Congo Crossing

Three weeks ago a series of enormous explosions erupted at an Army Camp across the Congo River from us in the capital city of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo (not to be confused with our country, the Democratic Republic of Congo). The explosions were caused by a fire accidentally setting off the munitions storage at the camp, resulting in loss of lives, homes and literally leveling the camp. The tragedy left nearly 10,000 homeless, and the death count has not yet been published as it is still too dangerous to go back into the camp area where there may be unexploded ordinance to look for bodies.

One of the opportunities we Humanitarian Missionaries have is to provide for such emergencies in the form of Emergency Response projects. At the approval and encouragement of our South Africa leaders, we wrote up a quick project to receive funding for basic food items and mattresses for those homeless families who had been evacuated to 4 separate sites around the city. We have just returned from a trip to Brazzaville where we spent three days shopping, loading, and delivering the items to the 4 sites. We have to say right here that our part was very small in comparison with the work done by the Church Welfare Committee, which was headed by an amazing man named Gaetan. Never have we seen such a committed, organized man. We simply cannot say enough about him except that we were privileged to watch him in action during our stay there.

We had only heard stories about the boat trip to Brazzaville, and now we can say we have done it! It was quite an adventure in itself.

This is one of the several boats that take passengers back and forth between Brazzaville and Kinshasa. This boat looked a little crowded, so we opted for a smaller, faster one (whew!)

Below is a landmark we see from the Kinshasa side, and always wondered what exactly it was. Now we know! It is an unusual office building/skyscraper! Really wanted to go in it, but we weren't there for the sight-seeing. Maybe another time....

We began by going to several stores to shop. Bishop Gaetan had the amounts, prices, and had already cashed our checks. We just followed him around. Below we are shopping for 150 buckets. And he was on the phone constantly arranging all the details.

When we had purchased a truckload, it was loaded onto the trucks and taken out to the sites to be delivered.

Here below is a truckload of foam mattresses.

Then came the toilet paper. Even the children helped with the unloading.

And of course Elder B couldn't just stand around.

This fellow below is carrying 2 heavy bags of rice. Awesome!

Well, it was awesome until Big Mama came around to show her stuff! Three bags! She just wouldn't be outdone!

She immediately became Elder B's hero!

Below is one of the homeless camps. Lots of people, lots of crowding. But it was working.

Let's talk about a few miracles:

Miracle #1 was that the explosions took place on a Sunday morning, when the children were not in crowded school rooms, people weren't out on the streets yet. The schools were terribly damaged, mostly by roofs and walls falling in. But those schools were empty on Sunday.
Miracle #2 was that large covered pavillions like the one below had just been constructed to be used as a market place. But it hadn't yet been opened and became a wonderful shelter for these families.

Miracle #3 is that Heavenly Father created little children who are extremely resiliant. They did not look or act any different than any other children who still had homes. They played games, smiled, laughed, helped, wanted their pictures taken, and enjoyed meeting other children who had suddenly become their neighbors.

And this little guy wasn't really saying to himself, "What am I doing here?" He was saying, "What are you mundelis (whiteys) doing here?"

They do love to pose!

The government provided these nice tents. We were very impressed with the number and quality.

Miracle #4 was the fact that the huge downpour that was about to happen while we were still unloading the trucks didn't begin until we got back in our vehicles to go to the hotel. Look at the sky in the photo below. The wind was blowing, lightning and thunder, but the rain held off until the goods were under cover. But boy did it come down on our trip back to the hotel! We were very glad that Bishop Gaetan was doing the driving.

Miracle #5 was that ordinarily the traffic between downtown where we did all the purchasing and the homeless camps often took Bishop several hours to drive - every time - because of horrible traffic. With our loaded trucks we made it in about 30 minutes. He was amazed! He called his wife and she said when she saw the storm coming she started to pray that we would arrive, unload, and return in good time. We know we were being watched after. Bishop told us later that in the Congo rain is often a sign of a blessing coming after a bout of adversity.

The last photos are just a few of hundreds that we could have put on this blog showing the destruction we saw first-hand. We felt the blasts here in Kinshasa that Sunday morning. In fact, windows blew out of homes just from the concussions. Those of you who know earthquakes undertand how that first big boom and shake feel. These blasts were many many times worse. We wondered at the time if Kinshasa was being bombed.

We are safe, we have learned so much, and there is so much more to be learned, but we love it, and we are blessed to be here doing what we are doing. There is nothing better -- except hanging out with the grandkids -- and we highly recommend it!

Have a wonderful week. We sure will!

P.S. I am still having trouble deleting all the empty space between pictures and paragraphs. I was given instructions, followed them to a T, and it worked just fine until I published the blog, and those pesky spaces were still there! I wanted to rearrange some of the pictures, and was told how to do that, too, but it didn't work either. Then I tried to download the new and improved blog, but so far that hasn't happened either. Maybe it just isn't meant to be......