Garden of Eden

We arrived in Berberati yesterday, September 9. This is the second largest
city in the CAR. It is not much by U.S. standards, but there was a nice
Internet Café and access to more goods than what we have seen since we left
Bangui last Tuesday.

We attended a Grace Brethren Church this morning, where Pastor Tom preached
in Sango. He had everybody's attention and the message was on getting rid of
the exterior things, checking our true motivation, and seeking to serve God
truly from our heart. The people truly enjoyed him.

After church we had a late breakfast and then hit the road again. Once again
we faced the dusty roads, this time not as dusty because it had rained the
day before. There were muddy stretches that only the four-wheel drive could
handle, but after a couple of hours we arrived in Gamboula, only ten miles
from the border with Cameroon.

We are staying at a very nice facility belonging to the Swedish
missionaries. They served us lunch and supper and we enjoyed a simple but
meaningful worship service tonight with them.

This afternoon we toured the extensive agricultural project headed up by Roy
Danforth, a missionary who worked in the Congo, then had to evacuate in
1998, and has since been in this part of the country, planting fruit trees
and training Central Africans to plant a variety of trees that can provide
them with nutritional options to the usual manioc root that has very little
protein and a lot of other things that are not good for them.

Roy showed us tropical fruits from around the world, which they are
cultivating, experimenting with genetic manipulation (to a small extent),
grafting, and sharing their knowledge with people in the villages who create
their own cooperatives and start planting trees for their own benefit. The
experiment has already yielded much fruit, no pun intended. As Roy said,
"their smiles are broader, and their children are not getting as sick as
they used to." Roy calls this project "Garden of Eden," and the name could
not be more appropriate.

Needless to say, I felt like I was back in the Brazil of my childhood, as he
was showing us all these fruits that I was so fimiliar with back in my
childhood days. We ate jack fruit, passion fruit, some nuts, and inga, which
is native to South America. I was able to identify several species and had
an immediate bond with Roy.

I admire the work of people like Roy and am praying to God that we as a
church will get the vision to come alongside people like him to make a
sustainable difference in the lives of people in this country. He has shown
me that we can do a lot with a little investment, and I want us to take
steps to do just that. Through this effort, many people have also come to
know the Lord, including some Fulanis, a nomad group of people who are
ethnically Muslims, but in some cases are open to hear the Gospel because
they have benefited from the fruit tree project.

Please, pray for the rest of our trip. We go out to see a couple o the
cooperatives in the villages tomorrow. At one o'clock, local time (we are
five hours ahead of Wooster), we will drive back to Berberati, stay there
overnight and then drive to Bayanga country, where a lot of the Pygmies
live. Please, pray. Some folks who made that trip recently have told Jim
that it took them 11 hours one way to make that trip recently.

We are getting a little tired and I am feeling like I am catching something.
It was a little rough today traveling on those roads. Pray that we will all
remain in good health.

Thanks for your prayers!