What I Learned in Congo

A friend asked me to sum up my time in Congo. But I don't know if I can do that. Every day I realize something new. I miss something else. I understand more of what God taught me during my time there; what I learned and am still learning from. And I don't know that I could even think of everything that I learned there or everything that changed me.

I learned a lot of simple things.

How to shell peanuts.

How to roast peanuts over a charcoal fire.

How to pound peanuts into peanut butter.

How to tolerate an incredible amount of rice and beans.

What mpondu tastes like.

How to cook mpondu.

How to pound mpondu, and how to tell when it is done.

How to cook without an indoor kitchen.

How to bake a cake over a fire.

How to bake in a homemade oven.

How to roast coffee beans.

How to bike in a skirt.

How to pick out bad rice.

How to separate the shaff from the rice.

How to grind wheat.

How to ride on the back of a bicycle.

How to carry someone on the back of your bicycle.

What bamboo trees look like.

How to ride in the back of a pickup truck.

How to ride over Congolese roads in the back of a pickup without falling out.

What monkey traps look like.

How to sing and dance, Congolese style.

What the mist looks like as it rises in the early morning.

What the forest sounds like.

What the rain sounds like when it dances on the tin roof.

The incredible beauty of lightning in the distance.

How to properly greet others.

How to climb into the back of a unimog.

How to be okay with being extremely hot and sweaty from just sitting down.

How to pretend like you completely understand everything, when honestly you have no idea what they are even saying.

How to bargain in the market.

What a MAF plane looks like.

How to eat a pum.

How to (kind of) speak Lingala.

What cocoa nuts taste like.

That love goes deeper than common words or language.

I learned so much more than this. Every day I think of something that I learned or experienced there that changed who I am today. But most importantly, I learned about the faithfulness of God. I saw day to day how our God never leaves us nor forsakes us. I experienced daily His complete love and grace. I saw His power and glory in the mountains and trees. But every single day I experienced the deep, compelling, powerful love of Jesus.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and you will find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, "declares the Lord.

-Jeremiah 29:11-14a

Thank you so much for supporting me through this, through prayer, friendship, gifts or teaching Lingala lessons. I have been incredibly blessed.

Here is a link to a little video of my trip, hopefully it will work :)

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.2358817696084.2137519.1419533399&saved#!/video/video.php?v=2317505023293

Off to See the Crocodiles

Tomorrow I leave Isiro and spend the last few days in Epulu, where there are apparently lots of wild animals. I knew there are okapis there, but I didn't now there would be more... Papa Yapisa, who works for Bettina, told me in Lingala yesterday, "Big sister, don't fall in the water!" "What water? Why?" I said. "The water in Epulu. There are crocodiles! With huge teeth!" So it looks like there is a bit of an adventure ahead!
But I am really sad to leave Isiro. I love the people here. I have made such amazing friendships, and it will be so hard to leave them. But knowing I am leaving makes me appreciate every little thing so much more. The papaya trees. The mud huts and thatched roofs. The sound the night rain makes on our tin roof. The roosters crowing in the morning. The way you can see a storm coming because lightning lights up the whole sky. The amazing butterflies. The glorious clouds and beautiful sunsets. But mostly the people. I will miss everyone so much, but I treasure the moments I had with them and what the Lord has taught me here.

The Wedding Feast

Wow. The past week has been totally crazy!
Last Thursday 15 people arrived from Germany for the wedding of Bettina and Pastor Modibale, and their arrival marked the beginning of the festivities. Every day we are over at Bettina's place cooking meals to feed everyone, usually about 30 for lunch and 40 or more for dinner. That makes doing dishes quite exciting when there is no running water! But it is really fun, and I love serving everyone.
In the Bible they talk about Jesus going to a seven day wedding feast. I never really realized that there actually are such things until now. On Tuesday Beate, Bettina's sister, arrived from Boston. On Wednesday we had a big meat roast for the family of Pastor Modibale and all of the visitors and close friends of Bettina. It was really fun, roasting freshly killed goat over a fire...
Then on Thursday there was a Dote (I don't know how to spell that...) the Bride-price ceremony. That was a very traditional ceremony, with the leaders of Pastor Modibale's family presenting gifts to the family and church of Bettina. Beate and I accepted the gifts... we will have to see what customs says when I bring home a tribal hand dagger, normally carried by the chiefs of the tribe and curved specifically for cutting necks... But the ceremony was really amazing.
On Friday the civil wedding took place. I thought it would just be the couple going to see a government official and signing papers. Nope. Their signing of the legal documents was preceded by a ceremony lasting about two hours with at least 300 people watching. Wow.
And Saturday was the wedding. Thousands of people were there. Literally. It was amazing. There was a clearing where they set up bamboo poles and covered them with a canopy of palm leaves to be a covering from the sun. As we drove over there from Bettina's house we had all the bridesmaids in the back of the pickup and Bettina sitting inside. Everyone we passed on the street cheered and cheered for her. We passed all these people on the street carrying their chairs on their heads (that is what you do here, if you are not a VIP there will be no chair for you so you must bring your own)
We stopped a ways away from the alter, just on the edge of the crowd. Then we all piled out and the 8 dancing girls lead the way, followed by Anna and I throwing paper confetti into the air in front of Bettina. Michelle and Julia followed her, holding her veil and dress out of the mud.
Coming from the other direction was the groom. He was surrounded by people of his tribe, the Zande. They were dancing and singing as well.
Then the two groups merged, and Pastor Modibale fell in behind Anna and I, next to Bettina. Then we walked together through the crowed of people to the alter.
The ceremony lasted hours. I don't know how many, maybe four or five, I am not sure. There were prayers, and introduction of all the important people there (lots), and then many choirs sang from all over northern Congo. There was about an hour of preaching, a few more choirs, and then the vows. They were in Lingala, so I didn't fully understand them all, but it was really neat to stand up there. After the vows there was so much cheering my ears rang. Then the couple exchanged rings and sat down. After that different people and tribes came forward to present their gifts to the couple. Then more choirs sang (among them the choir from the music seminar, so I had to sing and dance as well :) ) Then the Germans sang a song and Maaike, Joanna, Sarah and I played a flute and violin quartet.
Then we all loaded up into the pickup again for a parade around Isiro. The parade was led by 50 motorbikes, followed by ten cars (our pickup with the bride and groom of course) and then more motorbikes and bicycles. Everyone was honking their horns and all the people came out of their homes and shops to wave and cheer. (Although there weren't too many people considering most of the town was at the wedding)
Then we returned for the celebration. There was sooo much food. All this wonderful meat and rive and mpondu and beans, as well as songo chips (almost like potato chips) and a special treat... soda. My first soda in 5 weeks, it was strange. We had it only because one of the tribes came with gifts of a few cases of soda.
Then there was tribal dancing led by the Zande people. They had tribal drums and a wooden sort of marimba thing. They also had a Talking Drum, a huge drum that is used to pass messages to other tribes through the jungle.
As I walked by taking a picture Mannu, one of Bettina's sons, pulled me into the circle and made me dance. It was REALLY fin! All the older woman tried to teach me the dance, I laughed so hard. It was really amazing. To me the day was a little picture of what Heaven will look like, with all people of different languages and colors singing and dancing together, praising our great God.

Congo

Everything is absolutely beautiful here. The sky is so big. When it thunders the whole sky echoes. Lighting lights up walls of clouds. The rain comes down like the clouds need to empty all their rain in the next two minutes. Palm trees stretch higher than four story buildings. Chickens run around everywhere. There are beautiful birds and butterflies that I have never seen before. Sometimes before it is about to rain everything turns orange. The sky is orange, the light is orange, everything outside looks orange. In the morning there is mist everywhere. In the distance there are small mountains. The whole horizon is filled with palm and eucalyptus trees. And the people are always laughing, always smiling. In Lingala they use the same word for smiling and laughing. I like to think it is because they hardly ever smile without laughter following it.

The Road to Nebubongo

What an adventure!
We did not leave for our bike trip on Friday as planned because Thursday night it rained like it was Noah's flood all over again. There were two inches of water sitting on the front yard because the ground couldn't soak it up fast enough. Some of the mud huts in the valley near the water had two feet of water all around and inside) them.
So on Friday I spent the morning at one tailor to be fitted for my bridesmaid dress for the wedding, and the afternoon at another tailor to have some Congolese clothes made. Then we left bright and early Saturday morning for our adventure to Nebo!
And whew, it was hard! I am not sure how far it was exactly, I would guess about 70 kilometers or so. I could have bikes that fine at home, so I figures it wouldn't be that terrible here. Well, in America you tend to bike on paved roads, or at least roads without huge bumps and ditches in them. So when you get tired of peddling you can coast for a while and the bike will keep going. Not so here, the roads are so bumpy that you stop peddling, the bike stops. It was quite a workout! And the gearshift didn't work on my bike so I just walked it up every hill :)
But it was sooo much fun. There were these huge puddles everywhere for the first half of the trip, puddles sometimes two or more feet deep. We were all covered in mud up to our knees, the bottom of my skirt looked like I had just gotten off of the Oregon Trail or something. We were a huge attraction for the villagers we passed. They would all shout, in Lingala, "White person! White person! Oh look, another one, and another!" Then they would all ask "Where are you coming from?" because of how awful we looked, and "Where are you going?" because everyone just always wants to know that. They would also ask where our car was. A white person going by on that road by bicycle is very very unusual!
We also had more bike brakedowns than I knew were physically possible. One of the bikes, the chain would fall off every half hour or so. Two bikes had tires blow. One of the bikes had the chain break in half. Another had the fender crumble in on itself so we cut it off with a pocket knife. One bike had a chain that was two long so we shortened it. One bike had the seat (literally, the whole seat) fall off... that one took a little longer to fix! They (the boys) widdled a stick so it would fit in place of the broken bolt and then held the whole thing together with rubber rope. And one bike had the brakes break. What a trip! But we made it and it was wonderful.
The forest was so beautiful. We saw gorgeous birds and towering palm trees and just so much green!
In Nebo we stayed with a German missionary couple and I got to see some of the hospital there which was amazing. We also took a walk into the forest to visit a village, the one where Bettina first lived and where she learned Budu, the language she helped translate. It was beautiful! But with so many broken bikes we had someone come with a car and drive us home :)
Life here is getting crazy with visitors starting to arrive for the wedding! It is incredibly exciting!

Let the People Sing!

Last week I spent Wednesday until Sunday in a music seminar. I had no idea really what I was going to be doing, but a visiting missionary woman was hosting it and the VanderMeer girls were going so I figured I would go as well. It was amazing. It was held in a church building and there were about 50 participants, almost all of them choir leaders or church officials. The teacher's name was Wendy, and she is an ethnomusicologist (try saying that 10 times fast) who is living in Central African Republic. In 5 days we learned all about music; how it was used in the Bible and God's purposes for music. We learned how to minister through music, the power of it, and how it can delight the Lord. I thought of you, Mr. Keith McMinn :) Not only that, but we also were taught how to compose music. It was pretty neat, I thought, ok sweet, i can listen to how to compose music, it will be interesting. I didn't know we would have to do it ourselves! We composed a total of 18 songs over those few days. One all together as a large group (in Lingala), 9 in small groups (in Lingala again) and then 8 in groups based on our tribal tongue. Composing the first few were fine because we just let everyone else do it, Africans are much better at composing songs than bandela (white people). But when we split into groups based on our tribal tongue there was one English group, Maaike, Joanna, Michelle and I. For the tribal song we all had to compose something to Revelations 7:10 and 12. Half of the language groups had to translate the verses from the Lingala because they don't have a Bible in that language.
On Sunday we performed the songs. It was really amazing to hear all the different languages. The songs and dances were awesome, some of them pretty typical of what you would imagine a rainforest tribe to sing like, complete with costumes made of palm leaves and white face paint. It was awesome. Except for our little english song... it was incredibly boring compared to the African songs. We did sign language along with it, because Africans find it hard to believe that white people actually just stand still when they sing, and with so much dancing in the other songs we had to do something. Our song was very boring, but everyone cheered very loudly when we finished, I think in part because they were unsure as to whether the white people would be able to do it :)
The time here is just flying by. Next week 12 or so people come from Germany for Bettina's wedding (her Malaria is gone by the way, praise God!), and the festivities and craziness begin. I think all of northern Congo might be empty except for Isiro because they are all coming to the wedding!
Tomorrow Maaike, Joanna, Mr. VanderMeer and I and three other people are biking to the town of Nebubongo. It is about 50 kilometers or so away from Isiro, and we are traveling over muddy jungle road (hmm... path). We will spend Saturday and Sunday staying with a German missionary couple there and then bike back on Monday. I am sure that it will be a lot of fun, but I don't think any of us really know what we are getting ourselves into! The trip takes three hours by car, at least. So much longer by bicycle! But I am sure that it will be quite an adventure! We might take a trip into the dense jungle to visit the pygmies while we are there. I am very excited, and I hope that we will be able to brighten the day of some of the villagers we pass... I am sure they will spend the next week talking about those crazy white people who biked to Nebo just for fun!

Makutano

That is the name of a special kind of church service they have in Congo, one that goes all day and all night and into the next day... basically an all-town party. On Sunday morning (bright and early- 4:00 am) Bettina and I left Isiro and drove 4 and a half hours through the jungle to get to one. It was held in a town called Juba, and it was aimed specifically at women. Bettina was speaking, so we were the honored guests. The drive there was very exciting, we drove past little villages literally right in the middle of the jungle. The road was really not more than a dirt path, and although we left so early in the morning sleeping in the truck was impossible because of the bumps. When we got there it was pouring rain, so we dashed into the first house. It was FILLED with people, there were just women everywhere (and people here are not too big on deoderant...). When we got there everyone started cheering and singing wedding songs (to prepare for Bettina's wedding they said). Juba is in a Swahilli speaking region, so I understood nothing, but it was still very fun.
The rain finally ended around 1:00 in the afternoon so we began the service then. There were at least 5000 people there. Oh my. I have never seen so many people sitting outside together. (And Bettina and I were the only white people there) There were songs and prayers and then Bettina spoke about Mary breaking the jar of oil and pouring it over Jesus' feet. It was a huge success. Afterwards there were introductions, so all the important people there (at least 20 or so) had to be introduced to everyone and say something. I was introduced, it was intimidating in front of so many people! Then there was an offering, separated by the town the people came from. That went on for 45 minutes at least, for the offering they come up to the front, everybody comes, and you dance along the way. It was like a 5000 person conga line!
Then there was music on and on until about 10 at night, probably later. Bettina and I walked around greeting people and then fell into bed exhausted. All the homes were absolutely packed with people. Because we were so special they gave us a bedroom. It was in a mud and stick house and the room was probably 5 feet by 9 feet with one twin bed and one nightstand. Outside the door there were women sleeping everywhere on mats on the floor, so getting up in the middle of the night to go out to the bathroom was very interesting. It was quite the adventure!
The exciting news of the night (I probably shouldn't say exciting...) someone fell into the latrine. Apparently the ground around the wooden seat in the outhouse just kind of caved in while someone was there and they fell right in. Someone outside heard the calls and they got a ladder down there and got him out and washed up. Gross. That is the kind of thing we joke about at home but never actually think will happen... I just praise God it wasn't me!
We left the next morning, with about 13 people in and on the truck. They all wanted rides home. I got to sit on the back of the truck, it was sooo much fun! On the way back we picked up a German missionary named Olga who is twentysomething. She and I talked the whole time, it was really fun! I got an up-close and personal view of the jungle.
I am loving it here, everyday is an adventure! But I do miss home a lot. Please pray for Bettina as she came down with malaria on Monday...