Thank FULL

A Thank-FULL Day! 

We will celebrate our traditional Thanksgiving this coming Thursday, December 5.  On the calendar day of Thanksgiving, however, Tim, Sam and I celebrated the holiday in a whole new way.  We journeyed to the Congo with our new good friends, the Neil and Wright families.  This was my fourth attempt to get into the DRC and first success at actually making it more than 50 feet beyond the border– a credit to the detailed planning of the Neils and their dear friend, L, who lives in Bukavu and is quite well connected within the region.

Crossing from Rwanda into Congo reminds me of childhood days crossing the Texas border towns into Mexico.  Congo provides such a stark contrast with Rwanda I a variety of ways, including:

·      personality (loud, fun and random compared to reserved, dignified and orderly)

·      décor (loud, eclectic, random and littered compared to clean, practical and functional) AND

·      traffic patterns (random, fast, and unpredictable compared to cautious, controlled, seat belt wearing, speed limit observing and lane keeping). 


     Even women’s methods of carrying large objects differs across the border.  In Rwanda, women place heavy loads on top of their heads – in Congo, the women wrap up their extra heavy loads into a sort of sack, and tie the straps of the sack around their foreheads.  Then they bend over, and pull the sack, flung over their backs, with all the strength they can muster, with their strong necks and foreheads leading the way.  (Either way makes me want to say “OUCH!”.) 

So many onions lined the road that my eyes were watering as
we sped past on our motorbikes.  Not even kidding.  

Can you imagine trying to carry this much?  

Every time I've ridden a motorcycle taxi in Rwanda and now in Congo, this is what
the fuel guage always reads.  These drivers live on the edge.

Our new friends, the Neil and Wright families, came to bring much needed supplies, love and encouragement to the people in Rwanda and Congo.  This was their third visit to Rwanda, and 2^nd for some of them to Congo (and first for others).   It was Mark Neil’s umpteen millionth trip around Congo, as he grew up there as a missionary kid!  Because of Mark, we enjoyed the blessing of connecting with many contacts and reliable helpers within the country.  I enjoyed watching Mark’s face light up as he showed his children where he’d grown up, worked and played as a child, and also as he visited with old mission workers who were still there and as he reminisced about funny stories and crazy adventures he’d had as a kid.   

The Neil Family, outside the home where Mark Neil grew up.  

Mark Neil explaining how the printing press worked - this is where his parents worked as missionaries for many years,
printing Bible courses and Sunday School materials for church plants.  

Our reception outside the church.  The church building is the wooden structure just behind the line of children.  

Handing out supplies.  

Here is a better view of the church.  The school is made of some bricks with tarps between them and a metal roof.  It houses about 75 children and is about 14' X 15'.  They were packed in there like sardines, all sitting cross legged on the dirt floor, with one small black board (about the size of half a door) in the front.  

On their visit last year, they supplied some money for a rural Congolese village to build a school for the poor and orphan children who could not afford to attend any other school.   This trip, they brought about 8 or 9 LARGE suitcases FULL of supplies for this school and its students.  Blankets for the students to sleep with at night, slates, chalk, textbooks, writing utensils, paper, hygiene items - you name it, they brought it. 

We drove about an hour outside of the city, avoiding numerous 2 feet deep potholes and waving at smiling people along the sides of the road selling bananas, red onions, or potatoes, herding their pig or goat to market, or perhaps carrying 6 extremely alive chickens on their heads.  Some of us rode on motorcycles – a blast in itself -  feeling the cool air brush against our faces, looking out on Lake Kivu and the fishing boats dotting the water as far as we could see, and smelling the wonderful smells now familiar to me after living in the region for almost 18 months.  We rode for an hour before coming to the small village of Miti.  

Upon our arrival, imagine our surprise when we were greeted like long awaited movie stars.  An entire “victory line” (for lack of a better description) of small,  schoolchildren, dressed in their very best clothes, waited by the road and started cheering loudly  and waving flowers and branches in celebration when we drove up.  They presented beautiful bouquets of wildflowers to Amy and Heidi, and sang and danced to express their joy that they were finally with them again.  The adults ushered us into their ramshackle church building, which virtually burst at the seams with happy, singing, dancing people.  Many, many songs and choir performances later, the speeches began.  About 5 village chiefs graced this meeting, and each was introduced with the appropriate fanfare and recognition and welcome.  An official letter of thanks was read by one of the mothers of the schoolchildren – expressing the gratitude obviously residing in each heart for these Muzungus who cared about them and came to supply so many of their needs.  She expressed her main thought eloquently:  “Why us?  We don’t understand why you chose to bless us so much with all of these wonderful things when there are so many other villages…..but we accept your love and help with thankful hearts.”  I found myself so moved by this ceremony, I looked down and noticed that my hands shook with emotion.  The overwhelming, disgusting disparity between what I had, what I have always had, solely because of where I was born and who my parents are, and what every one of these people had, hit me at a whole new level.  Seeing and experiencing their joy and thankfulness for some of life’s most basic luxuries and necessities shamed me to the core – but also blessed me richly and lifted me up.  I see this type of thing daily – but some days it hits home more than others – and this was one of those hard hitting days.  We have so much.  Do we know this?  Do you know this?  Because if you live in America, or Western Europe, or Canada, I promise, I promise --- you are materially rich.  You are.  You are.

How easy it is to let our material comfort and security lull us into a false sense that we do not really need spiritual things – that we do not really need Jesus.  We must fight to not let our riches keep us from putting our real hope in Heaven.  It is there that our true riches can lie.  It is only there that our wealth can never be taken away.  If we know we have Jesus, then whether we are as poor as the people in Miti, or as rich as you or me, we will have ALL WE REALLY NEED.  And because of that, we will have JOY.  Maybe we won’t have a day to day constant state of gladness, but we will have a constant JOY.  (Whoops.  Got off track there.  Okay.  Sermon over.  Back to the story. J) 

Finally, it came time to present the new supplies brought by my friends.  Imagine if Bill Gates came to your neighborhood and donated ten truckloads of the newest computers and software for your school to use, and also donated college tuition for all your neighborhood’s children, and paid off everyone’s cars.  I think the shock and awe you’d feel would come close – maybe – to the expressions on the faces of the people of Miti village as I watched the Neils and Wrights drag in box after box after box of materials. 

I’ve never had such fun as an outsider.  I was a “fly on the wall”, and it was a great place to be. 

Think one week can’t really make a difference?  Think you can’t change the world?  I promise, the village of MITI was changed last Thursday.  ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’- Matthew 25:40 Our friends did this for Jesus, because of their love for Him, and they richly blessed these people, and received untold blessings from them in return.  You can, too!

Next time you’re tempted to think your life can’t make any difference, remember the story of Miti.  Kids who had no school now have a school.  Children who had no blankets now have warm woolen coverings on which to lie.  They have school supplies, two teachers, a school building, books, toothbrushes, soap, beans, rice, and so much more.  Most of all, they have the heart enlarging knowledge that people across the world know about them, came to meet them, to see their homes, to worship God with them, and to let them know they are loved.  Not only did the Neils and Wrights bless the people of Miti, and so many others who deserve a whole other blog post, they also richly blessed us, in so many ways.  Just one of those ways was the rejuvenating effect their visit had on us.  Going away from the hospital for those 30 hours felt like going on a retreat that we didn’t even know we needed (but boy, we needed it!) – we came home with renewed vigor, renewed perspective on our ministry and life here, and renewed inspiration to carry on. 

What a beautiful way to spend Thanksgiving.