Seventeen Days and Counting Down

It is hard to believe that after months and months of thinking, planning, praying and purchasing it is so close.

Sunday morning I wrote a post for my my blog site and then deleted it, because I considered it to be critical of a country which I only knew from history books and the internet. Two history books, hardly makes one an expert. The internet even less so.

Today I prepared two Bible Studies for my forthcoming Pastors’ Conference. I am concerned about speaking through an interpreter. Will he understand the nuances of English theological language and be able to accurately present it in French? I am afraid that it will be difficult for both of us.

I have ordered twenty books from Desiring God’s International Ministry so I can give each man who attends the Conference a book in his own language.

I have balloons for the children. They are inexpensive and light in weight. I can take 100 lbs. on the plane without penalty for extra weight.

I asked Pastor Didier what I could bring for the Pastors’ wives which could not be obtained locally. His wife said a solar panel—electricity is very expensive when you have to generate it yourself.

On Thursday the 9th of September I am looking forward to meeting a baby boy from the Congo and his adoptive father at the Airport in Washington D. C. On the same incoming flight there will be twins from the Congo with both mother and father. All will be headed to California that evening.

That is good news.

I HAVE BEEN READING HISTORY AGAIN.

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What did the capitol city of the Congo look like in May of 1997 when a new dictator came to power?

Kinshasa had become the third largest city in Africa; over five million people.

But:

• There was no postal service or public transit system
• Despite an abundance of rainfall two million people had no direct access to water.
• Ninety-five percent of the people were informally self employed doing such things as: carrying luggage, selling bags of cassava flour, shining shoes, hawking everything from cigarettes to nail polish.
• There were 600,000 civil servants who went to work daily in suits and ties, but seldom received a salary.   Many of those who did receive salaries were paid as little as five dollars per month.  Graft, bribery and extortion had become ways of life. There were 120,000 uniformed soldier to pay.  According to the first dictator, Mobutu, who had now been overthrown, they did not need to be paid as they had AK-47s.
• Garbage accumulated in open sewers and heaps where it rotted and was eventually burned.
• Half the population lived on one meal a day. A quarter of the people ate one meal every two days.
• The zoo had become a collection of rusty cages. Two of the lions had recently starved to death. Other animals were kept alive by a group of expatriates who brought food from upscale hotels to feed the remaining monkeys, chimpanzees, antelopes and snakes.
• The nation’s economy was one-third of what it had been in 1960 when the DRC was under the rule of the Belgians.
• Inflation was at 750 per cent. Five per cent of the population had salaried positions.
• When the new dictator went to open the vault where the wealth of the government should have been, he found that there was only a fifty franc note left behind—an insult.
• Shanties seemed to grow by themselves apart from any guidance—city planning was non-existent.
• The parks were filled with homeless people by night.
• This was the capitol of the twelfth largest country in the world which could only lay claim to 2000 miles of paved road.

My plans are to go to relatively more peaceful area—Lubumbashi.  There I will live in a guest house with barred and shuttered window and a steel door.

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It looks as if the little girl on the left, Zephanie, will end up living in the wilds of Wyoming.  That makes it all worth while.

P. S.  We are making plans to bring Pastor Didier to the U. S. He needs rest and medical care; hopefully the medical care will be taken care of before he leaves the DRC.  He has malaria and typhoid.

I WANT YOU TO MEET PASTOR DIDIER AND HIS DEAR WIFE

I am borrowing information from Jim Hagen’s journal which he recorded while in Africa in October of 2006.

We might think that someone who is carrying such a ministry as Pastor Didier is was raised in a second or third generation Christian home where he was nurtured on the Bible. No, his father was a devil worshipper who loved power and riches. His father was so desirous of what this world had to offer that he promised Satan a blood offering from his family. Of five children he offered three of his sons to Satan as a sacrifice.

Starting at age eight his mother sent Didier (pronounced DDA) to a different province (state) for eleven months of each year. He was very lonely and pleaded with her to be allowed to remain with the family. By being sent away he not only received protection but also an education. He graduated from high school at the age of nineteen.

While still a youth his mother died, his father remarried and all the attention was turned to a new wife and four new children which he sired. The situation became so intolerable that Didier fled into Zambia where he met a Christian Missionary. She taught him English and led him to a saving relationship with Jesus Christ. Eventually she returned to the States, but she challenged her replacement, a man, to continue with the process of training Didier.

The next steps in Didier’s educational process was being sent to a trade school where he learned to cook. As he returned from the school as a cook, he met his wife to be Annyta and they were married six months later. He worked as a cook for two years and then he and his wife moved to Kinshasa where he furthered his education at the Mennonite Seminary for the next three years.

By the time he graduated he had two sons. His second son became very ill and Didier took him to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. The hospital personnel were preparing to send his body to the morgue. Didier response was, “No I do not accept this death, I do not think it is from God.” He prayed being willing to accept the death if it were from God, but if the death was not from God then he believed that God would restore his son’s life. As he was praying the child gasped and began breathing again. The boy was lame for a while, but now is almost completely well.

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The picture is of Didier and Annyta with a baby which is not theirs. Next month the baby will be traveling from the Democratic Republic of the Congo to Washington D. C. and then on to California. In California he will meet his new mother and three big sisters.

DID YOU KNOW?

• That there are pygmies in the the Democratic Republic of the Congo? In fact one was brought to the Bronx Zoo in 1904 where he was placed in the monkey house and helped to attract 40,000 visitors a day.
• The DRC is a vast country the size of Western Europe the home of 60,000,000 people.
• It is geologically rich and was know for its large reserves of cobalt, copper and diamonds.
• The uranium which was used to make the atomic bombs which broke the back of Japan in WWII came from the province of Katanga in the Congo.
• Lubumbashi is the largest city in the Province of Katanga and is the home of the airport where I will land. The airport was under siege by rebels in February of this year. It took the Army several hours and many bullets to quell the riot.

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  TWO LITTLE GIRLS ARRIVED SAFELY IN SACRAMENTO THIS MORNING.
  

The Countdown Begins.

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Tomorrow is the 8th of August; on the 8th of September I will be boarding a plane to Virginia.  I will arrive there Thursday evening to spend a long weekend with Ann Terry and Hannah.  

The following Tuesday I will board an Ethiopian Airlines plane and will be off to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia via Rome. From Ethiopia, I go to Malawi which is the smallest and poorest country in Africa. Then on to Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The DRC is the largest country in Africa.

A Little History…

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In the 19th century Europe began to divide up the African Continent. Each country staking out a portion of the continent. King Leopold of Belgium laid claim to the Congo.  Note that it was not Belgium as a country claiming a large chunk of Africa, it was the king saying this is my private fiefdom.  The Capitol of the country was modestly named Leopoldville.

Under the colonial rule of Belgium the country prospered; it was served my many airline and ships.  It was attractive to many tourist .  Railroads and highways crossed the country. Bridges forded the major rivers of the land.

Things began to change in the 1950’s.  Stability and prosperity fled before invading armies. Hospitals, churches and just about every standing building became pocked with bullet holes.  Natives fled to the bush to live under starvation conditions. Pilots of incoming flights found the tarmac runways were full of divots. It is safe to say the heart of Africa was broken and civilization beg an to die.

Each day the continuing turmoil claims 1,500 lives.

The rite of passage into manhood is not getting a driver’s license or being issued a well earned diploma.  For boy soldier it is being issued an AK-47 which brings with it the the right to rob, pillage, kill and rape. The Congo has been heralded as is the most dangerous place in the world for a woman to live—rape is a weapon of warfare.

Recently someone asked if me if I was not afraid to go to such a place.  I told the man that I was more fearful of staying at home.

I hope that I have not depressed you.

This little one was in our orphanage in the Congo.

Jamie has been to the beauty parlor and has patiently endured the process.

Her adoptive family (mother and four other siblings) anxiously awaits her arrival in the greater Sacramento area. Dad is in the Congo and has been there for three weeks processing paper work.

Remember this is the closeup of a process that took about three hours.

Jamie with her hair in a net which should help preserve the process.

Wouldn't you be proud to take her by the hand and lead her into your Church on a Sunday morning? I know that I would. She reminds of the little child actress, Shirley Temple. Jamie is a little Princess.

Next month I will be surveying our ministry there, teaching prospective pastors, examing the water supply and sending back some pictures of land which the Mission may purchase.

Ask me if I am excited?

It is Sunday PM

Yes, we were in Church this morning.

Heard a great sermon dlivered by Pastor Bill.

Came home for a light lunch.

I then booked round trip ticket for the flight from Sacramento to Washington, D. C. I am glad to have that done. I was spending to much time looking for bargains.

Tomorrow afternoon I have an appointment to meet with a lady who purchased Tupperware to sell and went out of business with a rather large inventory. She is planning on donating it to us to further the work in the Congo.

That is good news, because I am going to have a Pastors Seminar while I am there. The Pastor and men who want to prepare to be Pastors will need food while they are away from home. In the U. S. we are not inclined to think to much about feeding ourselves. I have attended a large conference for Pastors in Chicago. There they open the school cafeteria and seat 800 men at one seating. No problem. At another one in Vallejo, you can walk across the street and buy a burrito—no problem.

I have been told that in the Congo, if you get one meal a day you are doing well. Two meals is wonderful. Three means that you are rich.

I want to make sure that the men who come in from “the bush” have plenty of beans and some chicken while they are at the Conference. I want them to be fed physically and spiritually.

Tupperware sold will equal men fed.