It is 7:10 am on my fifth day in the DRC; I was up a little after 5:00 having had my best night’s sleep thus far.  When you travel through so many time zones your poor body does not know when to sleep and when to eat.  I would go to bed early feeling so exhausted and then wake up to miss several hours of sleep, go back to sleep to wake up and find the sun shining. This morning I watched the sun rise in Africa.  It is so beautiful. You are right, yes there is no place I would rather be than in The Congo.

This morning I was up a little after 5:00 am, fixed a cup of Via—Starbucks instant coffee. While a gallon of bath water was heating I had breakfast: a maple flavored sausage patty, a large cracker and half an orange.  I cannot tell you how nice it is to have a camp stove and water filter in the guest house.  What a blessing to be able to have hot water and drinkable water at my disposal. A year ago I was dependent upon someone else to heat my coffee water over charcoal and my bath water was solar heated so I could only take a bath in the evening.

Yesterday was a busy day, we left the mission station at 1:30 pm to travel to Church Three which Didier pastors. The church has experienced dynamic growth so new benches were being built to accommodate the congregation.  Didier wanted to be there to oversee the project and we had Services starting about 4:30 pm.  The Service begins with at least an hour of singing interspersed with passionate prayers. Following that is at least an hour (minimum) of preaching.  I think we went more like an hour and 45 minutes. Tyler and I shared the pulpit.  If I could understand French and or Swahili then I would tell you what follows.  I think there is fervent exhortation based on the sermon for at least another ten minutes. Following this there is recognition of visitors and some sharing from the congregation plus more prayers.  Then choir practice; the choir sounds like angels when they sing.  Wow! At least what I would imagine Angeles would sound like.  Indescribably beautiful.

On the way home I was sitting in the front seat as Didier drove I felt a small hand touch my upper arm and then it settled there to stay. Before long another small hand was partially over it resting on my arm so I reached over my chest placed my left hand over the two hands to hold hands with two children the rest the trip home. The best part of the day.

I just stepped out on the breezeway three orphans upon seeing me ran as fast as they could to body slam me and throw their arms around my waist.  Wonder why I feel so spoiled when I am here?

A Near Riot

I am working from the guest house on our mission property.  I hope to get to an internet café tomorrow and post it on my Blog.  I have never tried copying from Word to the blog site so I do not know if that will work or not.  In case it does not work then I am planning on emailing it to Sharon to be place on my FBook site.

On Sunday the first we were at Dulles Airport in the DC area at 7:00 am because we had so many bags to ship.  The man behind the counter at Ethiopian Air was so nice; he chose to overlook some bags which were over the 50 lb. weight limit.  We think that God was involved in that.  Everything went well and before long we were in the air headed to Africa and the Democratic Republic of The Congo.  Or maybe I should say Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.  There we had a couple of hours between flights.

The last thing that happened before we boarded our plane for the final leg of the flight was a passport and visa check.  I sailed through and then looked back at Tyler and he said, “They say my visa is expired.”  I was trying to explain to the attendant that this could not be possible but he was ignoring me.  He went to his supervisor and then he took the visa and with his pen made a minor correction and Tyler was allowed to load the plane. Again…. Yes you can guess what I am thinking.

About four hours later we touched down in Lubumbashi.  How good it was to see Didier smiling face as he met us with a big hug. We had to get ourselves through the check in with immigration, but that was not stressful.  Next we began the long wait for bags to catch up with us in the airport.  Tyler and I were sipping DE Santi water while Didier was checking for baggage.  Three planes had arrived at the same time and there was mass confusion in the baggage department. Everything was handled by hand.

Two hours later Didier came to tell us that our baggage was not being allowed in the country because it was in military duffle bags which I had purchased to save money.  You see the bags are large and having no metal in them are lighter than suitcases.  

Didier’s impression was that the baggage people just wanted to be bribed.

Next came a series of meetings with the baggage department and a representative of Ethiopian Air.  Before long we were in the office of the baggage supervisor with about five or six involved men.   It seemed to me like as think back on the circumstance that everyone was shouting.

 Finally I got a chance to speak. I offered to dump each bag in front of the supervisor so that he could see that we had nothing militaristic in our baggage.  I explained to him that we had food, clothing medical supplies and books about the Bible.  He said that if we had a book about the Bible he wanted one.  I told him that not only would he get a book about the Bible but I would give him a pound of dried meat. 

At that point of our discussion he said that if we were willing to dump the bags into the back of Didier’s vehicle we could take the contents and he would confiscate the bags.  That seemed to me like a wonderful compromise. 

We headed to the car. By the time we arrived at the vehicle, we had soldiers, DGM (immigration officers) and curious onlookers involved. As well as the baggage management and workers. By this time I had completely lost sight of who was important and who was not and everyone wanted one of my books which were written in the French Language. The books were entitled “Christ plus Nothing” and were written by Billy Graham’s son in law.

I handed out some books and some jerky to what I considered to be the leaders of the group.  I did not want to give any more books or Jerky but the crowd had grown large and was clamoring for more so I reached into my supply of free T shirts and gave some away. 

 About this time a uniformed DGM man spoke to me in perfect English and gently told me to get in the car.  Taking my arm he ushered me to the door which he opened for me as Didier said “Pastor Bob you are about to create a riot.” We drove away rejoicing over being able to give away books which told of free salvation: Christ Plus Nothing.o

On Wednesday Tyler will preach; on Saturday using the facilities of a Baptist Church Didier will baptize 25 people. I almost forgot to tell you that on Thursday the church will have a very long prayer meeting lasting until about 2:00 am. Could that explain why things are going so well in the Church while in such a difficult poverty stricken area.

When I was here two years ago we hired an electrical engineer to wire our buildings. He and his significant other (they have two children) having been born again are being  married this week.  How wonderful is God working in his Church in The Congo. 

We may be in the war torn area of Mufungwa Sampwe Tuesday through Thursday of next week.  War has been there three times since 2011 and almost all of the men have been killed. Pray.  More later.

I am getting ready to post this Wednesday the 3rd.  Didier, Tyler and I met with the Chief of Mufungwa Sampwe this afternoon as he was in Lubumbashi.  We had a very nice visit and have an appointment to meet with him next Wednesday in Lubumbashi so we will not be traveling into the village in the near future.