Meet the Hospitality Team!

We are glad to introduce the Congolese Hospitality Team to you. We have known them all for over a month now, but finally got a photo of all five of them together this week.

From left to right:

Nónó is married and has three children. He is a deacon at his church and is currently studying to be a doctor. He is actually right in the middle of finishing his dissertation. José is also married and has had experience teaching Sunday school and working with children at a camp. Simplicé is engaged to be married but hasn’t set a wedding date yet and her father is an elder at one of the local churches. Bébé and Mandaba are a married couple. Mandaba works for Global Fingerprints, the orphan sponsorship program here, and knows English very well. He lived in the US for a year when he was a teenager while his dad went to seminary. They have 7 children at home which keeps Bébé plenty busy when she is not in English class.

We are so grateful to have this team of people to work with. Right now their top priority is to learn English and when our first short-term team comes from the States we will begin training them to host Americans. We are also praying that at least one of the Hospitality Team members will be gifted as a teacher and begin teaching English to the widows and orphans here at the Elikya Center. We are looking forward to seeing how this team and this aspect of ministry at the Elikya Center will look at the end of our two years here.

In the Classroom

We started teaching English on September 20th and it has been going very well so far. We teach with an English curriculum called Ohana that uses a variety of DVDs for teaching phonics and dialogues. We are finding that using games and activities in the classroom is the best way to go. Our students seem to enjoy learning new games like “Pictionary”, “Charades” and “Telephone” to enhance their English. We definitely enjoy teaching this way as well.

The four of us (Sam, Sarah, Aaron and Michelle) are taking turns teaching so we all get to teach with each other and prepare lesson plans for different days. We have class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings for two hours. This week we took some photos of one of our classes to post on our blog.

We taught the students the game “Charades” with their new vocabulary words for the day and it was hilarious to see how they each chose to act out their word

Most of the class was so enthusiastic about guessing the answer that they forgot to raise their hands. We were always reminding them to raise their hand before shouting out the answer and it caused all of us to laugh a lot.

Each student had to write their own dialogue this day using the phrases they had learned the previous week. After writing their dialogues, they performed them in front of the whole class. We are planning on having them write and perform short skits in the future when they know more English because they are so great at performing.

A Picture of the Father

 

I (Sarah) have been witnessing a great thing in the two months we have been here. There is a teenage boy named Tresor who lives here at the Elikya Center. His parents died last year and Mowa, the director of the Elikya Center, brought Tresor into his home and has adopted him into his family.

 

Tresor is a kid who is full of life. He is always smiling; he works hard; he is friendly and welcoming to others; he is responsible and there is a general sense of joy around him. One thing that stands out the most to me about Tresor is that he loves his father, Mowa, who has adopted him. He speaks so highly of Mowa and he wants to please Mowa and bring him joy. When Tresor started up school again this year he told us he wants to study to become a civil engineer after high school and wants to be called Engineer Mowa (many people here are called by their last name). The idea of bearing the name "Mowa" and bringing honor to that name is something very important to Tresor. A couple weeks ago I heard Tresor and Mowa laughing and talking on their front porch. There was such joy and laughter coming from the house as father and son were telling each other stories and simply spending time together. A few days ago Sam was asking Tresor about some of his homework in a class he is taking for drafting floor plans and designing houses. Sam told him he wants to see his work sometime and Tresor said that he wants to show his dad first and then he could show us.

 

All of this has caused me to think of my heavenly Father who has adopted me into His family. Our Father has saved me from a life of despair and has called me His own. He didn't have to do that for me, but He chose to. As I watch Tresor delight in his earthly, adoptive father, I am reminded of what the Lord has given me. It should be my absolute joy to bear the name of my Father, to please my Father and to spend time in His presence. I am amazed at how the Lord reveals Himself to me through people and situations. I am learning how to love and delight in my Father by watching a young boy who is grateful, full of life and eager to please his dad.

Big Changes in the Snyder Household

Two weeks ago we got a new addition for our small home…a refrigerator. We had planned to purchase a fridge to make feeding short-term teams in the future much easier. After looking high and low for a fridge that runs on kerosene, we came across this beauty that was left in a former missionary’s home in another town.  We are estimating that it is at least 20-years-old…but it works well. One of the best things about this fridge is that it was free; we only had to pay for the transportation.

Since our duplex is so small, the only place for the fridge is right in our living room. At least it matches our leopard-print furniture…we would hate for it to clash with our home-décor.

It makes such a difference in our daily lives to be able to store meat and leftovers. Our favorite perks are the cold water and the ice packs we keep in the freezer.  Knowing that on occasion we can drink cold Cokes and make Gatorade popsicles is an amazing feeling.

Michelle is particularly pleased with this new addition since she is 6 ½ months pregnant and living in a tropical climate. She frequents our side of the duplex to grab an icepack or a cold glass of water. We are all very happy to have this 20-year-old fridge. Robért, an Elikya Center employee who helps us cook, was particularly excited when we showed him that it was working well the first day

Fullness of Joy

“…In Your presence is fullness of joy; in Your right hand there are pleasures forever” Psalm 16:11b


Last year I (Sarah) was meditating on this verse quite a bit. Raising financial support is a difficult thing. There is a lot of waiting and asking and, in my case, even some worrying. During that time I felt the Lord reminding me to come into His presence and experience true joy. In Him is fullness of joy…what more could I want than that? Why would I look elsewhere for joy and pleasure when simply being in His presence I will experience joy to the fullest?

Life is moving slowly for us here in Congo. I knew our first couple months would be like this…a lot of waiting, adjusting, planning, etc. Before we got on the plane(s) that brought us here, God was reminding me that He wants to bring us joy individually and as a team. A couple days ago I came across this verse in the Psalms and was quickly reminded that the Lord has been inviting me into His presence to experience His joy for some time. Joy is not something that will just fall into my lap. In order to know joy, I must know my Lord and abide in His presence. I have a choice each day to live in His presence. I am realizing over and over again that in Congo there are simple joys all around me when I choose His presence.

So many things could easily be discouraging about being here right now because the lifestyle is so different and we are incredibly far away from close family and friends. But there has been something amazing about the “simple joys” the Lord has been so kind to give to me. Such as…

- Walking away from a conversation in Lingala knowing that I successfully told a story, answered a question or understood the answer someone gave me

- Spending time in our garden pulling weeds and seeing the results of hard work

- Having enough water in our barrel, filter and bottles to get us through a normal weekend of drinking water, showering, cooking, washing dishes, flushing the toilet and brushing our teeth

- Drinking a lukewarm Coke

- A hard rain that significantly lowers the temperature outside…even if the rain blows through our backdoor and windows and covers the entire floor of our house

- Watching Sam learn the games kids play here and then watching him teach kids the games we like to play

- When the internet connection is strong enough that I can do 2 tasks at once

- Having the time to set aside to read the book Les Miserables

- When the weather is actually cool enough that I am not uncomfortable wearing my hair down

- Knowing some of the names and faces of the people who live in our neighborhood and go to church with us

When I am aware of God’s presence day in and day out, He uses these things to bring me more joy than I would have imagined.

Becoming Teachers

On Saturday, Sam's dad arrived in Gemena with Kevin Komplien, director of ReachGlobal Africa. They will be in Gemena until the 28^th. They have a variety of meetings during their short visit, but we are glad to see them. They brought with them the curriculum we will be using to teach English at the Elikya Center. Now we have some work to do!

We have begun looking through the curriculum and talking about how we will write up lesson plans, assess students, etc. Our hope is to begin our first week of teaching on September 20^th. A Congolese "Hospitality Team" has been selected for us to train and we are waiting to meet all of them (6 in total). We, along with the Larsens, will teach English to the Hospitality Team first. We know this is a big job for the four of us and we are grateful to be using the Ohanna curriculum for teaching English. Please pray for us in these upcoming weeks as we put time and energy into creating lesson plans and prepare to be teachers (some of us for the first time).

We are also really looking forward to meeting the Hospitality Team and beginning to build relationships with them. Please pray that we connect well with them right from the beginning and that the Lord uses these relationships in a powerful way over the next two years. We look forward to introducing this team to you as well.

'Tis the Season

for rain.

We are right in the middle of the rainy season here in Gemena. This week we bought almost all of the things we will need to start cooking for ourselves here. We needed to wash all of our new kitchen things and Michelle and Sarah decided to take advantage of the free, clean, rain water. We filled up buckets with rain water and started washing and rinsing while sitting at the back of our duplex. It even helped to rinse some things off by sticking them directly under the rainfall. It is important that we use clean water for drinking, cooking, washing dishes and brushing our teeth. Clean water is hard to come by and it takes a while to filter all the water we need through our filter. The huge downpour yesterday came at the perfect time for us to clean our dishes.

This week we have started meeting with some of the leadership here at the Elikya Center and in the church. This is an important time for us to make plans for getting started with our responsibilities and building solid relationships with our co-workers. Please pray that the Lord gives us clear direction and unity.