It doesn't get much crazier then this.
This trip has become a complete turn around. On our first day here we were almost kicked out of the country, didn't feel like we were even accepted here, and weren't even sure if we WANTED to stay after everything that happened. But after our last day here I wanted nothing more then to spend at least one more day in Congo. I had just reached the point of enjoying being here and it was time to go. I'll explain...
In the morning we went Eden and it no longer felt like we were strangers to these kids. We were greeted by name and with lots of hugs and love, and I think they could tell that we loved them too. While my mom went off to take care of important things, the kids dragged me by the hand to play checkers with them. They were using a home made version with cardboard and bottle caps for pieces. And for the first time I really started to feel what it must be like living here. On our first 2 walk-thru's I felt more like just an observer, feeling sorry for the kids living in these conditions. But sitting there in the dark, on this rickety table, playing on this sorry excuse for a game, knowing that there wasn't much else for them to do, it made me wish even more that that there was more I could do. But they were still being funny and silly and before we even finished the game it it was time to go. There was a lot to do today and we were already behind schedule.
Then we were on our way to visit Mafe, a small orphanage in Kinshasa that I'd been warned by my dad that it was VERY difficult to get to. The first time my parents went to Mafe they had not been prepared for how difficult it would be. After a couple minutes of driving the sand was dubbed too difficult to drive through. They had been told to get out and walk the 1 and a half hours the rest of the way in their sandals and flip flops. NOT fun. This time we refused to go unless we had an appropriate car to drive us the entire way.
Well..... we were promised that the Mini-van we were in had made it to this orphanage and back and that we had no reason to worry. Hmm.... we were concerned but we believed them. We hit the section that my mom warned me was where they had to stop last time. Instead of slowing down and stopping we started to speed up!! "It is the only way we can make it" our driver told us!! We braced ourselves for the turns as we spun on the sand and the driver almost lost control!! I probably would have enjoyed it so much more if I wasn't so scared for my life! This continued for about 10 more minutes as we gained speed and spun around at EVERY TURN. We were all scared but laughter took over us as our coping method. I was laughing SO hard as I heard my mom gasp every 5 seconds! Sometimes I would brace myself for a crash against a building as our driver would changed directions at the last minute almost missing the turns!! I actually thought it was a fairly exciting drive... but my mom just glared at me when I told her that :P Buuut to our surprise we made it there!
The kids at Mafe were sweet and we brought them some cars and clothes and took lots of pictures of them :)
But when it was time to go we braced ourselves for the drive back. We just skidded around the sand like a ball on a pinball machine again. But this time... we got STUCK! :( I think it took about 2 hours to finally get out but I can honestly say that it was probably my favorite 2 hours from our whole trip. We had stopped right at the edge of a soccer game that had brought out about 50+ kids to play and watch. And I ended up hanging out with some "street kids" that had come to see what was going on. (But... I'm not sure if "street" is the right word though because this was like no street I've ever seen. Maybe "sand kids" would be a little more appropriate...) So I was surrounded by these "sand kids" and they were probably the cutest things in the world!!
So while the men did a lot of this:
I just watched a lot of this:
But best of all I got to play with these guys:
These kids were ADORABLE! I took these videos when they just didn't stop cracking me up. The the funny little guys were doing hand noises and arm pit farts... boys will be boys.
The kids above inspired me to teach them one of my favorites... the "hand-snapping-thing-that-im-not-sure-even-has-a-name"!! They did pretty good too. I still laugh every time I watch this one...
How can you not love this little face?? This is the same little guy that entertained us all above.
But it was more then his impeccable ability to pull off mismatched women's shoes that drew me to him. The kid needed some pants! He was wearing underware for shorts, and they were so worn and tattered that it left him almost naked. I couldn't bear to think about how long he'd been wearing them! All of the other kids around at least had something on... I felt so bad for the kid! We had just visited one of our last orphanages so I thought that it would be a lost cause to check to see if we had anything he could wear. But after shifting through diapers and baby bottles for our final orphanage, I found a pair of brown 4T stretchy pants. It was unbelievable!! It didn't even hit me how amazing it was until later because there was no way that we would have purposely left these pants in the bag because the only kids left for us to see were babies! I can't even explain how excited I was that they were there. I LOVED seeing him with these comfortable pants on, perfect for this playful little kid. If I hadn't just been scolded for taking pictures believe me, the image of this little guy climbing trees in his new pants would probably have been one of my favorite pictures of all time. God truly showed his love for his people today. Not only the orphans in the DRC but for the "sand kids" as well.
"God loves to use things that we consider to be insignificant, like Moses' rod which parted the Red Sea, or Davids sling-shot that brought down a giant, or a boy's lunch that fed a multitude..." And I would add to that, "the pair of pant's that wasn't supposed to be there".
After visiting our last orphanage, Markos, we visited the Congo River! It was cool to see Brazaville sitting on the other side of the river, but other then that it was pretty anti-climactic. hah. From our spot the trees were covering most of our view and there was no way to even sneakily take pictures. It was basically the perfect storm of places that would easily land us in jail for taking a picture. Our viewing location was right in front of the American Embassy, we were viewing one of the most protected rivers in all of Africa, aaaand the President, Joseph Kabila himself, was getting ready to walk by!! And I guess this is as good a place as any to note that this was the 3rd time this trip that we'd crossed paths with the guy. Part of the chaos at the airport on our entrance was a result of the president landing at the same time, we passed him again in traffic when there was tons of police cars that I talked about here, aaand now we had to get out of this area to make way for the guy. I figured that he was must be trying really hard to see us and that I should at least go and say hi! But the guards would have none of it...
We enjoyed a nice classy dinner at the "Grand Hotel" and FINALLY got to relax and enjoyed being finished with our work. Buuut not without a small change of plans of course :) We checked our email and to our surprise found a reply from our friend "Welcome". Remember my angel that saved me at the airport?? We had planned to meet up again while we were here in Congo, but we hadn't heard back. He had written us the nicest email about how he had enjoyed meeting us, but had to take an emergency trip to Ivory Coast and couldn't see us. But, since he couldn't meet with us himself he sent his brother and friends to meet us at our hotel that evening!! His email told us that they would be at our hotel at 5 PM but we had only just gotten the email and it was already 8 PM!! There was no way they would still be there waiting for us. But they only proved to us to be about the nicest people in the whole world!! They had waited there as we strolled in at 9 PM and were MORE helpful then we could have imagined. They knew so much about the country and wanted to do everything in their power to help us get a house for the kids and/or other housing for ourselves while in the country. His brother knew so much about adoptions, and his sister wanted to take it upon herself to check up on our kids for us. But they didn't speak much english so they brought their 2 seminary student friends to translate :) I don't know what we did to deserve this, but we felt so blessed to have met them.
By the end of the day I really thought about how many things had seemed to have gone badly at first but really turned out to be quite the opposite. Some of those circumstances that I can pinpointed as the most frustrating times, afterwards I looked back as the most memorable moments that have led to some even greater surprises. Getting separated for hours at the airport... pretty bad. Having Dereje held for ransom... that was pretty bad. Getting stuck in the sand for hours and putting us far behind schedule... that also on the surface seemed pretty bad. But truth be told, if we hadn't been stuck at the airport, we wouldn't have met Welcome (Bienvenue) and we would have left the country with SO many unanswered questions and frustrations that were easily solved in a short meeting with his friends. And through Dereje's situation at the airport I think that we learned a lot about the system that may help us later. But most importantly, getting stuck in the sand gave me a chance to really stop and "smell the roses" on my last day. I honestly can say that I loved meeting those kids on the side of the road and really brightened up my whole perspective on the trip. Sure, many aspects of this trip were difficult but i wouldn't have it ANY other way and I wouldn't change those circumstances even if I could. They have all lead to some of the biggest blessings from being here that we would have completely missed out on. We could have had a mediocre, unexciting trip in which we always got everywhere we needed to right on time... but what kind of story would that have been? I probably would have lost all of my readers by day 1! ;)
0 comments:
Post a Comment