A Month in Liberia

This is a picture of our new home. We live in the right half. We have been here a month now and are adjusting well to the new home, the new culture, and to a new organization. David is the full-time aircraft mechanic for Samaritan's Purse here in Liberia. The week we arrived co-incided with the Liberian Thanksgiving so the first couple of days there was no work for David and no school for Daniel and we got to focus on just settling in. 

David jumped right in at the hangar. He has lots of experience already on Caravans so that is coming in handy. And he is learning about helicopters, both a challenge and a neat opportunity. 

There are lots of different ministries taking place here at various times. This week a Samaritan's Purse medical team is here for the cleft lip project. One of David's first tasks at the hangar was installing a new gear on the Caravan. All of the guys worked together on it in order to have it airworthy in time to fly patients in for surgery. Daniel and I got to be involved in small ways also. He and some classmates have spent time playing with the kids who are waiting for their surgeries and I got to bake cookies for the team lunches. The cleft lip project is an amazing ministry. Please pray for the surgeons and everyone else involved, and that the patients and families will not only be changed physically and socially, but also spiritually. Here is a link to a video that tells more about the project: Just click HERE. 

I've already had an opportunity to use my sewing machine. A group of us got together to sew gift bags. These will be filled and given as gifts to upcoming graduates of Project Ruth. This ministry reaches out to ebola widows and utilizes grief counseling, job skills training, and micro-loans to help them with starting over. It was a neat opportunity for me to learn a little about another ministry I didn't previously know of, and to get to know some of the Samaritan's Purse ladies better while doing something to help out. I have joined a women's Bible study group, which I really enjoy and it has helped me meet people here.

Daniel is one flexible kid. He really liked his old school in Congo. He also really likes his new school here. There are people and things he misses, but he has found and embraced things he likes about being here and has adapted well. He loves living near the coast and getting to go to the beach. He likes that school doesn't start until 8:30 am. He quickly made friends and honestly, we don't see much of him because he is too busy doing things with his new friends and youth group to sit around the house. 

Ebola and MAF in Congo

Preparing to fly supplies to Boende, photo by Nick Frey

In our last prayer letter, we asked readers to pray for a quick end to the ebola outbreak and for all the medical personnel, patients, and officials affected by this virus. The outbreak began last March in a remote area in Guinea, and spread to Sierra Leone, Liberia and Nigeria. Since we wrote that plea just a few weeks ago, the virus has gained momentum instead of slowing. Ebola has spread to Senegal and to a new area in Guinea that was previously unaffected. Last week alone nearly 400 people died, bringing the total deaths to more than 1,900. One hundred twenty health care workers have died.

Ebola was first discovered in 1976 in outbreaks that happened concurrently in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and is named for the river near the afflicted village in Congo. Since then, there have been over 20 known ebola outbreaks in Africa, eleven of them in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

More people have died in the current outbreak than in all of the previously known outbreaks combined. 

Another change since our prayer letter was written is that an unrelated ebola outbreak of a different strain is now here in Congo. To date there have been 53 confirmed cases and 31 deaths in the Boende District. DRC has a lot of experience with ebola and the area was quickly quarantined. Boende is in a remote area, 542 kilometers from Kinshasa, and not easily accessible. That makes it more difficult for the virus to spread, but it also makes it more challenging to get needed medical personnel and supplies in. This is where MAF comes in.

MAF has actively helped in past outbreaks and our team here is already making flights to Boende with medical teams and equipment and flying back with samples for the labs in Kinshasa. One very specific way you can pray is for a portable laboratory so that medical personnel can make a diagnosis within hours instead of waiting for days to confirm if someone has ebola or not.

Please pray. Ask God to burden his people to pray and to give us hearts that are broken over the pain, agony and death that people are suffering.

Pray for all affected.

Pray for an end soon. WHO is projecting that up to 20,000 people may become infected before this outbreak can be brought to an end. I am praying that they are WRONG.

Pray for the suffering economies of the affected countries as commerce has been greatly hindered. 

Pray for the governments and people in authority who have to make decisions about how to contain the virus.

Pray for believers to have strong faith and to be instruments of peace and calm when others are feeling afraid and panicky.

Pray for opportunities for people to hear the gospel and find hope and salvation in Christ.

Click here to read an MAF press release about our connection to the current outbreak.

Click here to learn more about the history of ebola, courtesy of the World Health Organization.

How do you feel about poo?

Every culture has its sayings and proverbs. Sometimes they are wry or silly, which makes them easier to remember, but they often convey a deeper truth. My newest post, "Just a Little Poo," is a reflection on a Congolese proverb and just went up on the MAF blog. Check it out!

Feet in the Furnace

We are literally in the middle of our annual Family Conference, and last night the ladies on our team enjoyed fellowship, devotions, and a little pampering. 

Our theme this year is Joy In The Furnace. Debbie Martinez, one of our team speakers/teachers, has written a Bible Study with the same title. If her teachings this week are based on the book, I would highly recommend it. 

Without giving away the contents of Debbie's book, I can share that one of the things which really stood out to me yesterday is that God was making Himself famous through Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednigo and He is still making Himself famous through willing servants today. It occured to me that I have never seen this happen without someone "going through the furnace." God become famous when He does something that ONLY GOD CAN DO. No one earns fame by doing something ordinary  that anyone else can also do.

Am I willing to let God do something out of the ordinary in me and through me? Am I willing to jump into the furnace and trust Him with the results?

Another thing that has stood out to me is that this team of volunteers that we have, all six of them, came to serve us and minister to us, not to make a name for themselves. They answered God's call to come to a place that many would compare to a "furnace experience" and made sacrifices to do it and others made sacrifices to help them get here, and God orchestrated all of it in his great love for us. Amazing! 

Combining Cultures in the Kitchen

I see salted fish, (as in fish that has had a ton of salt rubbed into it and been dried for preservation) in the stores here all the time. It is sold in bags by the kilo. In a country where only a minority have refrigeration or freezers, dried fish keeps for months and by cooking it in stews, greens, and sauces, a little bit can be made to go a long way toward feeding a family. I have had it on occasion and liked it but avoided purchasing it because I didn't know how to prepare it. 

Last week I bit the bullet, or the fish, and bought some. Then I asked about a dozen friends how to cook it and got almost as many answers. All agreed on one thing: soak the fish, soak the fish, soak the fish. Then soak it some more. This is how you remove enough of the salt to make the fish edible. 

Out of the package, it looks like this.

It doesn't look like it came from a Gorton's box, that's for certain.

Not very appetizing if you have anything against skin, gills, fins, tails, bones, or...

...teeth.

Just to really get into the spirit of cooking with an African flair and dressing the part, I had to put on my zebra print apron. Sorry for the quality. I don't take a lot of selfies. Other folks are much more interesting. And yes, I meant to cut my head off.

I soaked the fish all day, changing the water a couple of times. 

Then I considered all my options and decided that the easiest choice would be to simply remove as many bones as possible, season it, and saute it, so that is what I did. It is common here to just cook it into your greens, but I knew if I did that I would be eating by myself.

We had b'teku teku, fried plantain, rice, and avocado to go with our fish. (My b'teku teku explanation and recipe are HERE.) Was it tasty? Yes, but it did not need salt.

Then on Saturday I made  good 'ole American cinnamon bread so we would have it for breakfast on Sunday. I am glad I did and that we had some left over because when we arrived home from church, our guard had a surprise for us: three of his kids were here for a visit! We gave them cinnamon bread and Fantas to go with the lunch Leopold had prepared for them and Daniel played soccer with the boys for a while.   

They were here because the youngest had been born just six weeks after we first arrived in Congo and had been named after David, so Leopold wanted them to meet each other. It is common here to name a baby after a life-changing person or event that happens near the same time as the birth, and getting a new job is a big deal in Congo. Both of our guards have sons named after David now.

Worth Mentioning

Haiti_Van_faves (Photo credit: vanberto)

Here are some blog posts by other folks that have impacted me or resonated with my own heart recently.

The Naked Truth About Deputation - Ministry partnership/deputation/support raising from a mom's perspective. If you want to hear the heart of missionary moms and know what it is really like, this is a great read. I have had many of the experiences and emotions she mentions. A great way to gain perspective on how to minister to your missionaries and understand them better. 

Don't Send Your Used Shoes to Africa...or Maybe Do Send Them - This post is by a blogger in Djibouti, another African country, but I have seen the same effects in Congo. Sometimes our "kindnesses" actually hurt the economy and employment rates here instead of helping. There are great needs and great ways to help, but careful consideration is essential. If after reading this you want to help in more direct, positive ways, write a missionary or expat friend and they can give you good information and resources.

The One Thing Christians Should Stop Saying - What does it really mean to be blessed? A very interesting and thoughtfully written piece. I liked it because it touches on the inner conflict I have after knowing faithful Congolese Christians, seeing the circumstances they live in through no choice of their own, and trying to reconcile my western idea of blessings with the seeming lack of blessings in their lives.

I think these were worth sharing and would love to hear your thoughts. 

Daniel and I had an interesting experience this week. I am still trying to narrow down all the photos and words to a manageable number for a blog post, but here is a sneak preview. See if you can guess what these photos all have in common.

My washing machine is a girl, and she has a crush on my husband.

How else does one explain her habit of malfunctioning on me and then working like a charm the moment my husband comes home. She hates me. 

Obviously I’m joking, but we do sometimes make things personal in our own mind that really aren’t. At least I do. One of my goals this term is to try not to do this and to also remember who the real enemy is. It isn’t my washing machine, my noisy neighbor, the reckless and rude drivers, the corrupt policeman, or even the electric company. We know the real adversary is Satan, but sometimes we assist him by being our own enemy as well. 

For me, it’s the trap of looking inward instead of upward. Of being ungrateful. Of feeling entitled.

During furlough, I finally got my hot little hands (Yes, they are hot, I live in Africa.) on a copy of One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp, thanks to a dear friend.  I know, I know, everyone else read that book ages ago and this is old news for most folks. I have really been enjoying it. I am going through it slowly, taking time to reflect and absorb. Here are some of my favorite quotes so far:

“Jesus didn’t institute the Eucharist around some unusual, rare, once-a-year event, but around this continual act of eating a slice of bread, drinking a cup of fruit from the vine. First Corinthians 11:26 reads, ‘whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup” (NIV) –whenever.”

She quotes Alexander Schmemann: “Now, in the Bible a name…reveals the very essence of a thing, or rather its essence as God’s gift….To name a think is to manifest the meaning and value God gave it, to know it as coming from God and to know its place and function within the cosmos created by God. To name a thing, in other words, is to bless God for it and in it.”  

                                                                                                                    Does the old hymn “Count Your Blessings” come to mind? Name them, one by one. By doing so we are blessing the Lord and in return, we learn the secret to being content.

She writes about replacing the habit of discontentment with a habit of seeing God’s gifts as grace and accepting them with thanksgiving. 

Why is it that we interpret everything that is bad or hurtful as a personal attack from someone/something/somewhere and blindly overlook so many of the truly personal acts of grace intended for us that the Father bestows on us every day?

I am looking forward to the rest of the book, to learning about the author’s journey and transformation and to see how God might use her story in my life. 

Elliot: the picture of contentment.

Exciting Times and Heartache

We are busy, busy, busy packing, shopping for things we need, and tying up loose ends. It seems for every thing I scratch off my list, two new items appear. Finishing the first furlough and returning for the second term is a big deal to us, almost as big as actually finally getting to go to Kinshasa the first time around. So, I revisited the first post I wrote when we arrived, Kinshasa Journal. 

It covers our entire first week in Congo and is pretty long, so you may or may not be interested in reading the whole thing. It was fun for me to read my first impressions in light of what I know about Congo and life there three years later. Honestly it made me shake my head at myself and laugh at myself a little. This time around, I think we have more realistic expectations. Everyone there was a stranger the first time around, but this time we have reunions with friends to look forward to! 
 
Tomorrow we take Emily back to school so that will be a long (6 hours one-way) day and a sad one. Then when we fly out on Wednesday, we will be down to a family of three. Being 7,000 miles from my kids is the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I won't sugar-coat it, it stinks.

Pray for our travels, for all of our luggage to make it intact, for Josh and Emily as they stay behind and for us as we re-adjust to life in Africa. 

Behind Enemy Lines

BEhind Enemy Lines (Photo credit: 182 mier)

Our Sunday School lesson this week was a study of Romans 7:14-8:2, and opened with the question “If your life were a war movie, which one would it be?”

While the focus of the lesson was on our personal struggle with our own sinful nature, my mind kept wandering to the spiritual war declared by Satan against Christ and all who represent Him. Jesus referred to Satan as the ruler of this world, so I guess the movie title I would choose is “Behind Enemy Lines.”

Some have asked me how last week’s coup attempt and shootings in Kinshasa will affect our plans to return to Africa. 

(If you are not sure what I'm talking about, you can read a news article about it HERE. A friend of ours in Kinshasa shared her first-hand experience HERE. Cindy's post is long but worth the read.)

Thankfully, things quieted down quickly and our plans have not been altered. The physical battle was a very tangible reminder though, of the spiritual battle being waged in the Congo and elsewhere. 

As Christians this side of heaven, we are behind enemy lines whether we are in the heart of Africa or the heartland of America. Will we hunker down and lay low while lost souls are dying, or will we put on our armor and stand firm?

 “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. Therefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. (Eph 6:11-13)”

We can stand, and be the avenue through which someone sees the light of the gospel. And in the end, we win!

     _____________________________________________

David's surgery went well and he is recuperating nicely. The surgeon says we can return to Congo as scheduled as long as David lets me lift all the luggage. Thank you for praying for him!

The MAF Blog published the Top Ten Blog Posts For 2013 . One of my posts made the list, which I think is kinda cool beans and a very nice surprise. There are at least nine great articles in the list so you should check it out.

Stitches Tell Stories

Every quilt has a story. I began this quilt in Tulsa, OK. We were preparing for the mission field and David was in school full-time, so my fabric budget was pretty limited. The best way to keep enjoying my new hobby and learning new skills was to do those $5-$10 block of the month clubs at the fabric stores. I did them all  - three different stores – simultaneously. One of those was this quilt.

We moved to Florida, then Missouri. In each place I worked a little on the quilt top but never finished. Other quilts took priority because they were gifts for other people. Eventually we moved to Quebec, Canada to attend French language school. We had to fit everything we owned for a family of five into a mini-van, which called for some serious paring down, but I managed to fit my sewing machine and quilt blocks! While we were there, I finally completed the top. I packed her up and took her to Africa, thinking that I would quilt it there.

We only have power about 30% of the time in Kinshasa. When the electricity is on I find myself racing to get laundry, school stuff, baking, bill paying, blogging, correspondence, etc done before it goes off again.  I began to wonder if I was EVER going to finish it. David suggested I send it back to the states and have someone quilt it for me. When our son came to visit for Christmas, I did send it back with him, but it went into storage for a while, waiting for me to decide what to do with it.

During our time in Florida, a friend from our college days was going to be nearby for a conference and asked if we’d like to drive up to see him and meet his family. We had not seen Darren in over fifteen years and were very excited. I liked his wife Marcia instantly. It was so fun to discover how much we have in common and we parted feeling like we had been friends for much longer than just an evening. We’ve kept in touch ever since. Once I made the decision to have my quilt done by someone else, Marcia was the obvious choice. I trusted her and I had been admiring her work for some time via her blog.

This quilt has journeyed across the U.S. and the ocean with me and I have a lot in common with her. We are both a work in progress, a slow progression getting a little closer to being useful and beautiful at each stop along the way. Neither of us are the same as we were seven years ago when I began working on this quilt.

I named her “Je me souviens,” which means “I remember,” because she reminds me that through the years I spent finishing her I made new friends, reconnected with old friends, learned new skills, travelled to new places, learned a new language, lived at seven different addresses, encountered two new cultures, faced several challenges, and said many goodbyes. She’s even more special now because of the love and talent stitched into her by my friend Marcia – a constant reminder of our friendship even though we both worked on her at different times and in different places. 

Here is a pic of the back of my quilt. It's almost a quilt all by itself! The photo really doesn't do justice to all the detail and colors. 

Marcia also graciously allowed me to use her photos. 

You can read her blog and see some of the other work she has done by clicking HERE.

You can shop in Marcia's store by clicking HERE.

Stitches tell stories, and this quilt has a lot of both!

Promised Pics, Preparing to Leave, and a Post by One of Our Pilots

As promised, here are pics from Emily’s graduation.  Sorry about the low quantity/quality.  A new camera is very high on my wish list for furlough. I think I may have even found the one I want. 

I love, love, love this photo of Emily and David!













We leave in a week! We’ve been going through all our stuff, getting rid of everything that doesn’t fit or doesn’t bless us or that we do not use. FLYlady would be so proud of me for finally doing this. I only read her book like ten years ago. In an act of ultimate irony I gave it away. Not because it didn’t bless me though. I was moving to Africa and got rid of hundreds of books. We could only bring so much with us. It was either the books or the kids. 

At least when we come back and unpack all this stuff, there will be less of it to deal with and it will all be useful, right? Of course, it will. We never really finished finding proper  places for it all after the last move because we still haven’t finished repairing and painting the house. There were always more pressing issues like burning wires and graduations and car repairs. High on my wish list for AFTER furlough is a more reliable car.

I’m almost afraid to say it, but we have had good electricity the last few days, which makes cleaning and packing a lot easier. We’ve had our other issues. Emily got sick. Now I am sick. The dryer broke, again, and will have to be replaced when we come back after furlough. You would THINK that during DRY season, laundry would dry quickly on the line because the humidity is lower, but it is just not working that way. At least no one has gotten any mango fly worms from our clothes. Yet. (more about mango fly larva, also known as tumbo flies, HERE .) That post about the tumbo flies goes all the way back to 2010 and as I read it I thought "It's no wonder we are tired and ready for a break after two and a half years of that craziness!" 

While we are preparing to leave, our friend and teammate Nick Frey is in Canada for a couple weeks and has written a great post for the MAF Blog (click HERE to read Nick's post) contrasting Kinshasa and Congo with life in a first world nation. His post is a great reminder the heart of MAF and why we are here. He's a pilot so he gets to see the physical isolation of people in Congo on a regular basis. Not so much for our family since we are always in Kinshasa, but we see first hand every day that even in this city of millions, people live in self-imposed isolation, whether intentional or not, behind their concrete walls, their emotional walls, their social status, and their fears and superstitions. Pray for Congo, for our pilots, mechanics, IT folks and national staff, and for our travels next week!

I've updated our Media Page with some new items!

Emily's Loose Ends

I'm trying hard to wrap up more loose ends before we travel. This being her last year of high school and also her last few weeks in Congo, pretty much everything in our life revolves around Emily right now and that's ok. I started this rug for Emily during Christmas break and I injured my thumb in January before I finished the rug. I still have some trouble with my thumb but it is steadily improving. It's finished now, in part because I ran out of the fabric she chose out of my stash. It was intended to match her blue and brown bedroom, which she is moving out of in less than three weeks. Oops.

With Emily in mind I also went in search of a tutorial for a more feminine bag to sew, and found

this one at Craftser. After the interfacing disappointment of my last zipper bags, I wanted to use quilted fabric for this one to give it more stability. This meant I had to make my own pre-quilted fabric, which meant re-learning how to use my walking foot that had not seen the light of day since language school. Poor foot, went to sleep in chilly Canada and woke up in Africa. 

I was in a hurry and it is a small bag so I only quilted on the vertical. I had some of that radical green left over from Daniel's quilt top, which perfectly matched the green in the TASOK fabric, so I used that for the lining.





I fussy cut one side to make sure the word "TASOK" was all there. This was my first experience with making a bag like this and with shortening a zipper, which turned out to be no big deal. There was a lot of bulk at the zipper corners even after I trimmed the seams but I think it is not too bad for a first effort.

 I like that it is wider on the bottom so it holds more stuff!

The uber-green lining!

I'm also packing and cleaning but no one wants to read about those things, or write about them. But look, I just did.

What Time Is It?

Sew this page ( p. 83) - Result 1 (Photo credit: atibens)

Sewing tools (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

"a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;" (Ecclesiastes 3:7) 

This week I have experienced all of those. 

A time to speak: I had to talk to my kids about the consequences of procrastination and doing things half-heartedly. That's not the kind of speaking I enjoy but there are definitely times for it. There were also times for praise and encouragment. I went to my daughter's last school pep rally and got to see her play in the band and perform with the show choir. She had a solo and her microphone failed but she kept on going. Youngest has recently exercised a lot of patience and self-control for one his age so I got to praise him for that. Good times.

A time to keep silence. We are in a busy time right now that mostly revolves around our senior's end of year activities and around goodbyes. Last night our church had a party for the seniors in the youth group and each senior in turn had family and friends gather around them to pray for them. I had to let someone else pray for Emily. I couldn't speak my prayer out loud. It was too personal and I knew if I tried I would lose it in front of everybody. 

A time to sew. I wrote a couple of posts ago that I was going to clean my sewing machine and pack it away until we come back from furlough. I lied. I saw a pattern on the internet for a toiletry bag and had to try to make one. It was supposed to be a cosmetic bag for Emily but it turned out kind of masculine looking. That's ok. I have boys too.

I started with these tutorials: Plaid Scottie's Box Pouch and Skip To My Lou's Boxy Cosmetic Bag, combining elements I liked from each.

and with this. Makes perfect sense, doesn't it? If you want to sew a toiletry bag, you first need a vinyl, asymetrical apron with no strings. Here's the thing. There is no Walmart, Michael's, Hobby Lobby, Hancock, or JoAnn here. No place where I can go to buy things like heavy weight interfacing or fusible vinyl. So I had to improvise in order to come up with a spill proof lining. All I could find that came close to what I needed was this apron.

I did have some medium weight interfacing, which I ironed on to the fabric. It helped but not as much as I had hoped it would.

Like the fabric? I bought it from TASOK a couple years ago when my son was still going there and they had their 50th anniversary. It was designed by the students!

You are not supposed to sew when you are tired. But since that would mean no sewing for the entire 25 or 30 years of child-rearing and I am not a patient person....

See anything wrong here? That's right. The zipper is inside out. I sewed when I was tired. This is what the Bible calls "a time to tear." And that cheapo blue vinyl LOVED my seam ripper. Not. Had to cut some new pieces of vinyl.

I did finally get these made. They aren't as sturdy as I would like but they are cute. And the zippers are right side out.

Days of evil

A little boy at one of the refugee camps in Goma. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

500,000+ displaced people - over half of which are children
Daily murders, rapes, kidnappings, and extortions
Threats
Accusations
Children forced to join militias
Looting
Impunity
Corruption, corruption, corruption

I would explain all that is going on in the eastern part of DRC, if I completely understood it myself. On the surface, a rebel group called M23 has taken over the city of Goma and some surrounding villages, demanding that Joseph Kabila attend a summit in Uganda today to address their grievances. But the problem in Congo is much, much deeper than what is seen on the surface. There are factors playing into today's current events that are older than I am, some tribal, some political, etc. I have found a couple of articles that explain a little about all that is going on, the events leading up to the current crisis, and who the M23 rebels are, and I've listed them below.

Morning in Mugunga camp (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have never understood  Ephesians chapter 6 more clearly than right now.

 "For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." (verse 12)

The atrocities I hear of going on in Goma and the east - unimaginable things I cannot bring myself to mention on this blog - are much more than fighting over minerals, power and land. It is also undeniably spiritual.

PRAY! There are godly people here who are praying. Join them. There are godly people living and serving on the front lines, physically and spiritually. Pray for them. 

Pray they will be strong in the Lord in in his mighty power! (vs 10)

That God will raise men up to stand against the devil's schemes (vs 11)

That they will be able to stand their ground in these days of evil (vs 13)

That in these dark times their feet will be shod with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace (vs 15). 

That their faith will remain strong and that the evil one's flaming arrows will be extinguished (vs 16)

That they will depend on God and his Word (vs 17)

That God will give them words to fearlessly spread the gospel (vs 19)

Just pray.

More information about M23 and the turmoil in east DRC:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/23/congo-war-criminals-rights-violations-bars

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20468755

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-20476677