Cool Beans - Five Years in DR Congo!

Kinshasa is a large city with some serious traffic!

In the evening on October 11, 2010, we arrived in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo to begin our assignment here. Five years ago! A lot has happened in just five years, both in Congo and in our family.

When we joined MAF, in July of 2008, our family looked like this. We spent two years raising ministry support and attending language school and other training.

We arrived in Congo looking like this.   After our Canadian winter our Florida tans were long gone. And of course the kids were bigger.

We have experienced one election season in this country and face another in the near future. We've learned to be flexible about things like electricity, water (none today), sanitation, and sleep. We have felt the joy of making new friends and the pain of saying goodbye when they left. We've seen our two oldest graduate and return to the states to further their educations, and felt the pride of their accomplishments mingled with the sorrow of not being able to be there for them to help them along. We've had the pride and happiness of seeing our son get married and getting a new daughter. We have lived the guilt and grief of loved ones dying while we were separated from them by thousands of miles, including my mom, my grandmother, my uncle, my mom's cousin, a great uncle, one of David's cousins, and a dear friend. 

We've also seen God perform miracles and met people whose lives have been transformed by Him. We've had opportunities to be involved in God's work here and meet incredible people He has placed here for such a time as this. We've prayed and worshipped with people from all over the world and been places we never imagined we would see. We've heard the gospel preached in a minimum of four languages here and observed that in each language, amen is still amen! We've worked harder and prayed more than we ever had before. We've faced health issues, including a surgery for David and one also for me. We've had our faith challenged, we've been brought low, and God has lifted us up and strengthened us. 

We are so thankful that God brought us here! We look forward to continuing to serve here as long as God in his generosity and wisdom keeps us here! God has given us a ministry team of incredible, faithful friends that makes it possible for us to be here by praying for us and financially supporting our ministry with MAF.

Now, for a little fun to mark our celebration. The Mitendi Center has been growing food for itself for some time now. They have also acquired a couple new residents:

The female arrived first. She was purchased with the idea to breed her and use the additional pigs as a source of income for feeding and upkeep as well as for food.

Breeding animals is generally much easier to accomplish when you have one of each gender, so a month or so later the male was acquired. They have a bit of growing up to do before they are ready to breed, but the girls at the Mitendi Center are learning to prepare the right kind of food for them, to care for them, and to develop a mindset of investing in their own future.

Last time I looked in on the piggies, I captured this with my phone. I thought it might be fun to ask people to come up with captions for my photo. So, please do comment below!