Photo 9 March
photos by Jocelyn
Matthew has been super busy finishing projects and putting out all fires (both literal and figurative) in between. Here he is installing a water tank at Nick and Jocelyn’s…Ruth seems a bit curious at their water tank creature.
Our Furry Friends
This weekend brought loss in our lives. Two of our most favorite furry friends in Kinshasa passed away in two separate events. Matthew and I aren’t super touchy feel-y when it comes to animals, but these two, dying within days of each other, definitely made us sad.
Nick and Jocelyn discovered sweet Serenity Friday after noticing she hadn’t been around all day. We cat-sat Serenity last summer while Nick and Jocelyn were back in Canada having baby Ruth. Serenity had even been toilet trained (as in, a real human toilet). She climbed walls and was probably the most awesome cat ever. She will be missed!
Serenity
ShUGA is of the Christmas House fame. The most hilarious dog you’ve ever met. Actually, there were few people who met her who didn’t simply laugh out loud the minute she walked into the room. We had the privilege of hanging out with her over Christmas, then again in February. Matthew and I decided a bull dog was on our list of “somedays” after watching such a fantastic friend. She passed away during the flight from Kinshasa to Germany, where she was going to be taken home to the US since her “parents” are moving back this summer, but they were trying to beat the heat of Georgia for her sake.
ShUGA
Pets are parts of the family and these two families are mourning the loss this weekend and we mourn with them. These two animals were quite awesome and I’m glad we got to get to know them!
Hop on Pop
Saturday afternoon fun!
Scattered Update
How to sum up this past week? Dark and hot. Dark because we’ve had less power than ever before and hot, because, it’s hot. This is the hottest time of year and for this month they call it a mini dry season. So it’s hot and ridiculously humid, but no cooling rain in the afternoons makes for an outdoor sauna feeling. It’s been quite miserable, actually. Yesterday our missionary friend across the street believe we broke a record: the weather station recorded 101F. I forgot to ask what the humidity was, but I’m sure it was high. Oh, and our power was out from 6am until sometime around midnight.
And at 1am Levi threw up and he and I were up most of the night while he was sick. Since this is our first sickness since moving to Congo, we’re counting our blessings. Actually, for Levi, this is the first time he’s lost sleep due to illness, or thrown up more than a couple of times in his entire 3.5 years of life! Again, yay for those little blessings! (Meanwhile, just as Levi was feeling well enough to return to bed just before 5am, Matthew came out and informed me that he had just woken up to a cockroach crawling across his hand. Oh goodness!)
So, today was a down day for our tired family and now it is raining and we have power…oh how strange things are in the Congo!
Do you realize we have just over four weeks until we leave? It’s very difficult to imagine leaving, and being gone for so long. Of course, there are plenty of things to look forward to…right now, I’m pondering the joy of grocery shopping in English!
And these thoughts, of returning to the states, of “getting on a big plane and going to Grandpa’s house,” as Levi says, brings me right around to coming back to DR Congo. And how we shall get here. And how the Lord will provide [more] people to partner with us in order to come. Please continue to pray for us as we spend our spring and summer meeting these partners, and visiting with current ones. Please even pray about your part in this ministry. YOU can be part of it and each little bit counts. $10, $20, $50, $100 a month – we know the Lord has plans for us and for the people he’s chosen to be part of it all! Thanks for your consideration!
Fire!
Please read this so I don’t have to repeat it.
The fire at Nick and Jocelyn’s electrical box destroyed all of the insides – melted plastic everywhere – and it was a box Matthew had just completed two months ago right after they moved in. Matthew and I realized that some of you might think it was because of something Matthew had done or not done. Matthew readily admits that something could have been done incorrectly in his work, but I want to be clear: the power in the country is not clean or constant and the fire was most definitely something caused by the power coming in.
The voltage varies greatly. Some days the 220v power comes in at 250v, which can cause things to explode (and has!) and other days it trickles in under 100v…causing things to not work. But, more often, the voltage just goes back and forth throughout the day, which is why all of our appliances and electronics are safest when connected to a voltage stabilizer (which is probably self-explanatory).
As Jocelyn mentions in her post, there was a small explosion fire outside along the road in front of her neighbor’s house just before their box caught fire. No doubt the two things are connected. The power lines here are supposed to be the buried kind, versus the power lines on poles, but they’re mostly just the laid-in-the-dirt-on-the-side-of-the-road kind; hence the numerous outages and problems.
The rain all day Monday probably had something to do with the tiny explosion, which probably had something to do with the fire in the box. And in the end, SNEL will not provide the funds to cover the repairs. And then we could go on to discuss the politics and economic policies of this country…but let’s not for today, okay?
So, after a 12-hour power outage yesterday (the new normal for the past few weeks), we were quite surprised when the power went off again late last night. When the power goes off at night at our house, it almost always indicates something broke (versus the “normal” outages, which are SNEL’s attempt to save (hoard) money by power sharing – again with the economics here…blah blah blah). And we looked across the street to see that those neighbors still had their power, confirming that something indeed had broken. So, we went to bed and called our contact at SNEL this morning.
The cabine had caught fire. It was a small fire, but still…more voltage problems. The voltage the past few days has been very poor, lights dimming and even rolling brown-outs during the day, so this really didn’t surprise us. Oh, SNEL, what shall we do with you?
Our contact is a good guy and fixed it temporarily and had our power back on by 8am or so, but while I was writing this post two hours later, it went off again…which probably means he’s fixing it. Yay! Or it could be the start of our daily 12-hour outage. Boo. (Edit: Power was on exactly five hours later – sweet!)
Oh, and want to know of a small miracle from this very morning? Since the power had been out all night, this morning we turned on our generator to cool the fridges and what not. I soon smelled gas in the kitchen, which is the closest room in the house to the generator room outside. Matthew smelled it too and went to investigate. Apparently, the generator had somehow learned to dance across the room and landed next to a gas jug, which is plastic. The hot exhaust had melted a hole in the side. We are praising God that this particular jug had been EMPTY! Otherwise, this fire post would have ended a little differently…
In a side note, please pray for the team here. We feel under attack lately – everything is breaking or coming apart, and these fires are an example. Whatever we’re doing, though we cannot necessarily see it, Satan is pretty determined to make sure it’s difficult. Each family is going through something hard or stressful, something in their home is broken or breaking, some husbands are away in the US for training for extended periods, and some are feeling overwhelmed or stressed. Satan’s efforts to discourage us will be better fought with prayer and encouragement from you all! We know the Lord will prevail and we are far from losing hope, but to know you’re praying for us here would lift our spirits. Thanks!
Photos from Girls Weekend!
Our trip to Kikongo, just Sara and I, for five days was fantastic! However, I’ve been ridiculously busy ever since we got back, that I haven’t even been able to write it all down. So, here are pictures…and I am counting on Sara to write more at her blog once her plane lands and she, too, is settled. For further reference to many of the sights and stories of Kikongo, read about our last trip there as a family with Nick and Jocelyn, and her sister Nicole.
-
- In the plane, ready to go!
-
- This is as far as we got on the puzzle, finding uninterrupted reading for more valuable during our getaway!
-
- The kerosene fridge – Rita was not happy her flame was not even…
-
- Some people left their personal stuff around the house…
-
- My bed!
-
- The water system is gravity fed – this is the bathroom water, especially for bucket flushing the toilet
-
- Rita found a chick in the trash hole and pulled it out! It was quickly reunited with its mother!
-
- Rita’s cookbooks were quite fascinating and a great way to spend a Saturday morning
-
- Is this not awesome!? (Leopoldville is the former name of Kinshasa.)
-
- One of my favorite quotes…
-
- A storm was coming to cool us
-
- Glen and Rita’s coffee plant! Rita picked, roasted, shelled, ground, and brew the coffee all in a day – it was quite good!
-
- Glen and Rita’s gorgeous home
-
- Neighborhood boys – culturally universal
-
- The only Congo Clawless Otter in captivity int he world…asking for snails
-
- On his nightly walk with Rita
-
- The otter and Sara walking down the runway to the river
-
- I can’t remember what this animal is called, but it was so cute looking in at us like this
-
- Giant spiders were sort of a theme – sort of ironic for a girls weekend
-
- More adorable neighborhood boys!
-
- The church that Rita’s grandfather built is still in use each Sunday
-
- The pastoral school in Kikongo is Glen and Rita’s main ministry
-
- Sara preparing for her first paraplane ride with Glen
-
- This adorable kitten also kept us entertained
-
- GIANT spider – the biggest I’ve seen in my life. His name is George.
-
- A day in the lab – this test is still done in the US, though blood-filled syringes with needles still attached are not generally left out
-
- Tracking tuberculosis in the village
-
- HIV test – finger poke and 15 minutes
-
- Testing for microfilaria requires a skin sample, using a needle and a razor blade for collection
-
- The official “receipt” from the hospital of Sara’s hospital group’s donations
-
- Me and the lab technicians
-
- OSHA not approved
-
- A small village we landed in on our way back – the building in the back in a Catholic hospital
-
- My Vanga pineapple had its own seat
-
- Nancy Smith’s warm reception back to the village after many months away – if only you could have heard the singing!!
-
- The truck with all the supplies followed us up to the their house (where they invited us for lunch!) and the singing continued!
-
- Sara and I ready to go home!
-
- Jim Smith after clearing the goats off the runway and telling pilot David Francis we were good to go!
-
- Kinshasa skyline
-
- A typical street in Kinshasa
Girls Weekend
Normally, when one thinks of a girls weekend, the ladies all go somewhere fun for shopping and take a step “above” normal life. Maybe they go camping, or to the beach, or just rent a house and watch movies. I doubt there are many who head out to a tiny village in Africa. Ah well, we seem to do everything else differently, why not this too?
Sara and I had plans to spend one night in Kikongo, with Nick as our pilot, and Jocelyn and Ruth along to add to the girls weekend. Matthew wanted this for Sara’s trip and wanted me to take the opportunity as well, so he was more than happy to hang out with the kids.
Well, yesterday, the plane made other plans and is out of service for the weekend. So, Matthew encouraged us to take the whole weekend, between regular Kikongo stops, and stay out there. Now the plan is that we will be dropped off on Friday and picked up on Tuesday, just me and Sara, in the jungles of Africa. Yay for girls weekend!
So, I will be totally out of reach – the beauty of Kikongo is the lack of technology of any kind. No cell towers, no internet – lovely peace. I will miss the kids terribly, but they will be having a blast with Daddy for the weekend (and MaCele while he’s at work) – and not just because they’ll be with Daddy, but because we are going to be at the Christmas House again! They had to head over to another African country for the week and asked if we would watch ShUGA and Lillie once again, so of course we agreed…mostly for the pool and ShUGA’s hilarious antics. Of course, it’s not longer decorated for Christmas, but that’s ok. Friday evening, after Sara and I will be sleeping in the dark (the real dark, not the dark with streetlights and cars and house lights), Matthew and the kids will go to the Christmas House and we’ll join them there Tuesday afternoon for the remainder of the week.
I’m so excited that Sara will get such a dynamic view of life here in DR Congo. A few days at our house, a few days in the village, a few days in luxury – we really could not have planned it better for her time here!
Please pray that we will have a fantastic adventure and stay healthy and well. Pray for Matthew and the kids – this will be the longest I’ve been away! Pray that all the little logistics will work out.
Photo 5 Feb
Seems like we missed a spot during cleaning after Matthew’s little accident. Though, it reminds me to let you know that he is healing well, no infection, though the stitches were improperly done and may need to be “fixed” once we’re stateside. Matthew removed them himself with his Gerber multi-tool. Also, having an air conditioned living room and kitchen is amazing, though it makes the twelve-hour power outages of late seem even longer.
Photo 2 Feb
In the lighting here, you can’t see how she is covered in sand and dirt…but few can look so poised and pretty in a tutu, whilst covered in sand.
Tickets
Well, our tickets back stateside are booked. It is bittersweet to really be leaving, even though it’s only temporary. We depart Kinshasa on March 26 and land on US soil on April 3. Oh, you noticed that week-long layover? Well, never mind…we can discuss that another time.
But, really, those tickets bring to mind our 75by3.25 campaign. How are you coming along in your consideration? Have you been thinking about jumping on board and becoming part of the team that allows us to be here?
I’ll have a graphic up soon that shows how far along we are, but until then, please continue to pray, talk to your spouse, families, small groups, Bible study, monthly prayer breakfast teams or whomever, about saying “Hey! Let’s DO something across the world! Support awesome missionaries!”
The Lind Family 