For those of you who want to read something worthwhile about the school here, check out the Nafie sisters' blog:
http://mrnjln326.wordpress.com/
Also, there's a new video on the Adams family page:
http://karenoutreach.org/
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Diapers are more handy than I thought
Mar. 5 Sabbath
To top off another good Sabbath, we piled as many people as we could in (and on) the truck and went to a waterfall at the national park. I explored upstream and took a trail to another waterfall. It was farther than I expected: about 2km until I came to the beautiful pool with two small waterfalls flowing into it. After pulling myself away from the refreshing water, I hurried back, hoping I hadn't made everyone wait too long for me.
They hadn't waited too long. At the main park area, I was greeted by a group of boys who had been swimming in the waterfall pool there. They tried to get a message across to me, but I was unable to receive it. Finally, one of the boys sheepishly showed me a diaper. It had the message on it that Miles would come back to pick me up. So I had lots of extra time to enjoy the beauty there, Miles got to put 20 miles more on Micah's motorbike, and a bunch of boys got something to laugh about. I'd say the extra trouble I caused was worth it.
Please don't tell short versions of this story that go anything like this: Will had a problem near the waterfalls, so he needed Miles and miles to be put on a motorbike... and a diaper...
Mar. 12 update
Last week was all about stairs for me: a week's worth of labor for two flights of stairs. I'm that slow.
On Friday the 4th, Harvey Steck, probably the future principal of this school, arrived. When I was getting his hut ready, I noticed just how steep his walkway was, and decided to take an hour on Sunday to carve in some stairs to the hut. I soon found out just how crumbly the clay there was, and was wondering if I needed to clear a new walkway to replace the one I had just destroyed. Then a rock caught my attention, and I realized my opportunity to play Flintstones for the morning. I've never built stone stairs to withstand monsoons before: especially not without filter cloth. I'll have to find out if I built a flight of stairs or a surprise flight path for the rainy season.
After lunch, just when I was about to get to work, I decided to play some more, so I built a stone landing for the volunteers from Tennessee. I knew I didn't need to, since it probably wouldn't rain for months, but couldn't resist. A few days later it did rain, and it rained here both days afterward also. I guess it pays to play Flintstones after all.
On Monday, I got the request to build new stairs for the chapel, since the bottom rung kept falling off. Also, they were far from ideal: each 2x4 tread had a rise of 12 inches. And mothers would carry their kids up and down these stairs. And students would sometimes go up or down 3 at a time (as in, there would be 3 kids on one rung jostling for position). Good thing the Karen people have fine-tuned senses of balance: I didn't hear of any accidents.
Anyway, Laren offered to help me build the stairs. He had the same experience level as me: we had both seen stairs built. We had two half-sawn logs for stringers, and they didn't give us any extra length to play with. So we spent Tuesday doing engineering (actually, basic math) on a chalkboard and reinforcing the joists of the chapel entrance to handle heavy stairs.
Laren and his family left on Wednesday, but fortunately, the gardener here helped me do a lot of the labor from then on. Since all the lumber here is the equivalent of rough-cut (or very rough cut), and I wanted all the treads to fit tightly in their slots, there was piles of labor - at least that's my excuse. Anyway, we got the stairs done just on time for Friday evening worship. They were an excellent learning experience.
On Friday, I again found myself in the position of not having a gift to give for my mom's birthday. So I had some of the students and staff here give her a gift instead. It worked great: I'll have to remember this trick for later.
To top off another good Sabbath, we piled as many people as we could in (and on) the truck and went to a waterfall at the national park. I explored upstream and took a trail to another waterfall. It was farther than I expected: about 2km until I came to the beautiful pool with two small waterfalls flowing into it. After pulling myself away from the refreshing water, I hurried back, hoping I hadn't made everyone wait too long for me.
They hadn't waited too long. At the main park area, I was greeted by a group of boys who had been swimming in the waterfall pool there. They tried to get a message across to me, but I was unable to receive it. Finally, one of the boys sheepishly showed me a diaper. It had the message on it that Miles would come back to pick me up. So I had lots of extra time to enjoy the beauty there, Miles got to put 20 miles more on Micah's motorbike, and a bunch of boys got something to laugh about. I'd say the extra trouble I caused was worth it.
Please don't tell short versions of this story that go anything like this: Will had a problem near the waterfalls, so he needed Miles and miles to be put on a motorbike... and a diaper...
Mar. 12 update
Last week was all about stairs for me: a week's worth of labor for two flights of stairs. I'm that slow.
On Friday the 4th, Harvey Steck, probably the future principal of this school, arrived. When I was getting his hut ready, I noticed just how steep his walkway was, and decided to take an hour on Sunday to carve in some stairs to the hut. I soon found out just how crumbly the clay there was, and was wondering if I needed to clear a new walkway to replace the one I had just destroyed. Then a rock caught my attention, and I realized my opportunity to play Flintstones for the morning. I've never built stone stairs to withstand monsoons before: especially not without filter cloth. I'll have to find out if I built a flight of stairs or a surprise flight path for the rainy season.
After lunch, just when I was about to get to work, I decided to play some more, so I built a stone landing for the volunteers from Tennessee. I knew I didn't need to, since it probably wouldn't rain for months, but couldn't resist. A few days later it did rain, and it rained here both days afterward also. I guess it pays to play Flintstones after all.
On Monday, I got the request to build new stairs for the chapel, since the bottom rung kept falling off. Also, they were far from ideal: each 2x4 tread had a rise of 12 inches. And mothers would carry their kids up and down these stairs. And students would sometimes go up or down 3 at a time (as in, there would be 3 kids on one rung jostling for position). Good thing the Karen people have fine-tuned senses of balance: I didn't hear of any accidents.
Anyway, Laren offered to help me build the stairs. He had the same experience level as me: we had both seen stairs built. We had two half-sawn logs for stringers, and they didn't give us any extra length to play with. So we spent Tuesday doing engineering (actually, basic math) on a chalkboard and reinforcing the joists of the chapel entrance to handle heavy stairs.
Laren and his family left on Wednesday, but fortunately, the gardener here helped me do a lot of the labor from then on. Since all the lumber here is the equivalent of rough-cut (or very rough cut), and I wanted all the treads to fit tightly in their slots, there was piles of labor - at least that's my excuse. Anyway, we got the stairs done just on time for Friday evening worship. They were an excellent learning experience.
On Friday, I again found myself in the position of not having a gift to give for my mom's birthday. So I had some of the students and staff here give her a gift instead. It worked great: I'll have to remember this trick for later.
Saturday, February 26, 2011
February in Thailand
Feb 24
I'm in Mae Salit with a bunch of Gulliwa's (white people) at a really fancy restaurant. Just to give you an idea of how fancy it is, in Canada many restaurants say "no shirt, no shoes: no service". Here it's no Thai: no service. Anyway, there's another couple missionary families here for about a week. For the last couple days, there was also a dentist and a doctor working at the school.
During the times I haven't been busy perfecting my thumb twiddling skills, I've been making table frames and shelves, working in the garden, learning to play caneball, and breaking stuff.
The garden work involved digging and dunging vegetable beds, and helping to set up bamboo trellises for tomatoes and beans. The school's garden has really taken off in the last month, and the cook has been using greens grown there for over a week. We dug water lines into the garden area, so now they have gravity-flow water system to water the garden (with maybe a couple inches of head in the high places).
The carpentry work has been an excellent learning experience for me. I have the use of a skil saw, a drill, and an angle grinder. The lumber is like rough-cut 2X4's. Needless to say, many hours have taught me the value of table saws, planers and other tools. Designing and building beds, shelves, and tables with the available materials has been fun (now you know how much biking I'm doing here). I now have a student, Cha E Tu, working with me, and he's learning very well.
Another good (time consuming) learning experience has been breaking tools. There was a wire getting bad in the angle grinder. After my first fix ended up being temporary, I tried to replace the wire: and pulled the wire right out of the windings. So I got to learn how to take the windings out of a tool motor, and why you shouldn't scratch any wires in the process. The grinder did run for an hour or two after the repair, but I'm now using a new grinder. I also had the skill saw somewhat apart, but it's doing better.
Miles and I have been learning to play Caneball, the hands-free volleyball game. The locals here are very skilled at it, my skills give good contrast to theirs.
Yesterday was the first time I heard warfare: at about 11:30, we heard explosions and gunfire in Burma. The Burmese have been advancing through what the Karen had held, and clearing their landmines. Apparently what we heard was a successful ambush that the Karen staged. It only lasted about 10min. By the way, that afternoon we went swimming in the border river (in the opposite direction from the fighting.
Feb 27 update
Yesterday a bunch of the guys hiked up to some more of those rock outcroppings. I went up later and joined them. It's a good thing they were making lots of noise so I could find them. We had a little worship on the top of the rocks. One of the routes down included going down a vine about 25'. It's amazing how strong the roughly 2" diameter vines were: I went up and down one, and it's no worse for the wear ( nor am I). The hike back to the school involved lots of sliding: good thing there was lots of bamboo to grab on the way.
Last Sabbath a whole bunch of us went up to the pagoda. When some of the kids found out I has a camera, I had almost incessant photo requests for a while.
There are often villagers who come to the Adams' house with medical needs. Last Sunday it seemed like there was a ton of them. And that's saying something, since these people don't weigh very much. There was a blind man with no hands. As I was wondering if he was a victim of the fighting in Burma, I started to feel very privileged. Many of these people have it rough.
I've been doing some electrical repairs here: it's a sketchy setup with really thin wires.
The visiting American families left this morning. They were working on a short video to show how God has led in getting this school going and to present the current needs. I listened in on Mrs. Adams sharing the story: it's amazing.
I'm in Mae Salit with a bunch of Gulliwa's (white people) at a really fancy restaurant. Just to give you an idea of how fancy it is, in Canada many restaurants say "no shirt, no shoes: no service". Here it's no Thai: no service. Anyway, there's another couple missionary families here for about a week. For the last couple days, there was also a dentist and a doctor working at the school.
During the times I haven't been busy perfecting my thumb twiddling skills, I've been making table frames and shelves, working in the garden, learning to play caneball, and breaking stuff.
The garden work involved digging and dunging vegetable beds, and helping to set up bamboo trellises for tomatoes and beans. The school's garden has really taken off in the last month, and the cook has been using greens grown there for over a week. We dug water lines into the garden area, so now they have gravity-flow water system to water the garden (with maybe a couple inches of head in the high places).
The carpentry work has been an excellent learning experience for me. I have the use of a skil saw, a drill, and an angle grinder. The lumber is like rough-cut 2X4's. Needless to say, many hours have taught me the value of table saws, planers and other tools. Designing and building beds, shelves, and tables with the available materials has been fun (now you know how much biking I'm doing here). I now have a student, Cha E Tu, working with me, and he's learning very well.
Another good (time consuming) learning experience has been breaking tools. There was a wire getting bad in the angle grinder. After my first fix ended up being temporary, I tried to replace the wire: and pulled the wire right out of the windings. So I got to learn how to take the windings out of a tool motor, and why you shouldn't scratch any wires in the process. The grinder did run for an hour or two after the repair, but I'm now using a new grinder. I also had the skill saw somewhat apart, but it's doing better.
Miles and I have been learning to play Caneball, the hands-free volleyball game. The locals here are very skilled at it, my skills give good contrast to theirs.
Yesterday was the first time I heard warfare: at about 11:30, we heard explosions and gunfire in Burma. The Burmese have been advancing through what the Karen had held, and clearing their landmines. Apparently what we heard was a successful ambush that the Karen staged. It only lasted about 10min. By the way, that afternoon we went swimming in the border river (in the opposite direction from the fighting.
Feb 27 update
Yesterday a bunch of the guys hiked up to some more of those rock outcroppings. I went up later and joined them. It's a good thing they were making lots of noise so I could find them. We had a little worship on the top of the rocks. One of the routes down included going down a vine about 25'. It's amazing how strong the roughly 2" diameter vines were: I went up and down one, and it's no worse for the wear ( nor am I). The hike back to the school involved lots of sliding: good thing there was lots of bamboo to grab on the way.
Last Sabbath a whole bunch of us went up to the pagoda. When some of the kids found out I has a camera, I had almost incessant photo requests for a while.
There are often villagers who come to the Adams' house with medical needs. Last Sunday it seemed like there was a ton of them. And that's saying something, since these people don't weigh very much. There was a blind man with no hands. As I was wondering if he was a victim of the fighting in Burma, I started to feel very privileged. Many of these people have it rough.
I've been doing some electrical repairs here: it's a sketchy setup with really thin wires.
The visiting American families left this morning. They were working on a short video to show how God has led in getting this school going and to present the current needs. I listened in on Mrs. Adams sharing the story: it's amazing.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Blog attempt Jan 21
The power has been out for a while this morning, so I'll take this opportunity to sit in the creek and get a little of my experience here in Thailand into writing.
In early fall I heard about the orphanage and school here needing some work. At that time there was also an opportunity to go help build a house in Guatemala, so I quickly looked into which place it would be better to go to. Soon I was semi-frantically trying to get everything together for coming here in early November.
I'm really glad that didn't work, because I ended up going to Bella Coola instead to help with flood cleanup and restoration. It was an awesome experience with great people in an amazingly beautiful place.
Now I've been here at the school in Thailand for a little over two weeks. This school is really close (probably less than a kilometer) from the small river that forms the Burma border. Most of the staff and students here are from a Karen school in Burma that got shut down because of fighting. The Burmese are inhumanely trying to kick the Karen people (pronounced "Corrin") out of their villages in Burma. Many of the students here are orphans.
For being a tropical place, I couldn't have asked for it to be much nicer here. It's surrounded by steep hills, and you can see tall mountains from viewpoints. It's nicely forested here: not with dense jungle, but with forest that's often open enough for good hiking. And hiking is what I've been doing.
On my first Sabbath here, eight of us went exploring. We took a trail that passed through a small farm, then followed a creek bed up to the ridge it came from. We were about to turn back, but decided to explore a little more. Then Jason discovered that he knew where we were: on the trail to a mountaintop pagoda. So we went to the pagoda, got a nice view, and explored underneath some rocks before we went back. Jason brought a couple of the kids that the Adams take care of on the hike: a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. We gave them some assistance in tougher places, but they did amazingly well. I don't think kids their size in Canada would be allowed out of the rear-facing car seat yet.
Last Sabbath Jason took me to a waterfall with a nice pool below it for swimming in. It was totally worth the almost 50km on the back of a tiny motorbike and the resulting novice cowboy strut that resulted for a while.
On Tuesday afternoon this week, Jason and the same two kids and I went camping. I slept in Jason's mosquito-net equipped hammock, while he and the kids used my net and mat. The next day we went exploring again, and found some amazing rock structures to climb and explore. The rocks are porous and grippy, but strong. There are lots of holes and tunnels, and I felt safe climbing to one of the peaks. There are roots and vines hanging down the rocks in many places: I wished I knew which ones I could trust...
Anyway, what have I been doing here aside from hiking? Slacking, of course. And to break up the slacking, I built a couple beds (it takes me a long time to do them, especially since I was hand-sanding for quite a while). Now we have an angle-grinder with sanders, so I have to find another excuse. I also got some initial prep done for pouring sinks, but that project's on the backburner until we get some plastic.
I'm staying quite comfortably in a bamboo hut that Jason built. Sleeping on a bamboo floor with a thin plastic mat is hardly uncomfortable. It gets nice and cool (about 15C with trees dripping dew) at night, and the daytime heat is nothing crazy. It is hot enough to make it hard to get out of this creek though.
Anyway, I'm enjoying it enough here that sometimes I forget how much I miss snow. And the bike I left behind to play in it with. And the outdoor skating and XC skiing I enjoyed just before I came... All right, time to get busy again before I go too far with this...
...Looks like we're going camping by the rocks this weekend: I might be okay.
Jan 23 update
We did go camping up at the rocks this weekend. Heading up the trail with a 5 gallon water bottle made me realize what I forgot to bring: a stairmaster exercise machine...
On Sabbath, we explored a whole bunch of passages in the rocks, including a cave with stalactites. We found routes to the tops of some rocks where swimming through thick tree branches was necessary to get a great panoramic view.
A few crazy experiences happened, such as trying to make pancakes on banana leafs. Now the question is, will I get any work done before the next distraction?
Jan 27 update
I did get a bunk bed made since the last distraction. I I'd say today's distraction is an example of God working things together for good.
Mr. and Mrs. Adams were going to take a handful of people on a trip about 16 hours south of here yesterday. However, that plan got delayed due to truck problems (later that morning Mr. Adams found it to be a simple problem with the fuel filter primer and a non-venting fuel cap).
Today, I got invited to go meet some people at lunch in Mae Salit, but I declined. Then a student who is really awesome about helping people came and told me about four girls who needed malaria tests: I had only two tests, so I couldn't really help. Then Paul Adams came back and told me I was going to lunch with them after all, so I told him he was needing to take a bunch of girls in for testing too.
I got dropped off at the restaurant, and ran into a surprise greeting: it was Rob Deas, the friend I met in Bella Coola who also came to Thailand. He's volunteering about 18 hours from here, working with a Thai lady who helps the Adams with legal issues.
After lunch, I took Rob up to the pagoda ( that I had just sent a picture of to him 11 days before). I took him on a slightly more scenic trip than planned, but that led us to another good viewpoint. Fortunately, it wasn't hard regaining our bearings after that.
Rob hopes to make it back here again while we're both still here. As for the girls taken in for testing, one has malaria, and another has mumps. Everything worked together for their good too.
Jan. 29
I explored another trail this afternoon, and found a nice palm grove, chili field and farm. When I was showing pictures to a friend, I learned that those palms were betel nut trees. Aside from that, it's a really nice place.
The power has been out for a while this morning, so I'll take this opportunity to sit in the creek and get a little of my experience here in Thailand into writing.
In early fall I heard about the orphanage and school here needing some work. At that time there was also an opportunity to go help build a house in Guatemala, so I quickly looked into which place it would be better to go to. Soon I was semi-frantically trying to get everything together for coming here in early November.
I'm really glad that didn't work, because I ended up going to Bella Coola instead to help with flood cleanup and restoration. It was an awesome experience with great people in an amazingly beautiful place.
Now I've been here at the school in Thailand for a little over two weeks. This school is really close (probably less than a kilometer) from the small river that forms the Burma border. Most of the staff and students here are from a Karen school in Burma that got shut down because of fighting. The Burmese are inhumanely trying to kick the Karen people (pronounced "Corrin") out of their villages in Burma. Many of the students here are orphans.
For being a tropical place, I couldn't have asked for it to be much nicer here. It's surrounded by steep hills, and you can see tall mountains from viewpoints. It's nicely forested here: not with dense jungle, but with forest that's often open enough for good hiking. And hiking is what I've been doing.
On my first Sabbath here, eight of us went exploring. We took a trail that passed through a small farm, then followed a creek bed up to the ridge it came from. We were about to turn back, but decided to explore a little more. Then Jason discovered that he knew where we were: on the trail to a mountaintop pagoda. So we went to the pagoda, got a nice view, and explored underneath some rocks before we went back. Jason brought a couple of the kids that the Adams take care of on the hike: a five-year-old and an eight-year-old. We gave them some assistance in tougher places, but they did amazingly well. I don't think kids their size in Canada would be allowed out of the rear-facing car seat yet.
Last Sabbath Jason took me to a waterfall with a nice pool below it for swimming in. It was totally worth the almost 50km on the back of a tiny motorbike and the resulting novice cowboy strut that resulted for a while.
On Tuesday afternoon this week, Jason and the same two kids and I went camping. I slept in Jason's mosquito-net equipped hammock, while he and the kids used my net and mat. The next day we went exploring again, and found some amazing rock structures to climb and explore. The rocks are porous and grippy, but strong. There are lots of holes and tunnels, and I felt safe climbing to one of the peaks. There are roots and vines hanging down the rocks in many places: I wished I knew which ones I could trust...
Anyway, what have I been doing here aside from hiking? Slacking, of course. And to break up the slacking, I built a couple beds (it takes me a long time to do them, especially since I was hand-sanding for quite a while). Now we have an angle-grinder with sanders, so I have to find another excuse. I also got some initial prep done for pouring sinks, but that project's on the backburner until we get some plastic.
I'm staying quite comfortably in a bamboo hut that Jason built. Sleeping on a bamboo floor with a thin plastic mat is hardly uncomfortable. It gets nice and cool (about 15C with trees dripping dew) at night, and the daytime heat is nothing crazy. It is hot enough to make it hard to get out of this creek though.
Anyway, I'm enjoying it enough here that sometimes I forget how much I miss snow. And the bike I left behind to play in it with. And the outdoor skating and XC skiing I enjoyed just before I came... All right, time to get busy again before I go too far with this...
...Looks like we're going camping by the rocks this weekend: I might be okay.
Jan 23 update
We did go camping up at the rocks this weekend. Heading up the trail with a 5 gallon water bottle made me realize what I forgot to bring: a stairmaster exercise machine...
On Sabbath, we explored a whole bunch of passages in the rocks, including a cave with stalactites. We found routes to the tops of some rocks where swimming through thick tree branches was necessary to get a great panoramic view.
A few crazy experiences happened, such as trying to make pancakes on banana leafs. Now the question is, will I get any work done before the next distraction?
Jan 27 update
I did get a bunk bed made since the last distraction. I I'd say today's distraction is an example of God working things together for good.
Mr. and Mrs. Adams were going to take a handful of people on a trip about 16 hours south of here yesterday. However, that plan got delayed due to truck problems (later that morning Mr. Adams found it to be a simple problem with the fuel filter primer and a non-venting fuel cap).
Today, I got invited to go meet some people at lunch in Mae Salit, but I declined. Then a student who is really awesome about helping people came and told me about four girls who needed malaria tests: I had only two tests, so I couldn't really help. Then Paul Adams came back and told me I was going to lunch with them after all, so I told him he was needing to take a bunch of girls in for testing too.
I got dropped off at the restaurant, and ran into a surprise greeting: it was Rob Deas, the friend I met in Bella Coola who also came to Thailand. He's volunteering about 18 hours from here, working with a Thai lady who helps the Adams with legal issues.
After lunch, I took Rob up to the pagoda ( that I had just sent a picture of to him 11 days before). I took him on a slightly more scenic trip than planned, but that led us to another good viewpoint. Fortunately, it wasn't hard regaining our bearings after that.
Rob hopes to make it back here again while we're both still here. As for the girls taken in for testing, one has malaria, and another has mumps. Everything worked together for their good too.
Jan. 29
I explored another trail this afternoon, and found a nice palm grove, chili field and farm. When I was showing pictures to a friend, I learned that those palms were betel nut trees. Aside from that, it's a really nice place.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
pics
CFM's work crew
Nathan, Melody and me
With Mtenzi Family
With Mosier Family
Workers waiting for baptism
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Nathan, Melody and me
With Mtenzi Family
With Mosier Family
Workers waiting for baptism
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Tuesday, March 9, 2010
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.
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.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Mostly about bikes
Only 1 week of work left for me here now. But still more than 2 weeks until I can hop on my bike...
So far this week I've been learning how to hang a wood vaulted ceiling from the metal structure of Keith's house. Today I taught Dady how to install doors.
On Sunday afternoon, Nathan, Melody, April and I went up the road a few km on bikes. It's farther than we'd been before, and the road gets into really nice forest, with rather huge trees along the way. I was on a toleka, a local bike, and it sure made me glad for how nice my bike is back at home. By the time we made it to where the Mosiers were enjoying a creek along the road, the toleka had fallen apart enough that I decided to leave it with them. So Nathan and I took turns running and biking the rest of the way.
One note - the locals commonly their toleka bikes on journeys of 100-200km. The poor guys sure have to baby their bikes. And they carry huge loads on their bikes. Often they will have two 75+lb, 3.5+ft high sacks of charcoal on the back of a bike. And then they have to get their bikes with the tippy loads off the road quickly so trucks can get by. And their brakes are almost useless.
Farther down the road there was the reddest butterfly I think I've ever seen. It was right where a guy was trying to fix his toleka, so I stayed with him until the others caught up and could take a picture. The guy said he couldn't fix his bike with what he had, so he probably had to push it to the next village to get it fixed.
We went on until a village, then had to turn back because of time. We went back to the creek where the Mosiers were with Keith's kayak, and had a good soak. It was fun to try out the kayak: it's a river kayak, so it is much more responsive than an ocean kayak. I had to learn how to paddle without making the kayak turn a half-circle every stroke.
Pastor Mtenzi's evangelistic meetings are still going well.
And Nathan fell a big tree yesterday: it was neat to learn a bit about how that's done.
And that's all for now.
So far this week I've been learning how to hang a wood vaulted ceiling from the metal structure of Keith's house. Today I taught Dady how to install doors.
On Sunday afternoon, Nathan, Melody, April and I went up the road a few km on bikes. It's farther than we'd been before, and the road gets into really nice forest, with rather huge trees along the way. I was on a toleka, a local bike, and it sure made me glad for how nice my bike is back at home. By the time we made it to where the Mosiers were enjoying a creek along the road, the toleka had fallen apart enough that I decided to leave it with them. So Nathan and I took turns running and biking the rest of the way.
One note - the locals commonly their toleka bikes on journeys of 100-200km. The poor guys sure have to baby their bikes. And they carry huge loads on their bikes. Often they will have two 75+lb, 3.5+ft high sacks of charcoal on the back of a bike. And then they have to get their bikes with the tippy loads off the road quickly so trucks can get by. And their brakes are almost useless.
Farther down the road there was the reddest butterfly I think I've ever seen. It was right where a guy was trying to fix his toleka, so I stayed with him until the others caught up and could take a picture. The guy said he couldn't fix his bike with what he had, so he probably had to push it to the next village to get it fixed.
We went on until a village, then had to turn back because of time. We went back to the creek where the Mosiers were with Keith's kayak, and had a good soak. It was fun to try out the kayak: it's a river kayak, so it is much more responsive than an ocean kayak. I had to learn how to paddle without making the kayak turn a half-circle every stroke.
Pastor Mtenzi's evangelistic meetings are still going well.
And Nathan fell a big tree yesterday: it was neat to learn a bit about how that's done.
And that's all for now.
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