the rest

I'm back in Kinshasa with Mr. Mtenzi. We're staying in the same hotel I stayed in on the way to Kisangani. Pr. Mtenzi is teaching lay missionaries here. I'm just getting spoiled. With A/C in the hotel room, I slept more than 10 hours each of the last 2 nights. I hadn't realized that I had so much to catch up on. Having a pool to swim in is great. And having time to catch up on the blog is nice too.

Here's a few highlights of the last couple weeks:

Sunday, a week ago, we went biking up the road heading East again. This time we were all on bikes: Nathan gave Melody and April turns on the motorbike while the other pedaled, and I got to pedal the whole way. We made it much farther - almost 15km up the road this time. We got a tour of a school on the way. Apparently, the nice forest area along the road is a rubber plantation. Soaking in the creek on the way back was basically a necessity.

Sabbath, the day before that, was the day of the baptism following the meetings at Kabondo 2. Over 30 people were baptized, including 5 of the CFM workers. Getting to the baptism pond involved a truck ride and a hike. The hike involved wading through puddles for most people, but a couple of us gave rides across the puddle to those who wanted to keep their feet dry. On the way back, I chose to jog behind the truck, since it never went faster than any easy jogging speed, and jogging was much more comfortable than riding.

On Thursday, my last full day, we went to the river again. It was great: there was another show of the hippo chasing fishers away, sand castle construction, soccer and keep-away playing, and we even got wet... There was less swimming than normal though: the dam above the beach was opened enough that a whole bunch of floating weeds came through and congregated in the eddy we were at. It looked like a big green carpet in places.

I left Kisangani when the Bible arrived. The big 66-language Bible that Hope TV is sending around the planet arrived in Kisangani from Nairobi a few hours before I flew out. There was a big show put on, with the Pathfinder band providing the music.
I guess they then paraded the Bible around and gave out Bibles. It's all an attempt to get people reading their Bibles.

My time at CFM was an excellent experience. The timing was great: I was there just when I was needed, and I left feeling that Nathan and the local crew now have everything well under control. The last month I was taking it easy more: taking more time to study especially. Now for a couple more days in the concrete jungle of Kinshasa - then the trip home.