Coffee with Christine

It's my last day in Butembo. This is the airport and the runway is a dirt road.... I took aerial pictures of the city. The big dirt road you see is the "Highway" - it's difficult to imagine that I was driven on those roads over the last one week. I don't think I will miss it though. Once again, our plane needed refueling in Beni. I was glad that I had at least one last look at the city where I had the opportunity to minister to the pastors and their wives and visited the pygmies. This is where "my" pgymy baby lives! I was flying "first class" - right behind the cockpit :-) Cool, eh... This emergency exit sign on the plane really tickled me....at least, I was spared from the safety demonstration we all had to endure whenever we get on a plane. On this special plane, we just have to push the window out - self explanatory - how great is that??? I wanted to end my Congo posts with these two pictures of me in this tiny pygmy house sharing the sorrow...

Tony occasionally reads my blog and suggested that I post my comments under the photos rather than above it, so being the super submissive wife that I am, I decided that from now on, I will post my comments under the pictures :-) Hahaha! I was preaching in a 7 month old English speaking church. By the way, French and Kiswahili are the languages use in DRC. This was the only service where I did not have an interpreter. It was liberating!! Here I am ministering to a group of orphans. This is one of the three groups that met that Saturday. They were divided according to their ages. I had the teen group. Here I am ministering to a group of widows. Due to ongoing wars in different parts of the country, there are many orphans and widows. Life is challenging and difficult for them. It was a tremendous privilege for me to minister God's love, comfort and hope to each one of them. During ministry time, my tears are mingled with theirs. I felt the love of God for these precious people. God l...

This is the last camp we visited. Each camp has about 10-15 families. This baby was born two days ago and she's a girl. The mother asked me for my name and named her after me. She's white like me!! Among the bulk of donated clothes we have in the sack was this little pjs from Baby Gap!! So now we have a pgymy baby girl in Beni, DR Congo named Christine wearing Baby Gap...how incredible is that???????? Talk about globalisation!! Isn't she cute? Doesn't she look like me????? Just a whole bunch cuter! By the way, African babies are usually very fair when they are newly born. They get their pigmentation later. We found many kids in this particular camp with these bulging tummies. these kids must have some kind of worm and deficiency. I am planning to consult with a doctor here in Nairobi and find a way to send them some medications. This little boy probably never had tasted bread....you don't find bread growing in the forest, do you? This beautiful little pygmy lady...

This is the first pygmy camp we visited. The men on my right is the Chief. He was showing me his bow and arrow. The pgymies live in the forests. DRCongo has huge rain forests. The tip of the arrow is poisoned and apparently can kill its prey in less than 5 minutes...yikes! They didn't tell me that when they showed me the arrow but they all screamed when I was going to touch it! I wanted to see how sharp the arrow was :-) This little pygmy lady and her baby. She has four children. Can you see how BIG I am in comparison. I cannot imagine her pregnant! She's like 3 feet tall. This is too funny. This was another camp and we were trying to visit the chief. The other pygmies told us that the Chief's house is "locked" and they have no "keys". It's "locked" when the branches kinda closes over the entrance as you can see behind the man in the black jacket. That is a "locked" door. This little lady has a huge goiter. This is a common dis...

This is the city of Butembo ( I don't know why this sentence is underscored!!) Was trying to take a picture of myself and a typical house in DRC in the background - a mud hut This is the kitchen where our food is cooked. Food is cooked mostly with either charcoal or firewood. This young man is reaching out to the Pygmies. We bought him the motorbike so he can travel into the forests to minister to the various pygmy camps in the forest. We imported the motorbike from China last October. It was good to see the motorbike for myself. He has kept it well and it still look almost new. By the way, most of the goods here i.e clothes, plastic wares, kitchen utensils, beddings, electronics are all from China! This is the "city centre" of Butembo. Beni and Butembo are 50km apart - 50kms of very bumpy "roads" if you can call them roads. The days that we travelled between the cities - I ached all over :-) In the photo above, you see these "motorbike" looking contra...

I will be posting more on Congo in the days to come...so keep checking!! Good nite!

Upon arrival, due to the limited time I have, we went straight to an orphanage. The lady who runs the orphange is third from the left holding the little baby in the orange outfit. She was keeping all these orphans in one room and was arrested by some policemen when she could not pay the rent for her room. The commnunity lodge a complaint on her behalf and other policemen released her from jail and arrested the policemen who arrested her. Due to the publicity of her case, a businessman heard about her and her orphans and gave her a house to raise these orphans. All things work together for good for those who love Him! This is the city centre of Butembo - a wide dirt road! That's all there is :-) Most of the houses look like these ones, very simple structures with iron sheets for roofing. This is Noella's family welcoming me into their home. Their house is on top of a small hill. I was so humbled by the welcome they gave me - they sang, "you are a blessing" over and ...

I left for the airport early Tuesday morning at 5.30am. I flew to Entebbe in a regular plane and then on the smaller plane to Butembo and Beni in Democratic Republic of Congo (or DRC). This is the plane I was on. I went on the steps while another passenger was on it and I was told by the staff to wait as the steps can only take one person at a time!! We arrived at the Beni "airport". This "airport" runway (or airstrip) is a dirt road!! Our plane was refueled in Beni. Our pilot talking to a fellow passenger. You can see that the plane is not very big at all...it's more like a bus - and it can seat 12 passengers. There were 9 of us and including the cargo, we were already 11 kilos overweight. We actually have to leave one passenger behind in Entebbe. I was glad I wasn't the one left behind as the next flight to Butembo is the following Tuesday!