A Sad Goodbye and a Lesson in Congolese Culture

My grandmother with my grandfather, Josh and Emily (top rt) and Daniel

Here is sort of a wrap up of the last several days.

Daniel got his stitches out!  We are grateful he had no infection or complications.  Being a ten year old boy, he's not the least bit upset about having a new scar - he thinks it's cool.  He is however, disappointed that he gets to take baths again.

Emily made 1st semester honor roll!  This was for her first semester outside of a home school environment, so we are very proud of her for doing well in her studies while she was also dealing with the adjustment to a new school, friends being gone on furlough, her brother leaving home, and starting the school year with her mom out of country having surgery.  She's a real trooper!

Josh is playing his guitar now in worship time at the Baptist Student Union on campus, sharing his faith with others, playing rugby, and hopefully studying.

David has been trying to accomplish the impossible task of having no toilets or faucets leaking anywhere in the house for a whole day.  The plumbing supplies here are of very inferior quality and break almost as quickly as they are installed.

I am working on our next newsletter.  Well, ok, I'm thinking about working on our next newsletter.

MAF featured one of my articles on their BLOG.

Recently, I wrote about having friends whose father was near death and my grandmother being in hospice.  Both of them passed away just days ago.  I am heartbroken over the loss of my grandmother and the fact that I cannot be there with my relatives right now.  She was a very special lady, strong, faithful, and compassionate.  We'll all miss her terribly.  I do find it comforting to know she is now in heaven with her Savior and we will have a reunion one day.

We attended our first funeral here in Congo on Sunday.  I can well imagine what my grandmother's funeral might be like, at least in general.  Most funerals in America have certain similarities because of our common culture, plus I know my family.  It is the same here, except that the culture is vastly different.  Here are just some of the differences that I noticed:

* The funeral was outdoors in a concrete gymnasium in 90 degree weather.
* Instead of padded church pews we sat under awnings on plastic lawn chairs.
* There was another funeral in progress on one side of us, and a church service on another side, both of which had live bands and PA systems competing with our service.
* Men in rolled up jeans, flip flops, and ragged t-shirts were walking around selling soft drinks and water, which they carried on their heads in bags of ice.
* There was a rooster crowing every few minutes.
* There were at least four languages spoken: English, French, Kikongo and Lingala.
* The family was expected to feed everyone.  In Congo no one brings food to the family or offers assistance.  They do bring money.
* The services lasted several hours.  We were there for four and missed the burial service.
* There was a man wearing a sandwich board walking around selling Polaroid-style photos of the service, during, not after, the service.
* None of the flowers were real and all of them were wrapped in plastic.  Instead of being displayed in advance of people's arrivals, they were presented to the deceased in a processional by the donors near the end of the service.  It is the family's responsibility to ensure that there will be some flowers at the funeral, but anyone can give flowers.  They are gifts to the deceased, not the family, and they are buried with the deceased, but first they are torn off their frames to prevent them from being dug up and sold by thieves. (A note: Grave robbing is so common here that often the casket is smashed to make it unsellable and less likely to be stolen.  Grave markers are also intentionally damaged to ensure that they aren't stolen, painted over and resold.)

I'm sure there are other differences I didn't notice because there was a lot to take in.  It was indeed very different from my own culture.

Adventures in Cableland

The photo was taken just yesterday, in the lot behind our church. Friday night Josh's choir had a performance, which we all enjoyed very much. Their performance was part of a fundraiser for a local orphanage, so the admission fee was a donation of food or cash. From the looks of things, they had a very good response. Josh got news from one of the colleges he applied to that he has been accepted. Please pray for a really good financial aid offer!

On Tuesday, Christine was hosting a Bible study for the ladies in her church and invited me. There were several ladies, maybe 15 or 20. Some of them spoke French with me, but the study was in Lingala, and so were the songs. I got to sing "Holy, Holy, Holy" in Lingala. I had no idea what I was actually singing, but because I know the hymn, I knew the heart meaning of the song and was still able to worship with them. I enjoyed meeting the ladies and they invited us to visit their church. Since Josh plays guitar for our church, I'm not sure when I'll get the chance, but I would like to visit one Sunday. Since I don't know Lingala, I'm sure it would be a bit out of my comfort zone, but I'm the world's biggest chicken, so everything is.

One day last week I woke up to a strange noise. Our voltage regulator was going crazy. The electricity comes to our house in three phases. When I checked them, the first two phases were dead and the third phase was getting 343 volts and climbing. I shut the breaker switches off to the house, but not in time. Our a/c got fried. Thanks to some help from a friend here, we discovered that the cable down the road had burned up and about three meters of it needed replacing. I use French every single day here, and get along fairly well most of the time, but these guys from the electric company were using a lot of vocabulary that I didn't know yet and speaking plenty fast, so I was very grateful for my friend, Christine. She speaks Lingala and spoke with them in my behalf. We learned that here in Congo, when a cable burns, the electric company does not pay for it. Nor do they pay their workers to repair it. The affected neighborhood has to pool together and share the expense, and the labor costs. We were told up front that on our street, there is only one other person who is ever willing to pitch in toward these types of repairs, and he is out of the country right now. Our other neighbors had bigger generators and more money for fuel, so they were willing to wait until we caved in and paid for the whole thing. Which we did, because we wanted electricity. The good news is that our power is better now than it was before all this happened. We actually have all three phases when the power is on, and the voltage is better. The power situation over all is improving also. For a long time, we only had power for a few hours in the middle of the night. Now we are having power almost every night and every other day. When I lived in the U.S., having electricity only every second day would not thrill me, but here it makes me very happy! I wish I could take a photo of the "new" cable for you. You wouldn't believe it! It doesn't look anything like what the utility companies do in the states.

Let the Driving Begin!

Today we started our big road trip. We are on our way to MAF headquarters in Nampa, Idaho for orientation. We drove to Pleasant Hill, MO and are staying tonight with David's brother and his family. Other than rain, we had an uneventful trip, which is unusual for us. We usually have someone get sick or the van breaks down, or both, so we are grateful. Tomorrow we get up early and hit the road again. We borrowed a car-top luggage carrier and somehow it seems like we have even less space than we had before we borrowed it. Must be some sort of Murphy's law or something. Part of the space problem is because we packed all of our school stuff so the kids can keep up with their schooling. And Josh's guitar. And I MIGHT have purchased too many snack items for the road.