Dear Friends and Family,

This is probably be the last email that you will receive from me for a few days as we leave for Goma, DRC very early tomorrow morning. We will take a boat on Lake Kivu from Bukavu to Goma. On Saturday we will cross the border to Gisenyi, Rwanda where we will be with Simon Pierre for most of the rest of our time in Congo and Rwanda.

Before we left the U.S., I suggested that Jimmie and Chuck get portable, battery-operated fans from REI, because it gets really hot and stuffy here at night. The windows are closed at night due to trying to keep mosquitoes and other night pests out. Chuck even took his fan with him when we went to Mudaka. I thought he was being a little over-reactive, but when it was 110 degrees inside the church with no air movement I thought he was the smartest person in the world. All three of us agree that the fans are just about the best
$15 we’ve ever spent.

The other day I was talking in the best Swahili I could muster-which isn’t very good–with the ladies– Sifa, Neema, and Devota-who have been cooking, cleaning up, and washing clothes and dishes since we’ve been here. They started teaching me names of body parts, both singular and plural, for eyes, ears, hands, feet, belly button, nostrils, etc. Then they grabbed their breasts and told me their name. Of course, they taught me the singular first by grabbing one breast and vigorously shaking it. Next they grabbed both of their breasts and gave them a good shaking just as Celestin walked around the corner of the house. Leave me alone for a few minutes and the ladies are teaching me about their breasts! It was definitely one of the funnier moments on the trip.

The boys and I had a three hour debriefing session tonight. Celestin was with us for an hour of it. Chuck was really ticked at people who keep coming up to him saying, “Give me water. Give watch. Give me bottle.” I have to agree with him that it is really annoying. Not everyone does this, but it’s mostly people unrelated to the church who see us. But even church people will ask at times if they can have our headlamp or if we can help them with school fees for their children.

One of my rules of thumb for helping people in Africa is that I’m much more inclined to help someone who does not ask me for help than I am if someone begs me for something. In fact the more someone begs for my help the less likely I am to help them. One of the reasons I have enjoyed helping Celestin, Frank, and Simon Pierre and the projects they support is because they have never asked me for money. As we have grown closer over the years, I’ve told them to tell me if they need something-either for their family or ministry. Now that they have earned my trust and I have earned theirs, they tell me from time-to-time if there is a need for this or that thing and I’m completely fine with that.

The boys say that night is their favorite time of day here, because it’s cooler and not as humid. Chuck says night reminds him of home in the U.S., me typing on the computer and them listening to music or watching an Ipod video. Jimmie says he likes the evenings because he knows he gets to sleep soon. The last two days that Celestin has been in Kigali getting his Visa for his trip to the U.S., Jimmie has taken a four hour nap in the afternoon.
Chuck and I are convinced that he can sleep just about anywhere-lying down or sitting up, quiet or noisy, hot or cold. I told Jimmie he will do well in college if he can continue sleeping through just about anything. Chuck says Jimmie gets up long enough to poop and eat and then goes back to sleep. Today he slept for 45 minutes, got up to do his duty, and then went back to sleep for three more hours. Jimmie says the reason he’s been taking such long naps is because he finally gets to sprawl out. Chuck says Jimmie is the bed hog, not him. When Chuck woke up this morning, he says that Jimmie had all of the blanket except for a few inches that were barely covering his feet.

Jimmie and Chuck tell people apart here not by how tall or short or dark or light-skinned they are, but by the shirt they wear (because many people wear the same shirt every day). Russell, who is the principal of the Ballibanga school, came by tonight to say hello.
After he left Chuck said, “I should remember who he is. I know I’ve seen him before.” Jimmie said, “He’s the principal of the Ballibanga school and the one who fixed the lock on our door. He’s worn the same shirt every time we’ve seen him.” Only in Africa.

One of the PLNU girls fainted in the middle of our first church service here (May 31). It was pretty scary. She was taken to a room next to the church where she was laid down on a couch, but was mostly unresponsive. I told the two Point Loma leaders that if she were my daughter I’d take her to the hospital which they did. But getting her to the van was not easy. The church we were at is built on the side of a hill so the leader and one of the boys carried her up the side of a hill along a narrow, treacherous path. I followed behind them and did my best to keep them from falling off the path.

It appears the student became dehydrated and her blood sugar crashed because she didn’t eat or drink enough. Her leaders and Celestin took her to the best hospital in the area where they ran some blood tests and ended up giving her a glucose IV. She was at the hospital for barely an hour. After that she was a little weak, but fine. Her hospital bill was $46.

When the Point Loma team was still here, one of the Point Loma students asked me if I’d be interested in coming back here with her dad who is a dentist. She is planning on being a dentist as well and noticed how many people here need to have teeth removed or gum disease treated. I told her I’m happy to come back her at anytime with anyone I can talk into traveling here. Our friend, Prince, who the boys bought the sewing for, had something wrong with his tooth and had it pulled for $20. $20 may not sound like much, but when a parent is faced with the choice of paying for food, rent, school fees for their children or to have a troublesome tooth removed, the tooth will always come last.

Jimmie and Chuck made Celestin laugh for several minutes by telling him that their answer to not passing out is to drink several bottles of pop every day. Every day we’ve been here they’ve drank a bottle of pop for breakfast and usually one for lunch and another for dinner.
After Church both Sundays we’ve been here Jimmie and Chuck have played baseball with the boys. One day they even played soccer and arm-wrestled some of the boys. Chuck shared his IPod with some of the guys who were hanging out when Point Loma was still here. These guys have never seen an IPod before and loved listening to the music and playing with the games. Chuck arm wrestled one of the older guys who Jimmie says beat him. Chuck claims it was a draw.

Chuck checked the U.S. Travel Advisory website about traveling to DRC before our trip. He almost decided not to come after reading the site, because they counsel that U.S. travelers should not travel to Congo, except in rare cases; and, if they do they do travel to DRC, they should be very, very careful because of the high incidence of robbery, rape, and killing. The West has such an unfortunate view of Congo as nothing but a war zone. In some areas these things are true, but it’s certainly not universally the case. The Point Loma team was amazed along with the boys at how different actual life is here as compared to outside reports.

Even in Denver there are parts of the city that it are absolutely foolish to be in at night. And this is true of every major city in the U.S. I really believe that Congo is just as safe as anywhere in the world if you pay attention. Indeed, there are places here that are not safe for us to travel to-and Celestin is very clear that we cannot travel to these areas for the very reasons the U.S. Travel Advisory cautions. Celestin remains hopeful, however, that one day we may indeed visit many of the places I have only heard of but have never seen. I continue to pray that one day peace and political stability will exist throughout eastern Congo.

About a week ago the boys and I had an unforgettable conversation.
One of the beauties of being here is that instead of getting distracted watching TV or the boys hanging out with friends at night we actually take the time to talk. We’ve had some great talks at night before bed. We’ve talked about many of the things Shelly and I had hoped they would think about and wrestle with as a result of this
trip: God, faith, gratitude, generosity, service to others, stewardship of our lives and resources (e.g. to whom much is given much is expected). In many respects our trip here has been a boot camp for life and faith.

The boys say that seeing how hard people work every day here for so little inspires them to work extra hard in college. Let’s hope and pray that this experience sticks! On our way to and from Mumosho is a rock quarry. Like human mules women carry unimaginably heavy loads up and down the rock quarry all day long just like Sisyphus in Greek mythology who was condemned by the gods to roll a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back down and then push it back up the mountain for all of eternity. I can’t imagine that the women’s bodies last more than a few years carrying these kinds of burdens. I also can’t imagine what a living a life like this is like. Come to think of it, there are many things I have difficulty imagining here even though I’ve seen them with my own eyes. After women carry rocks from the quarry, men sit on rock piles all day every day making gravel. They start out with a good sized rock-maybe 20 pounds-and start beating it with a hammer. As they rhythmically hit the rock, small pieces of gravel-sized rock begin to flake off the rock. One hammer beat at a time, one flake of rock at a time, they make gravel. And they do this all day long, every day, for maybe $1/day. I told the boys that I’ll remind them of these images when they are tempted to slack off in college.

Love and prayers,

Joe, Jimmie, and Chuck