All things are possible...

...including the reparation of a lightning damaged satellite phone in the heart of Africa.  With huge thanks to Jim Hocking, director of the NGO ICDI, who graciously agreed to take our phone with him to Bangui, he knew just the place to take it, and presto!, we have a working sat phone again.  All this and it only cost us the equivalent of $25.  He said that as soon as the guy heard what happened to the phone he knew just what part was busted, and amazingly of all, he had the piece needed and the right type of screw driver to take it apart.  This proves many people wrong from around here who thought it impossible that Central Africans could fix a thing such as this, but in my thinking, where else in the world could you fix a satellite phone.  They are more common here than many other places due to the fact that other modes of communication are nearly non-existent and there are probably a lot of dumb ex-pats out here who leave their phones plugged in during a thunderstorm, when every one else knows better not to. 

 

We are both well, though I must admit that time is passing far too quickly for me.  Each day that passes it seems that my relationships with my colleagues grow stronger, and the bond between Clarisse and I and her family grows deeper.  There now resides a constant ache in my heart at the thought of our inevitable departure and I find myself wanting to spend more and more time away from the mission, visiting with family or chatting and planning work with my colleagues.  Last Saturday afternoon, Clarisse, Eloi (her older brother, a chauffeur) and I rented a motorbike and took it with all three of us on it to Kentzou, Cameroon to visit her mom and dad and Clarisse and Eloi's kids who are there at school.  I felt like the creamy filling of an Oreo cookie, sandwiched between two chocolate cookies.  It was a great visit, Eloi is a good driver, and the military checkpoints were a breeze to pass through once I told them I was a missionary in Gamboula.  They normally ask for money but once I got to talking with them they let us alone.  I think they were all stunned to see me on a motor bike with two Central Africans and it made their day enough that they didn't ask for anything more. 

 

Tomorrow we are heading for Berberati again to help Josh and ICDI with their new demonstration farm.  We are planning on fencing it in over the next three days so that goats will not enter the trial plots and eat up all the beans they have already planted.  I hope to write more in depth once I get back.  I have plenty of thoughts to share as I reflect back over our time here, and look ahead at what is to come.  Writing helps me sort it all out. 

 

Hapata!

The road home

 

It is with true sadness and a heavy heart that we come to the time of speaking about our return home.  All good things must come to their end, or at least find themselves amongst change.  Our original commitment to the work here and to our donors was to spend two years in Central Africa.  We will be returning home just shy of our two years in order to be present for the ninetieth birthday of Darren's grandmother in Victoria.  Thus we will be leaving Gamboula in early December and we will be spending Christmas with our families in Victoria.  It is a rare treat for us to spend Christmas with our families, and as our lives take us on ever far-reaching paths we imagine being home will become ever more rare. 

 

When we first decided to come to Gamboula it was with the expressed interest of learning as much as we could about agricultural development and missions from those who have been doing it successfully for a long period of time.  We have not been disappointed.  In fact we have learned more than I thought possible and have been given the opportunity to try out our own ideas, to express our opinions and to ask a lot of questions.  I could not have imagined a better place to try out our wings, so to speak.  Far from just sitting back and soaking in all that is around us, we have strived to really 'do something' while we have been here and as we have discovered more deeply each of our spiritual gifts, we have seen ourselves plunged into all manner of work.  Darren has found a real desire to help missionaries and nationals with their technology needs which is evidenced by the time he spends giving computer lessons and fixing computers.  Some days our house has looked more like the back room of an outdated Future Shop!  He has managed to restore 10 year old laptops back to working order with no help from the Internet.  I have seen more and more where my interests lie and where my gifts are best utilized.  I still love to work with fruit trees but even more, I love to work with people working with fruit trees.  My heart is for the relationships built while working with people in the area of food security.  I have enjoyed getting to know each of our workers, knowing their stories, meeting their wives and children, helping them work out different things in their lives, praying with and for them and generally helping them excel in their area of service to the Lord.  I can find no better satisfaction.  It is true that many days I return home from work saddened by the stories told, grieved over the sin in people's lives and other days overjoyed with the victory achieved in other's lives.  Without the help of my dear husband and my dear friend Clarisse, I might not be so quick to love my job, as their listening ears have helped me process a lot of what falls on my ears during the day.  I enjoy managing people and projects and look forward to what happens next. 

 

So, what does happen next?  Given all that we have discovered about ourselves here, we can undeniably say that we see ourselves in a long term career of service in foreign lands.  However, before this becomes reality, we both feel that a little more preparation remains.  While we are both committed to life long learning, Darren has a little more left in the university realm of things.  So here is the plan (subject to change, of course).

 

December - Return to Victoria for time with friends and family around the Christmas tree.

January - We will be returning to Fort Myers, Florida where we will debrief with our mission, NMSI, and then Darren will start an IT (Information Technology) apprenticeship at ECHO while I help manage the Tropical Fruit nursery at ECHO.

August - Darren returns to British Columbia to start classes at either UVIC or UBC towards a degree in Computer Science. 

December - I return to Victoria after finishing up at ECHO and attending their annual conference.  This is when I start job hunting like crazy to support my student husband! 

I am also planning on doing my MA degree at Royal Roads University via distant education, starting either May 2007 or May 2008.  It is a program called Human Security and Peacebuilding and is designed for those with previous work experience in insecure countries.  It is a two year program and includes a six-month internship overseas, which I would like to find a placement for in Central Africa.  This little plan takes us to about 2010 at which point we will be seeking opportunities to return to a career overseas.

 

This e-mail is for the curious.  A more formal letter will be sent out to all our donors in October.  The nutrition garden at the Gamboula hospital has been an incredible success and I do not want to see such an important and successful work fall apart due to lack of funding.  Two or three hundred dollars a month would put the project in good shape and due to my flexible school schedule, I would like to be able to return to CAR once a year for follow-up visits and to consult on the work here in Gamboula as well as with ICDI in Berberati, possibly leading short teams from NMSI.  All this is to say that we still have need of our donors and the work here will go on even in our temporary, if not elongated, absence.  Our hearts have been so captured by this land that to leave without a thought of returning is nearly impossible for me. 

 

We welcome your questions, your comments and your prayers.  Even the best laid plans are doomed to fail if they are not the plans of our Father. 

 

On a totally different subject, please put to prayer a meeting we will be having tomorrow with all of the Agroforesterie staff and the elders and pastor of our church.  We will be discussing problems that have surfaced between staff following the truck accident.  There is a lot of finger pointing going on to do with voodoo and such and there is no unity between the head of the program and the staff.  We all need wisdom and patience going into a meeting like this, especially when it comes to accusations of voodoo which is so unreal to us and so very real to our African counterparts.

Lightning sucks when it strikes you!

I have always been fascinated by lightning.  It was a rare thing for us growing up in Victoria and so was always exciting when a stormy night came along with thunder and lightning.  We would stay up at night just to listen to it, cuddled up on the floor in the living room, me, mom and Sarah.  When we moved to Florida it was commonplace for everyone else, but it still caught my attention.  I would sit in our screened in porch and watch the lightning light up the distance.  Not being all that familiar with lightning I hadn't yet earned a healthy respect for it until we heard reports of farm workers dying from lightning strikes nearby.  I was once caught out in a storm on the farm and had to take shelter for an hour with my rabbits in their hut for fear of being struck on my way home.  Lightning is a truly amazing thing, all that energy all balled up and then thrown out of the heavens in one distinct, frightening path of light that can destroy things instantly.  Like satellite phones for example.

 

We have our share of lightning here in the Central African tropics and this being rainy season we see it every week.  It never ceases to amaze me, and I listen for it the same way we used to listen for the train whistle everyday when we were kids, when we would run out to meet the nightly train passing by our house.  After receiving warnings from Roy about the destruction lightning can cause inside homes here, travelling through electrical lines, we quickly learned that when a storm is approaching we need unplug everything, computers, radios and phones, including the phone antenna, which sits on the roof of our house.  Last night we heard a storm far off in the distance and we went to bed before it snuck up on us in Gamboula.  We woke up to a loud CRACK and instantly Darren jumped out of bed to unplug everything, but too late.  The lightning struck the short-wave radio antenna in a building 50 metres from our house.  The energy was so great to have travelled through the electrical circuitry of the station tripping circuits at the hospital and agroforesterie and travelling up into our satellite phone.  Darren knew instantly that our thousand dollar piece of marvellous technology had taken a direct hit and we mourned the loss all night in a fitful sleep.  It isn't completely dead as it will still make phone calls but some part of it is damaged to the point that it will no longer make data calls, in other words, send e-mail, nor will it charge the battery on AC power.  Fortunately we have wonderfully generous neighbours who are willing to let us use their phone system and we are trying to get our phone credit transferred to their number.  We will try sending the phone back to the states for repairs but have little hope it will make it back here before our term is over. 

 

While I remain fascinated by lightning, even as I sit here this afternoon typing in the middle of a rain storm, I can now hear the anger in the voice of the thunder calling out its vengeance on unsuspecting citizens of earth who may be unlucky enough to meet the wrath of its force.  It is otherwise an amazing and beautiful thing, but it really sucks when it strikes you!

'Pretty much not guilty'

It is one those cloudy, cool days more typical of Victoria in the Fall then Central Africa in the summer, not that I am complaining.  In fact, I have received so many e-mails lately that I have been praying for a rainy afternoon that would jail me in the house in order to sit down and write, a cup of tea at my side.  We have had lots of guests the last few days including the return of Dr. Tim and Ann, missionaries from the USA.  They are back from furlough for a three (?) year term at the hospital here.  We have been providing them their first week's worth of meals to help them get settled.  We have had other missionary visitors from villages in CAR show up this week as well so Darren and I have been eating far too well the last few days.  Funny how you always eat better when there are guests!  We also celebrated Clarisse's thirty-sixth birthday yesterday with a big, yummy chocolate cake.  Just because I had to remind her of her own birthday doesn't mean it wasn't a special day, but on the whole, birthdays go by completely un-noticed, for those who even know their birth date.  However, we could not let the day go by without some mention of it and some tasty treat.  She was rather lucky actually as, for those who want to celebrate their birthday, it is up to the celebrant to fix their own food for their party and do their own clean-up.  Her sister's kids are already having kids so this makes her a grandmother at the age of thirty-six.  Amazing really when I have friends who are only beginning to have their own kids at the age of thirty-six. 

 

In the on-going saga of the search for justice, Constant's trial is now over and the verdict of 'pretty much not guilty' was handed down this past Monday.  While he is technically not guilty, they couldn't quite say this as his vehicle was involved in an accident and as accidents can never just be accidents someone living must be at fault.  To this end, he was released from custody and is back in Gamboula but remains on probation for two years.  This means that he cannot get into any trouble of any kind for two years otherwise they are able to send him back to jail or something, we are not sure what.  As far as the project is concerned, he will not be allowed to drive any of our vehicles for that two year period, lest we get into further trouble with another accident.  The judge also said that the families of the deceased are free to sue our insurance company for loss of life of a loved one, even though the accident wasn't Constant's fault.  Since the other vehicle wasn't carrying insurance I guess they have to have the ability to sue someone.  The other stipulation is that if the families don't succeed in suing the insurance company they are then allowed to sue Constant and the EEB church directly.  My interpretation of the ruling then is that it pretty much wasn't Constant's fault. 

 

While he is back in Gamboula he is not yet back at work.  Roy would like the family to meet with the pastor first to try and work out the accusations of black magic that are coming from Constant's family, which happen to be all over the place.  We can hardly have him come back to work when he still thinks that two of our workers cursed him into having his accident.  Somehow I don't think there would be a lot of love floating around between the workers.  Since Constant is the head it would also make it difficult for those under him to respect him.  Please continue to pray for a spiritual resolution to the problems of the heart that are going on here.  Things to do with magic are so much beyond our experience and our understanding but they are very real for those we work with.  Help us to be able to communicate freedom and truth from the darkness that so entangles the lives of those we love here. 

 

Be on the look out for my next blog detailing the plan for the rest of our lives.  Well, perhaps not the rest of our lives but at least the road we'll be travelling on for the next 12 months or so. 

 

Still on the war path for truth and justice,

Angela

Catching Up

Having safely arrived back in Gamboula last week, we have had the last week to settle back into work and our somewhat hectic but wonderful routine.  We were welcomed back with both good and bad news regarding life here but I suppose that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise.  The good news is that Calvin, whom we and others back home having been helping with school fees, passed his exams and now holds his BPC, a kind of diploma that opens doors to college, nursing school and other government related jobs.  He is now continuing on with school and we, and hopefully others (hint, hint) will pitch in to help make his goals a reality.  He is last of twelve children so you can imagine that he doesn't get any help from family in regards to school as all of his brothers and sisters have married and have families of their own.  In fact, one of his older sisters gave birth this morning and I have just returned from visiting them in the hospital.  What a precious sight to see a brand new baby.  Speaking of babies, we were also greeted with the news that our friend Reufen and his wife are proud parents of a baby girl that they have named Angela, after me.  I am feeling quite honoured and the baby is beautiful with lots of curly black hair.  Precious! 

 

In other news, the saga of Constant continues.  He has been 'released' from prison but is being kept at the president of the tribunal's house.  Technically he is still in jail but he has really become the presidents house boy and chauffeur while he awaits a trial that has been post-poned twice.  The police reports say that Constant is not at fault, but now, one of the family members of one of the deceased has come forward to sue Constant, stating that the accident was his fault because prior to the accident he had had a fight with a women and that caused the accident.  Hmm?  Sounds suspect to me.  Roy has brought in a lawyer twice who has come all the way from the capital in Bangui, only to have them post-pone the proceedings, ONCE THEY HAVE SEEN the lawyer.  They really just want Roy to give up and pay them all off and call it a done deal, which Roy will not do.  Of course.  We have not been given a new date and it looks as if this may never end.  Perhaps once the president gets tired of having Constant around he will finally put an end to the cherade but in the meantime it is a game of waiting.  It is about as corrupt a system as you could imagine.  Every day his family has to bring him food to eat so imagine how anxious they are to get this over with. 

 

We received a letter from Constant the other day and he is also quite discouraged.  He accused three employees of ours of putting a curse on him so that either the trial won't happen or he will die in prison.  No one can accept that the system is corrupt, instead, there must be some evil spiritual reason behind it all.  Arrgh!  Everything in baby steps.  Upon our return from Bayanga I found that my friends younger brother was also in jail.  He was imprisoned under false charges and they refused to give him a proper trial or let him argue his case.  They only wanted money which they knew he had a bit of because they waited to arrest him until after he got paid for helping build a house locally.  After seven days in squalor the family managed to negotiate down his 'fine' and he was released much to our relief.  He was sick and hungry but happy to be home with his wife, kids and family.  Everybody in the village knew he was falsely charged but no one could do a thing about it.  Don't they call that a police state. 

 

It has been cool here for days but no real rain fall.  This afternoon there has been a lot of thunder but no rain.  Monday and Tuesday are holidays so we will be able to work around the house and in the gardens with relative peace.  I also put together a report this week of the Women and Children Gardening for Health Program and since January we have given away 19 machetes and vegetable seeds to mothers with infants in the hospital nutrition centre.  These women represent nearly 190 hours of labour that they put into the nutrition garden.  Of these 19 women, 8 were Fulani and 11 were Gbaya villagers.  Since January only two women have outright refused to work and the rest have been very happy to help out, harvest food for their kids and receive a machete and seeds at the end of their stay.  The hospital staff are more than pleased with the program, and frankly, so am I. 

 

We have three visitors coming out this October, the president of our mission, NMSI, and two US staff.  We are looking forward to their visit immensely as hopefully this will open up more doors for people to come and work here in the future.  The local evangelist that we worked with in Bayanga was adamant that more people come out to help him in his work in the area of development-agriculture, health, small business, what ever would be a help to the Aka pygmies that he works with.  I fully agree with the needs he sees. 

 

Speaking of needs, anyone wanting to help put some wonderful (no bias here) kids through school this year, as little as twenty dollars will put a child through school for the year.  Any size donations can be sent via NMSI (in the United States) or CCWM (in Canada) marked 'Bosses-special projects' and we will direct the funds specifically to pay for school fees and supplies.  If you have any questions please contact us through NMSI.  (www.nms-intl.org)

 

Have a great week, Angela

Tree-vangelists

Yesterday marked our first real day of work in Bayanga since our arrival last week.  Our time to rest is over and work has begun.  We rented a VCR, television and generator from the neighbourhood 'movie theatre' and set it up in the village of Yandoumbe, a couple kilometres up the road from where we are staying.  The residents of Yandoumbe have motivation issues when it comes to farming, as most residents prefer to work as temporaries in villagers gardens, getting paid just a little manioc each day, rather than work in their gardens and take home as much or as little manioc as their family would need each week.  Because it is hard to find a time to speak to everyone in the village at once, what better way than to show an outdoor film and gather the masses.  Once darkness hit we started with a twenty minute film in Sango that was produced in Bayanga introducing the work of the mission in Bayanga and the various activities they do.  i am not sure if everything in the film was understood by the mostly Aka speakers but it served our purposes of drawing a crowd of nearly 200.  During 'intermission' I, speaking through my Aka interpreter Jean Pierre, gave a demonstration and speech of why they should have their own gardens instead of working in everybody else's.  My visual aids consisted of a small bowl and a really large one, making the point that for their efforts in someone else's garden they are only rewarded with a small bowl of manioc, not quite enough for the whole family for one day.  But when you have your own garden, you can have enough to fill the large bowl which is plenty for your family for several days, meaning you don't have to go to your garden everyday even.  After a rather animated and convincing (if I do say so myself) speech we settled down to watch the second tape which was mostly Aka pygmies singing that was filmed during a pygmy church conference in the town of Liboko.  Just as I had heard about enough of the video, God did as well and we packed up just in time for a big rain storm to scatter everyone back to their homes. 

 

While I am not sure how well I would do preaching to the masses, I sure did enjoy encouraging folks with my tree-vangelistic campaign.  Speaking of preaching though, this morning at seven the local evangelist knocked on our door and asked if one of us wouldn't mind preaching at church this morning.  Darren, not one for public speaking kindly deferred to his wife and she, I, quickly prepared a sermon for delivery at eight thirty that same morning.  Me and my rapid fire mind found it a little difficult to preach through a translator (into the Aka language) as while your words are being translated you have to not lose your train of thought, but otherwise it went well.  It made me even more grateful for the time I spent with YWAM eight and a half years ago, when no-warning sermons were par for the course.  Every event in life has its purpose. 

 

Tomorrow morning we get up real early to head for Bomanzoko and Lindjombo to check in on the people and their trees.  I am sure that as I write someone down there is munching on a Jackfruit...

Firsts...

Just before leaving for Bayanga I had a terrible first--my first real grey hair.  It was long and wiry and for one short moment I thought, oh know, so this is what it feels like to really know you are getting older.  I am six months from turning thirty and while I know it isn't that old, I was still shocked to be shocked at finding my first grey hair.  I am pretty much over it so no worries.

 

Our other first occurred yesterday on our trip to two outlying pygmy villages.  We got our truck stuck in a nice, big mud hole.  It took 30 minutes, Darren at the wheel, two Aka pygmies digging with their hands, and me taking pictures to get us unstuck.  Okay, so me taking pictures probably had nothing to do with getting us out but the photos are impressive.  Once you have been up to the door handle in one mud hole I suppose all the rest don't seem that bad but I would rather not find out. 

 

So now that we have been stressed enough to get grey hairs, been stuck in a mud hole, eaten monkey and caterpillars, travelled on local transport (motorbikes sitting three people and the jungle-bus), slept in mud houses, and acquired a second language, we are well on our way to becoming 'real' missionaries, the kind that can either entice others or scare them away completely from becoming missionaries themselves. 

 

What a fun job we have!!!!