We'll find out what we forgot to do when we get there.

We are excited to be going and more than a little apprehensive...but excited. There will be difficult things to be sure but our God can handle them. And now, when considering the days head, there is something like a swell of excitement at being loosed on this journey and going in His will. There is no place we'd rather be right now and no place we'd rather be going.

The plan is to fly overnight from Chicago to Paris, arriving tomorrow morning. A few hours later we board our flight for Bangui, arriving that evening. We will be spending at least a day in Bangui at a guesthouse as we prepare for the trip to Gemena. That final leg may be a bit delayed as the roads have apparently been wrecked by the rainy season and a bridge is currently out. So we may have to wait for it to be fixed. But regardless, we are on our way. And on our way rejoicing.

Woo Hoo!

July 2010 Newsletter is hot off the presses! Click to view. Past newsletters and donation cards are also available to view or download on the sidebar.

Let the packing commence!

Faith Comes By Hearing

This is for those of you who may be interested in hearing what Lingala really sounds like. We are, of course, aspiring to sound this good but just aren't there yet. The organization that produces the audio here is called Faith Comes By Hearing. They create dramatized recordings of the New Testament in various languages and make them available to poor, illiterate and marginalized populations around the world. They focus on regions that may not have a strong history of the written word but where stories are passed down aurally. This particular recording is of the third chapter of the Gospel of John.



*Allow several seconds for audio to load after pressing play.

Here we go...

Praise the Lord! The Snyders have finished support-raising and we now have the green light to return to the Congo. We have all purchased tickets for a flight leaving from Chicago on July 25. The four of us will arrive in Paris the next day and leave several hours later on another flight for Bangui, Central African Republic. We are excited to finally have a date set for departure (even though it is almost five weeks away). There is plenty to do until then, though, as we will be buying the remaining supplies, packing, getting visas and even receiving training in facilitating an EFL (English as a Foreign Language) course.

Thank you all for your prayers and for your financial support of our ministry. These many months of support-raising, training, traveling, waiting, preparing and saying our good-byes is finally coming to an end. Three months after we finished support-raising and five months after we originally hoped to depart, we are finally leaving. And right on time in God's will. You can continue to pray that our final preparations before leaving would go smoothly, that all necessary arrangements would be made and that we would be mentally and spiritually prepared for the next two years as much as possible by the time we board the plane.

May 2010 Update

We will be sending out an additional newsletter next month before we depart for the Congo but we wanted to give you a brief update for the month of May.

This past month has been one of transition. We moved out of our apartment in our church’s mission house and in with some friends on May 1st. And we have just moved out of our room in their house and are now with some other friends in Lindenhurst, IL. We are a lot closer to Sam and Sarah Snyder and close enough to help with working out departure details and assist with TouchGlobal needs in Rockford, IL.

In between these moves we have been saying numerous good-byes. Our church, Lancaster EFC, commissioned us during both services on Sunday, May 30th. We were presented with a Congolese flag and a certificate and were also prayed over by the congregation. It has been bittersweet because we are both excited to be so close to heading back to the Congo and sad to leave the friends we have been so blessed to spend the last several years with. What’s two years, though? Not much in the grand scheme of things. Among other things, Michelle has been finalizing the process that will get potential short-term team members to the Congo and I have been working on a tentative plan for the agricultural program at Elikya.

We are looking at a prospective leave date in mid to late July and should be buying our plane tickets shortly.

Here are some ways you can be praying for us:

-Pray for the Snyders as they finish support raising…only 5% to go!!!
-Pray that preparations for departure would go smoothly
-Pray that we will be attentive to the Spirit as we continue to plan
-Pray that God will be preparing the hearts of those to whom we will be ministering

Welcome to Gemena

View Gemena, DRC in a larger map

See this map for a better look at where we will be living and the surrounding area. Key places and buildings at the Elikya Center and in town are tagged with brief descriptions and photos. The center is located approximately 3 miles to the southwest of Gemena.

Mission Network News

Sam was interviewed for a recent news story highlighting the work of the Elikya Center. Check out the article here: Mission Network News

April 2010 Update

This past month we finally made it down to New Orleans. The purpose of our trip to the Big Easy was twofold. Firstly, we wanted to connect with the EFCA Crisis Response Team that is working there to see how we might use them to help assess potential 3-month team members hoping to serve at the Elikya Center. Crisis Response is constantly overseeing week-long construction crews from churches across the country as they help the residents of New Orleans move back into their homes in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. It really will be a win-win situation since Crisis Response will get a few extra pairs of helping hands and we will have an opportunity to evaluate applicants’ readiness for a full season of ministry in a place they are not used to. Secondly, after 8 straight weeks of hosting and coordinating teams, the Crisis Response staff appreciated the extra help! We were able to serve as job site supervisors for a couple different projects over the course of the two weeks we were there.

With the Snyders at the Yellow House (Urban Impact HQ)

Since it would be a shame to drive right past all the great country in-between Pennsylvania and New Orleans we decided to camp out for a few days in the Smokies en route. We hiked a waterfall and then up one of the taller peaks in the region, Mount Le Conte. It was incredibly beautiful...

I guess this is why they're called the Smokies

The trail to the top of Mount LeConte

Snow and ice toward the peak

Michelle and I worked with a team from Iowa during the first week. We were doing drywall sanding, texturing, priming and painting primarily. There was also a carpenter and a plumber on the crew. We were helping the homeowner, Miss Jayne, move back into her house after five years living in a FEMA trailer in the front yard.

Miss Jayne's house and FEMA trailer

One evening, after we had left for the day, she returned from work and walked through the house just turning the lights on in every room. She said there hadn’t been lights on in her house since Katrina and the sight of it moved her to tears. The following week we finished painting at Miss Jayne’s house, helped a local ministry move locations in the lower 9th Ward and spent an afternoon working on some exterior window trim at another site.

Michelle and Miss Jayne

Our time in New Orleans was a good experience for us. It is easy to forget that the city is still struggling to emerge from the shadows of Katrina. It is no longer in the news but no less real. People like Miss Jayne are still living in cramped “temporary” trailers, neighborhoods are still half-empty, many houses are still abandoned.

Abandoned house at the corner of Flood and Rocheblave

Lower Ninth Ward

It was a privilege to work with TouchGlobal and another ministry in the city, Urban Impact, that is committed to rebuilding communities in the city. The operation of their ministry partnership revolves around this belief: “Real change is about more than just fixing up a home. It involves getting to know people, sharing Christ, reaching out.” As such, we participated in prayer walks around the neighborhood, helped out with a youth after-school program and hosted a block party at one of the construction sites.

Urban Impact's after-school Challenge Circle activity

This past week we had the opportunity to host President Bosokpale of CECU (the Congolese Free Church) as he was visiting the East Coast. We accompanied him to the Lebanon Area EFC where he spoke to a room full of people interested in ministry in the Congo. I got to translate for him and was glad that my Lingala was mostly sufficient for the task.

With Pastor Steve and Bosokpale at LAEFC

The real test, however, was the next couple days as Michelle and I drove him down to Washington DC for some sightseeing. We visited the Museum of Natural History and the Air and Space Museum on Thursday followed by a tour of the monuments and memorials on Friday. Translating the specifics of the Apollo program and the Gettysburg Address into Lingala proved to be a bit too difficult. But we had a really good time with him and were reminded again of all that we have to be thankful for in this country.

The President in front of the Capitol

The day after we returned from DC we were moving out of our residence for the past 6 months (the LEFC Mission House apartment) and moving in with some friends in Manheim, PA. This is a season of transition for us and we are looking forward to finally returning to the Congo. This current month we will be buying necessary supplies and saying farewell to friends and family. We still don’t have a date set for our departure but are anticipating either late May or (more likely) early June.