Currently the team is at a church, sharing in the pastor’s conference. As I write, I sit in a courtyard outside the meeting rooms. The weather is mild and overcast. The sounds of “Yesu Azali Awa” drift through the open window, familiar from worship at New City Fellowship in St. Louis, but now made alive with clapping and acapella harmonies. To my right, some of the Congolese women sit over cooking pots over hot coals in the courtyard preparing the afternoon meal we share with the Congolese pastors and deacons at the converence.
The trip is going full swing, and God’s spirit is present. Each team member is struck differently by the sights, the needs, and God’s work in the midst of it all and ideas are brewing of ways to stay involved in the lives of the people we are meeting, even upon our return.
To see photos follow this link.
http://picasaweb.google.com/CongoClinics/CongoPhotos
Some of the happenings of the trip:
There have been two meetings now with the eight pastors of the churches we have partnered with to care for orphans. A beautiful collaboration is unfolding, even through intense conversation with differing views and cultural perspectives. It is obviously the Spirit who enables us to come together.
The pastors are very pleased about the health clinic that has been built, and are eager to begin construction upon another. They see much need for it. Tim and Barry communicated with them our desire for the first clinic to become self-supporting before starting a second. There was talk of giving more funds to pharmacy already established, but this idea was declined in favor of moving forward with the self-supporting clinic with the available resources.
We have also had some good dialogue with Bill Clemmer, medical missionary, about the need for mosquito nets for families with small children or pregnant women, as an inexpensive, life-saving preventative measure against malaria. The Congolese pastors confirmed that this was a need. Bill shared we might need to charge a small fee for the nets so people would value them. The pastors were concerned that this could prohibit the people who most need the nets from getting them. The local pastors suggested instead, that people give a small, non-money (food or goods) donation to the church deacon’s fund. This idea goes hand in hand with the deacon’s training that Perpetue is leading, in which she is teaching the churches about the biblical concept of having a deacon’s team to help the church bodies care for their own members in need.
The deacon’s health training yesterday afternoon started off, intense and in depth, with questions of how to care for families affected by AIDS/HIV. Complex ethical questions were raised, such as how a woman with an unfaithful husband should biblically handle her intimate relations. The team encouraged the deacons to go to the Bible for guidance on how to love rather simply relying on traditional African thought, and using a team of deacons and pastors to advise couples in such situations rather than one person bearing the responsibility of advising.
This afternoon, some of the team may head over to Le Grace De Dieu Orphanage while the trainings continue, and take the socks, underwear, baby clothes, and small toy donations that finally arrived with the delayed luggage!
We are very busy here, mostly with meeting people with whom we have ongoing relationships. We continue to make new connections that could be fruitful in visits to come. On the team there has been much laughter and teasing, some tears over the suffering we have seen, and much love. We are moved to meet or reconnect with our brothers and sisters in the Congo. God is alive and at work here. Thank you for your prayers and thoughts of us. We (the whole team) send you our love!
-Heidi
