08-16 blog
When God’s people pray . . . things happen! The difference in health and team spirit between yesterday and today is nothing short of miraculous.
Why? Well, I don’t exactly know who, but I’m convinced that many faithful friends and family sought the heart of Jesus on behalf of us here and today it’s like a whole different place. Thanks from the bottom of my heart to all of you who partnered with us in a most difficult day yesterday.
Here’s a quick update on team members from yesterday:
Jill – acting and feeling like her old self. She has been able to go places with the team today and even had a chance to put a bit more of her up and coming nursing skills to use today out at the Orphan Care Center. You can’t actually see Jill in this picture, but she is handing the supplies to the nurse as she is working on this little boy.
Matt – he’s all done throwing up it seems. Today he was able to help dig and mortar in the new basketball pole we put up at the Orphan Care Center. What a joy to know that something as simple as a basketball pole will be able to bring such joy to so many children.
Sarah – since Matt’s feeling better, she’s feeling better too.
Chad – on the move, in the right way. Today Chad was able to help dig and mortar the basketball pole at the Orphan Care Center and then once we returned he spent the afternoon capturing some much needed video footage of interviews with people here in Bangui for his upcoming village partnership project.
Jana - seems to be in better spirits, while Dave is moving a bit slowly today. It’s just been a really long haul and yet Dave continues to encourage all those he comes in contact with as he serves behind the scenes in helping to keep our team on track.
Tom - well, he’s going to need to go to the doctor for sure when he gets state side as he told me, "the worms are rumbling" but clearly today he looked much more rested and seemed pretty excited about helping us finish the basketball project as Tom did all the necessary welding to get the steel parts in place.
Sue, Natalie, Sonia and Jim have stayed the course and it’s just really nice to have everyone sort of all moving once again in a forward motion.
And finally, well, I simply can’t believe how much better I have felt today than probably any time in the last 4-5 days. I’m breathing much better and the fire down below has been extinguished, thank-you Jesus!
Clearly there is an excitement in the air about flying out tomorrow as we’re all busy packing our trunks and settling in lots of great memories and souvenirs of our time here in Africa. We take our trunks to the airport tomorrow morning and then we have the day to spend in Bangui. We have to be at the airport by 8:30 pm to fly out tomorrow night at 10:30ish. It’s sort of a joke because the Bangui airport is only two rooms. The room you walk into when you get off the plane to have your papers checked, and then into the next room where your luggage is checked by security. No metal detectors, no vending machines, no comfy furniture, and while there is a bathroom, trust me, you wouldn’t want to use it. Blogger's note: there is actually a functioning toilet in the waiting area which I used last year (with the toiled seat covers my wife gave me, the only place I was actually able to use it) but RAD hadn't been there yet).
If you’re interested in tracking our time, here in Bangui we are currently five hours ahead of Wooster time, when we arrive in Paris on Friday morning, we’ll be six hours ahead of Wooster and then when we land at JFK we’ll be back in the Eastern time zone. I’ll be encouraging the team to give a ring from JFK as we have a six hour layover at the airport. The only thing that might mess that up is that we could possibly catch a train into the city if we can do it and still be sure that we’ll be back to the airport in plenty of time. Our final arrival time in Columbus I’m not exactly sure of, I think it’s around 6:00 pm on Friday, but if you’d like to track our progress you can go on to the Air France website and find our flight (remember there is only one a week from Bangui so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding it), and then after about a three hour layover in Paris, we switch to Delta, fly into JFK, 6 hour layover and then into Columbus. Now that I think about it, two full days of airline / airport food . . . maybe the diarrhea was a bit of a blessing before leaving (Just kidding.)
As far as team investment today goes here in Bangui I’ve already mentioned that we were able to finish up the basketball project, met with the health care nurse at the Orphan Care Center, where Tom cut his finger pretty good getting down a push cart and had to be cared for by the nurse.
Thankfully, he was a good patient and so the nurse choose to reward him with his own Beanie Baby Rottweiler.
Our final stop of the day was the Pygmy village of Pessue. They have actually decided to change the name of their village, but Pessue is still on the sign so I’m going with that for now. Visiting this village was a final challenge to the weary emotions of us all.
The village is comprised of about sixty people living in huts like the one I’ve pictured
These huts made the burnt brick huts of Pama seem upscale. Upon chatting with the Slaters who visited here last time, Dave’s comment to me was, "I’m surprised this village has survived." I think I understand his thinking.
This village is in a dire situation. First, they have no water. Any water that they drink comes from one of three sources. The villagers have to walk a long way back into the forest where they secure water from a contaminated stream, they can go down to the next village where they can buy water (with what money, I have no idea) or how they are currently securing their water due to the rainy season, is by catching the rain water that runs off the metal roof of the latrines.
Sixty people, sharing nothing but rain water from a metal roof gives you just an idea of the conditions of this village. "Wow, those seem like pretty nice latrines RAD for a village like this?" My thoughts exactly. Further investigation revealed a simple answer, "Grace Gives Back." I didn’t know it, but the latrine you see pictured was in part a work of the earlier teams from Grace that helped in bringing proper sanitation to this village. A lifesaving latrine, in more ways than one.
The people of the village are very friendly and yet their plight is obvious. Being Pygmies people, they are considered the lowest of the low here in Africa. They are treated like slaves by the other tribes and people of the CAR.
The evidence of malnutrition is rampant amongst these people, and yet they remain hopeful.
This is a picture of the church they meet in weekly, the roof you see is the farthest it’s ever been according to Tom and there is talk amongst ICDI that in the near future a well might be drilled here as funds permit. Also along with our team today was a missionary who specializes in Agro-forestry and he spoke encouragingly of ways that he could help promote healthier food sources for these people. "People matter to God" is a phrase that we use often at Grace, and I’m thankful that applies to even the remotest parts of the CAR.
Once we left the village, we returned to our HQ, rested up from the days events and then as a special treat for Sue and all she has done to keep us fed over these two weeks, we actually went out to eat at one of the few restaurants here in Bangui called the Grand Café.
It was a very relaxing time and evidence of the closeness the Lord has developed amongst our team was apparent. We finished up dinner and I had hopes of uploading today’s blog when we experienced one of the many power outages that run through this city, and so we decided to call it a night.
Thanks again for bending the knees of your hearts with us and what can I say, "Looking forward to seeing you soon!"
RAD
P.S. Hey, Debbie, did you catch that last picture? I decided to leave the goatee in Africa, is that love or what?
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