Final Days in Congo...for now

We are leaving Gemena on Wednesday and we can hardly believe it! Our time here has gone so quickly. Plus, the past two weeks have been very busy for us which has been great and made the time seem to go even faster. We have taken a couple day trips to see different surrounding regions; we hosted people in our home two different times and cooked up some of our favorite foods (tacos and popcorn); we finished our Lingala book and we have started working on a video we want to use for support-raising.

Please pray for the following things this week:
- Safe traveling and good connections. We start traveling September 30th and arrive in Chicago October 2nd in the evening
- That our final days here are productive and we continue to connect well with people
- For all the support-raising we have to do when we get home. We have a lot of work ahead of us.
Tokomonana na nsima ntango moke! (We will see you soon). We are really looking forward to sharing everything with you when we see you.

Gardening, Carpentry, Sewing, Soap-Making and Relationship-Building

I (Sarah) have been spending more time conversing with the ladies who work and live at the Elikya Center the past week or two. It is much easier to have conversations with people now that my Lingala is improving. It has really been a joy to sit with them while they are sewing or doing bead work. There are several widows who live in a house together and also some younger women and orphan girls who come here each day to learn how to sew. Our conversations remain pretty simple, but it is fun to learn new words and meet new people. I am looking forward to learning their stories when I can understand the language better. This week the widows have been making a big batch of soap. Michelle and I have been able to observe some of the steps in the soap-making process and it is a difficult job. I told the women that I would show photos of them making soap to people in the states and tell the Americans that the African women are strong, good workers. So here they are working hard.

I (Sam) have also been spending more time with some of the men and boys on the Elikya property. Some of the orphans living on the property here have been helping a carpenter build their bunk beds and Aaron and I have been talking with them and learning some of their names. We've also been spending a lot of time in our garden. Our Lingala teacher, Guylaien, knows a fair amount about gardening here and has been helping us cut the garden and will also be helping us burn and plant in our garden next week. We are really looking forward to coming back next year because after planting, we will come back to corn, bananas, plantains (makemba), manioc, and pineapple in our garden. Eventually we will also be planting tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, green beans, squash, peanuts, onions, and garlic. We will also have a small herb garden near our house. I can't wait! In the meantime, there's a lot of work to be done with cutting, burning, and planting. Here I am working hard cutting. I'll post some more of burning and planting after we finish.

A Humbling Experience

First off, we have not yet mentioned that we forgot to pack the USB cord for our camera so that is part of the reason we have not been posting many photos on our blog. The Larsens have shared some of their photos with us, but the internet here is slow and it takes a lot of time to upload photos. We are sorry about this, but we promise to post a lot of photos when we return…

Last Saturday I (Sarah) was having some stomach issues and stayed home all day resting and using the bathroom frequently. I tried to lay low and get rest and found it was a little difficult to do so because once word got out that I wasn’t feeling well, a number of people were concerned. Sam’s Lingala teacher took time to pray for me in the morning. Our house worker Robert and Luta, the wife of the Elikya Center director, came down to enquire about me during the morning. To be honest, all of the commotion annoyed me a bit because I really just wanted to sleep.

As the day went on I began to feel much better and by evening I was fine. Before dinner we had some visitors come to our house for the specific purpose of checking on me and praying for me. MaMa Janet, the wife of the local Free Church president, gathered up her four daughters and had the chauffer drive them over here because they had heard I was sick and wanted to pray for me. I was suddenly very humbled by the response I had received all day from the people around me. I saw the church here in action. The people here heard of a need and immediately responded with prayer and concern and I felt very cared for. When I realized that I had just witnessed a beautiful reflection of Christ through His church, I was very humbled and blessed.

Adventures in Cooking

Last week we started cooking dinners on our own. It is great to have that outlet during the day. We have been quite creative in attempting to make some of our favorite foods from home. We think we have been pretty successful. We cook over an ebambola which is much like a small grill without a grate. We place the pots and pans right on the hot coals and do all the cooking at the back of our house. We have already been successful at making spaghetti, tacos, beans and rice and even a tuna helper dish we found in a box. We have also gotten creative with some of the Congolese foods. Nsongo is something that is eaten here quite often in different forms. It is the root of a tree that resembles a potato except much larger and has the texture of a carrot. One afternoon we decided to slice it up really thin and fry them to make nsongo chips. They are as close to potato chips as we are going to get while we are here.
And…we have eaten pizza twice in the last week! Our house worker, Robert makes very good dough for pizza and Sam’s dad sent back some cheese on his way back to the states. You can’t get cheese here in Gemena so it is a special treat to have it. And all four of us were more than pleased to eat it.

Note of Encouragement

Something that I'd forgotten about the Congolese Christian community and I've witnessed since coming back has really touched me. We've gone to three Congolese church services so far and I've noticed that the level of joy in a church service here far exceeds anything that I've experienced. It's really an interesting situation because the people here are generally poor by Western standards. Most of them have experienced things that we can't even begin to imagine but it doesn't hinder their joy.

The first time we attended a church service, they held off the offering until the end of the service. You'd think that after sitting in church for 4 hours already that people would just want to put their money in the offering basket and go home to eat lunch. It didn't quite happen like that. The pastor called up people to hold the offering baskets and then the music started. People immediately got up and started singing at the top of their lungs and dancing. They slowly all danced their way up to the front of the church to give their offering and when everyone had given their offering they just kept singing and dancing. It was incredibly humbling, touching, and awesome. It still brings tears to my eyes when I think of the way that these people danced and sang before the Lord and were so happy to give of themselves for His work.

I feel constantly challenged and strengthened by their joy and I wish that you all could experience it and truly understand what I'm talking about. It's something that wrenches your heart and touches you so deeply at the same time. God is indeed working in the Congolese church and it is evidenced by the generosity and joy of His people.

-Sam