There are Giants in the Land, Spiritual Giants!

CMO, the Caravan that Rod flies, early one morning. 

Rod came home from a trip to Lomela a couple of years ago to tell me about his experience.  He had taken a government official to a remote village in the center of Congo to see how the road project was coming along.  There were two missionary friends out there that Rod was sort of sent to hang out with and stay with overnight.  These men were brothers who had been raised in Congo and lost their father in the 1964 uprising.  They too had been working on this road project because they wanted to see "their" village have better access to the outside world. One brother had developed diabetes and his wife, who was a nurse had given up traveling with him.  The other was fighting cancer and wanted to see some of his projects completed as long he could.   His wife was also a nurse and had given up traveling with him.  So Rod sat with them in a hut waiting for the rain to clear so they could take a dugout to the other side of the river to the house they would sleep in.  While they waited the sun set and by the time the rain stopped the tropical forest was pitch black around them.  Of course the clouds covered the stars so there was even less light.  But the man with the dugout was ready to take them across.  Rod, being unsure of the guide’s ability to see in the dark used his pen light to try to see the other shore.  The pen light was good but not THAT good.  So there he sat in the middle of a tributary river of Congo, in the pitch dark, with two elderly men and a guide and a rower wondering if they REALLY would get across.  They did successfully get across and had a semi-good night sleep (after all it wasn't really home).   

This is actually the Wamba River another tributary river of Congo.

There are some hard things about being a missionary and I am not talking about the sleeping conditions, but one that we are facing right now is saying good-bye once again to friends. Our dear friends, one of the brothers and his wife, are packing up and selling their belongings because his cancer is getting worse back in America.  His wife continues to work here but may need to leave at any time.  It is people like these who make me feel like I have walked among spiritual giants in my years out here.  They are two of the many who have served faithfully in this land, seeking to teach spiritual truth for all to hear and faithfully sticking with it through the good and the bad, even cancer.  We are going to miss them terribly.  This friend has been a leader in our church we serve in and worship in here in Congo.  His dream has been to get a plantation near his “home” area in the middle of Congo producing rubber again and giving them the ability to ship the rubber down the river and to the larger cities to where is can be sold. 

As I write this I think of many different missionaries who have left the country recently. Many have left for health reasons.  Some have left because it is very difficult to understand the people here and it is easy to let anger and frustration take over.Even in these circumstances, I know God is at work.  His church here in Congo continues to grow.