Some things God has taught me here

The first ever All-DRC family conference is now underway and so far is going great!  We left Saturday and had an overnight layover in Nairobi.  We stayed at the Mayfied Guesthouse, which is run by the Africa Inland Mission.  There I enjoyed the best hot shower I have had in a very long time.  Water pressure makes ALL the difference!  The climate here is cooler, so I can honestly say that the only bad part of our stay at Mayfield was that the toilet seats were cold, painfully and shockingly cold.  Toilet seats aside, I would recommend Mayfield to anyone.

Several of the team from the east side of DRC were also at the Mayfield so our flight to Malindi on Sunday morning was almost entirely made up of MAF families.

We are less than 24 hours into the actual conference, but we are already incredibly glad we came and grateful for this experience.  It’s difficult to describe, but the release of stress and tension that we weren’t even always aware we were carrying has been almost tangible.

This morning our family had breakfast with Greg Prickett.  Greg is the missions pastor of Rose Drive Friends Church and leads the team that is doing our conference for us.  Greg asked us what God has taught us in our nearly two years here.  At first I had trouble answering but as the morning progressed, I chewed on that question and a few things came to mind that God has shown me since our family came to the Congo:

wall near our room at the conference

1. How “soft” I am.  I am a bigger pansy than even I thought.  But at the same time He has shown me that when I am not strong enough – His strength is made perfect in me.

2. I thought as a single income family that home schooled and lived without debt that we knew what it meant to make sacrifices.  Then I came here and He asked me to give up other things that I had taken for granted: my rights as a citizen (I am a guest here and have no rights.), convenience, steady elcectricity, clean and ample water, choices, access to news as it happens, frequent communication with family in the states, security, etc.  And I realize now that there are plenty of others who sacrifice much, much more.


3. I thought I trusted God – until I had to trust Him for more than I ever had before and the possibility of living in my own strength became less and less.

4. Realizing that I cannot live here in my own strength, let alone be involved in ministry work here, has made Phil. 4:13 mean more to me than it ever did before.  I can do all things through Christ, and nothing without Him.

5. People look at the outward appearance, and God looks at the heart.  There are two Congos.  The Congo we see when we only look at the surface, and the Congo we see when we look at the hurting and lost hearts of the people.

6. It’s not about me.  The more I focus my attention outside of myself, the easier I have found it to be content.  When I focus on myself, I open the doors to selfishness and discontentment.

7. My team needs me, and I need them. We are each other's family here.  They've extended a lot of grace to me as I adjusted to being here and they are priceless!

The Announcements Song

photo: public domain (www.reusableart.com)

I probably couldn't list all of the benefits I received from being involved in the Baptist Student Union during my college years at Truman State (formerly NMSU): Christian friends, discipleship, accountability, fellowship and encouragement would be at the top of the list. But there were other, less obvious benefits as well. Joining the BSU gave me lots of new potential victims for my practical jokes, and I took full advantage of it. It gave me a chance to learn leadership skills and disciple others. Many of the precious friendships I made during those four years still survive today, over twenty years later, in spite of the different directions we all ended up going.

AND! The BSU is where I learned the announcement song:

Announcements! Announcements! Announcements!
A terrible death to die!
A terrible death to die!
A terrible death to be talked to death!
A terrible death to die!

The announcement song is sort of like "It's a Small World" and the Barney love song.  They are nonsensical and irritating, yet they somehow permanently etch themselves into one's memory. I think they would be better combined into one song.

"with a great big hug and a kiss and a kiss from me to you - a terrible death to die! a terrible death to die!- but it's a small world after all!"

Okay, maybe not.

I promise not to talk or write you to death, but I do have some announcements!

1. I have made some changes to the blog and now I am shamelessly drawing attention to them.  As you can see above, just under the title banner, I've added page links for our newsletters and for media.  For now only our four most recent newsletters are up because MAF only keeps that many up on our web site and I haven't yet learned how and where to store files out there in cyberspace to link to. The media page contains links to articles, blog posts, and videos about MAF, especially in relation to where we serve here in the Congo. You should definitely go check out the new video if you haven't yet. We got to have the guys who created it over for dinner and then I took one of them with us to the orphanage.  They are neat guys, a father and son team, and they did a top-notch job.

2. We are going to Kenya! MAF missionaries live in challenging conditions 24/7 and MAF takes member care seriously. We can't be effective in ministry if we are "running on empty" spiritually or physically. Each year we have a family conference, sort of a concentrated sabbath rest.  We spend time in worship, discipleship, fellowship, building team unity, and de-stressing. Normally each team holds their own conference where they are located. MAF has missionaries in three different locations in DRC: Kinshasa, Lubumbashi, and Bunia.  Because of the nature of our ministry, serving people in remote places, the folks from these three bases haven't even all met each other.  This year we will get to meet our fellow workers in DRC because the three groups are pooling resources and combining for this year's family conference and meeting in Kenya next week.  A team from the U.S. is coming in to lead the conference. We are looking forward to meeting our fellow MAF missionaries, having a few days of steady electricity, getting some rest, having a little fun, worship time and Bible study.

3. I don't know how much free time I will have or what kind of internet I will have, so I might not be posting on the blog before we get back.

4. Please pray for the missionaries attending not just our conference but all of the MAF family conferences this year. The conferences really do make a difference and give us sort of a "recharge." They provide times for healing, encouragement, and affirmation. Pray for the volunteers who give up so much to come and minister to missionaries. And pray for the MK's, the missionary kids. They need rejuvenation and encouragement too and the conference will include programs for the kids and teens.

"Ho Hum" or "How Cool?"

Yoghurt granola (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I write posts for this blog, I have a lot of freedom because it is mine. I don't have deadlines. I can think of it as a journal and literally just write whatever is on my mind. I can focus on anything that matters to me whether it's current events, ministry, struggles, bragging about my kids (They are awesome!), or even food. If I don't feel like writing or don't feel "inspired," I have the option of waiting.

I really enjoy the blogs of others, including the MAF blog. I am honored to be included as one of their writers! Sometimes when it is my turn to write though, I see that deadline approaching and I begin to feel panicky. I want to give my best, but I can't think of anything interesting to say. Then because I am one of those dramatic people that other people roll their eyes at, I make a mental leap to "what if I never have anything else cool to write about?" My family rolls their eyes at me and I come back to reality.

Suzanne Lincon's post on the MAF blog yesterday really encouraged me. One reason is because it was a bit of a relief to know that I'm not the only one who sometimes has a writing deadline looming with no clear direction on what to write about. But another reason, the really important one, is because I can totally relate to her thoughts about most of her life being "mundane" and not  "blog-worthy." Even if you don't blog, I bet you can relate. Some days our most exciting event is throwing caution to the wind and adding both fruit and nuts to the granola.

Suzanne's wise conclusion is that even if our life is mostly spent doing "the mundane," if we are living it in grace and faithfulness, it is noteworthy to God. Check out Suzanne's post "The Mundane" and feel free to leave her an encouraging comment!

Life can seem mundane at times, but God never is! I want to practice seeing life through the eyes of my loving and creative Father so my heart will say "how cool!" instead of "ho hum."

One girl's scraps are another girl's cool beans!

If Jesus were once again in human form and visited the orphanage in Kimbondo, I wonder what He would do there.  Would He walk straight to the infirmary and begin healing all those kids with HIV, tuberculosis, ringworm, scabies, and malnutrition? Would He walk to the gardens and make them grow bigger and better vegetables? Would He send all the staff on a much needed vacation, saying "you go on and get some rest, I've got this covered?" Would  He teach in the chapel?


Would He play with the kids? Tickle their dirty little feet and kiss their ringworm laden heads? Pick up the crying ones and sing to the sleepy ones? I think He would!

We've been to the orphanage a few times since I last wrote about the kids there.  Yesterday while I was there, I mentioned to Nori, one of the volunteers, that the kids were unusually subdued.  She said it was partly because some of them had colds and partly because she had managed to get the key to the toy closet and they had toys to occupy them. They weren't subdued, they were calm.

That's Nori on the left, holding Emmanuel.  Emmanuel is almost always happy and easy going, but he was crying because Nori was trimming his fingernails, which he really dislikes.


That's Charmande sitting on my lap.  She peed on me that day. She peed on me  yesterday too. I still love you, Charmande.




People donate toys to the orphanage fairly often, but the toys are quickly loved to death.  It takes a tough toy to stand up to forty or so preschoolers.

Recently, someone gave to me a couple of big bags of scrap fabric.  Another friend brought me polyfill from the states a while back. Another friend (yep, I have lots of friends, lucky me!) found a pattern for me to make a plush ball. This morning I managed to whip out this prototype in half an hour, from printing the pattern and rounding up supplies to getting it all put away afterward. It's far from perfect, but the kids won't care, the ball is too soft to be made into a weapon (important) and it's washable. I probably won't take it to the orphanage until I've made several more so that there will be plenty to go around.


This is very cool beans!  Toys here are poorly constructed and cost a fortune. This cost me very little, just some thread and my time. I often have to take away tiny parts of broken toys, that I find in the toddlers' mouths. These should hold up pretty well and there are no buttons or anything for them to pull off and stick into their mouths.

Give Me Back My Ziplock Bag (and other things people say in Congo)

The above photo is of our pet chicken.  She literally was washed into our yard by a thunderstorm one night and we couldn't find the owners so we feed her and she stays.  She follows us around like a puppy.  I asked our guard the other day if she ever lays any eggs and he said no.  He said chickens only lay eggs if you feed them "people food." We already were feeding her people food: vegetables and grains.  Unless he meant "people food," as in food made of people.

I often hear people say something funny or absurd and think I’d better write that down or I’ll forget it. That led to a small collection of quotes. These are all statements I have overheard here in Congo. Some were spoken by missionaries and some by nationals. Names of original speakers have been withheld to protect the guilty and/or clueless.

Most of these are just funny, especially if you don’t know the context from which they were spoken and just overhear them from another room:

“I have to speak slowly when I talk to myself.” (my favorite)

“Don’t lick those wires.”

“I wet myself every time I do dishes.”

“Do you want your trash bag back?” (used, that is)

Other statements were made in the context of Congo and the life and climate here:

“Wow! That gift is wrapped in REAL wrapping paper.”

“He painted it a couple months ago. We don’t know why it’s sticky.”

“You can have these cinnamon rolls if you give me back my ziplock bag.” (ziplock bags are like gold here)

“Hey, does this smell bad to you, or just nasty?”

Some, though, are serious and reflective rather than funny. Often life here is challenging and exhausting on all levels: physical, spiritual, mental and emotional. We try to make our home a safe place to “vent” and be honest about how we all feel and at the same time hold each other accountable for bad attitudes and encourage each other to press on. These next two quotes came from some of those types of conversations and pretty well sum up why our family is here right now.

“We live in a dung heap!”   “I know we do, that’s why we moved here.”

 “Of course, if you aren’t going to heaven, Kinshasa is a beautiful place to live.  Consider the alternative.”

Steve Camp has a song called “Run to the Battle” that goes like this: “Some people want to live within the sound of chapel bells, but I want to run a mission a yard from the gates of hell.”  The first time I heard that song I knew nothing about Kinshasa or the Democratic Republic of Congo.  This city, the entire country, is definitely a battleground.  I can't say I always wanted to run a mission a yard from hell's gates, but I sure can relate to another line from the same song: "We may not be many, but we serve a mighty Lord!" And I can't even put into words the way this line affects me "look around you as you hesitate, for another soul just fell."  How could I listen to that song and then tell God that I would not suffer a few inconveniences for the sake of those souls? Pray for all of  God's workers here, that we may not hesitate but be always ready to give an answer to everyone who asks us the reason for the hope that we have (I Peter 3:15).

Why this post has no pictures

It takes several times longer to post to the blog from here than it would from say...almost anywhere else, and I need time to work on our newsletter this weekend, so I'm changing things up a bit. There will be no photos and less writing.  (All the articles I've seen about being a good blogger say that not having photos means death for a blog. Hope not.)

 Here is a little bit more of the good and bad about Congo. I hope you will take a look at these. But first, a story that didn't make international news, or news anywhere, even though it affects thousands of people.

When we came back from our weekend trip to Nkara, things here in Kinshasa had changed. The commercial center was barren. All the "shade tree vendors" were gone. Driving home one evening, we passed a group of at least a hundred police officers who were moving on foot in the opposite direction. In their wake were up-turned metal "buildings", broken plastic chairs and tables, and fires. Lots of fires. The wooden kiosks that the sidewalk vendors had been using were ablaze. The officials had decided it was time to "clean up" the city. Instead of doing something about sanitation or crime, they went after the vendors. Admittedly the vendors cause congestion and make it difficult to walk about. They also provide produce and bread to a huge population of people who don't have transportation or cab fare to get to the stores. But now these people have had their inventories burned or destroyed and have no means to support their families. I wanted to jump out of the car and yell at the police "These are your people!" To better understand the corruption here, you should know that the vendors in the military housing neighborhoods were left alone to continue business as usual.

I don't pretend to fully understand the conflicts that occur here.  Often their origins go way back and are complex.  I do know that a general named Bosco Ntaganda is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes.  Soldiers in the DRC army who are loyal to Ntaganda have deserted and now there is conflict between this rebel group and the military.  The UN has evidence that Rwanda is sending troops and supplies across the border in support of the rebels. Doctors Without Borders, whom MAF partners with here in DRC, has posted this article about the impact on the region. Read more HERE from the BBC if you want to understand Rwanda's role in this better and HERE for more about the history behind the present conflict.

Now for the good part I promised you. The climate here is tropical, a nice word for hot and humid.  The equator runs right through this immense country.  But did you know that the Democratic Republic of Congo also has glaciers? They are in a mountain range that borders the DRC and Uganda. Project Pressure has information and some amazing photos HERE .  I did have a good chuckle at the quote referring to the Congolese porters under the third photo: "Their experience on ice is limited." Of course it is.


Please keep this amazing, troubled country in your prayers.

A God-given Connection

"Women in this country are so downtrodden. I wanted to leave them with something meaningful, but what would encourage these lovely women who face so much difficulty on a daily basis and still readily smile and laugh with me?"


Remember in my post about the school for women in Nkara (Destination Nkara: part 4) that I said I would post more later? The rest of the story is now up on the MAF BLOG. I don't know if God used me to encourage them or not, but He certainly used them to encourage me! Please check it out and read about these precious ladies that stole my heart!

A Lesson from Snow White

Photo used under Creative Commons from reachupforthestars

I was washing dishes while my kids watched a movie in the next room. I could hear Snow White singing:

“I’m wishing, I’m wishing, for the one I love…
To find me, to find me, today.”

Next I heard the handsome (at least in Disney’s opinion) prince-later-turned-hero, jump in and boldly echo: “Toooodaaaaay!”

Snow White became frightened and ran away, not realizing at first that she was fleeing from the very thing she had wished for.

It made me wonder how often I had done the same thing.  How many times have I asked God for something, for Him to show Himself, to speak to me, to use me – only to become terrified and flee when He granted my petition?

Other than the obvious reason that a strange man jumped out of the woods and started singing, why was she afraid? She didn't know yet that he was what she wished for, the one she loved. Why am I sometimes afraid? Do I fail to recognize my God's handiwork in me and around me? Or do I lack the faith that having begun a good work, He will be faithful to complete it?

How would the movie have been different if Snow White hadn’t initially fled from the prince and instead had trusted him? I wonder.

Shoes are optional.

Lately it has often seemed as if our family life revolved around Emily’s end-of-school-year activities. This morning as I type this Emily is getting ready to go take the SAT exam. She still has to help with the graduation next week. THEN we can all take a deep breath and maybe we can get through a day without a major event to go to or a major homework project taking up the entire living room. The day after we returned from Nkara, she was part of an art/music show at the U.S. Ambassador’s home here in Kinshasa.  She had three art projects on display and also played in the band.

The Ambassador’s home is super nice! Daniel summed it up when we arrived home and he told David, “I got to go to America for a few hours!”

That was on a Tuesday. The following Saturday was prom night. The theme this year was “masquerade.”

Since we had to fight traffic and go downtown to get the kids to the prom, we rewarded ourselves by going out to eat with our friends and fellow MAFers, David and Sandy Francis.

This past Wednesday, TASOK held a benefit concert and art show. The entry fee was a donation of food or cash for the Kimbondo orphanage – the one I visit! Emily’s art was once again on display and she played in the band, along with several other MAF kids.







The older kids at the orphanage have a choir, which was invited to participate in the benefit.  This was a highlight of the evening.  My French isn’t that good when someone is singing rapidly with an African accent, but I did make out these lyrics to one of the songs: “He has come to save humanity and to give us life.  He has come to save sinners.” TASOK is an American school with a very international flavor and students from all over the world, but not a Christian school. So on this night, a humble group of Congolese orphans were witnesses to an international community!

Thursday evening the youth group held a party to honor the seniors. It was very emotional, and she had a major project due in school on Friday so this was a long night for Emily.

For the most part, high school concert band here is just like high school concert band in any U.S. school. Black and white dress clothes are required at performances.

Shoes, however, are optional in Africa.*

*Edit: After I posted this I learned from the band teacher that shoes are NOT optional. whoops.