Congo Video

Here's a short video of pictures and footage I took in Congo a couple months back.

Enjoy!

Congo: Day 5 Final Post!

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! ;)

Congo: Day 2 - TIA!

I was going to post this last night but the power went out in our whole commune… right before I was going to shower too! But, as our translator reminded me “This is Africa”! It was not the best timing but after everything we’ve been doing and seeing I haven’t really been in a complaining mood or even remotely deserved the right to self pity. Mom and I leave for America in the morning, and I'll hopefully add more updates when we return.

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I love people watching. I’m sorry if that sounds creepy, but I do. I love trying to figure out what a person’s thinking by watching their body language. I like trying to figure out who they are and what their personality is like. I’m probably usually wrong but I let myself believe it b/c I would have no way of knowing otherwise :P. Here in Congo though, this game is a little bit less fun for me b/c almost everyone seems so serious! I knew that they weren’t “friendly people” but I didn’t expect them to be showing such little emotion! And I can’t help but feel a little intimidated driving around and receiving only serious stares from everyone. I can’t tell if they’re plotting my demise or if I’ve just got something stuck in my teeth. It could be anything! Our translator assured me that they’re mostly curious when they stare because they’re not used to seeing white people. He told us that the best thing for us to do is just smile and say “bonjour” and they’ll usually stop. But there’s another cultural difference for you… it’s not rude to stare!

I love seeing the color in everyone’s clothes! Both men and women wear lots of color but women oftentimes add large jewelry. And add to that the fact that every other woman on the street is carrying something on her head, this place really makes me feel like I’m in Africa! (You know that’s true when an Ethiopian says that himself!) I read that the Congolese like to dress in style and judge you strongly on your appearance. That was a huge bummer for me because I always like to dress as comfortably as possible when I travel.

But one woman in the airport completely caught me off guard! Get this... and I'm not exaggerating when I say that she had on a leopard print jacket and matching tight legging pants, zebra earrings, a LARGE giraffe bag, she was blinged out in gold necklaces and bracelets, aaaand to tie it all off… bright pink pumps. This is not a joke. Now… I’m all for adapting to a culture when you travel but everyone's gotta draw the line somewhere… mine is at wearing mismatched animal print.

We had a meeting with our lawyer in the morning, and I think it went well. Dereje was very helpful as we talked about the process in Ethiopia. It was really great to compare programs and what needed to be done to keep the Congo program successful. Then we were off to Mama Ester’s orphanage, Eden. This was my first orphanage since I’ve been to here in Congo and if it is any representation of the rest of the orphanages here… lets just ay there’s a lot of work to be done. I spent most of the day on the verge of tears as we saw the conditions these kids were in.

We got a tour of the house and Dereje, who’s seen almost every orphanage in Ethiopia, was even shocked at the “lack of standards”. We got to the kids room and it was dark, but I saw a little girl on one of the beds that looked sickly. I sat by her for a while until she was comfortable with me, and then she climbed on my lap. As I held her, I heard the story Mama Esther was telling about a baby who had died in this very place, just weeks before. The little girl on my lap continued to cough and I just thought that it could be her next! How could we prevent this from happening again?? Whatever it takes we need to improve the conditions these kids are in, whether it’s getting a house ourselves to care for these kids or some other way, we need to help these sweet kids.

We’re staying at a new hotel this trip and got a feel for another place that we may suggest to family’s coming to pick up their children. It’s in a nicer area of Kinshasa, but that doesn’t stop the bugs from biting or the electricity from going out. Internet is still slow and the hot water runs out fast. But what was I expecting… TIA!

Taking pictures are “illegal” here, so for all intensive purposes I don’t know where I got all of these photos that suddenly appeared on my memory card. But, I’ll hopefully post some of that as soon as I get back to the land of the free and the home of the fast internet.

Thanks!

Julie

Congo: Day 1

It's taken me awhile to post and a lot has happened since we've arrived to the Congo. It's not always easy for me to put things into words so I've been thinking about what I've wanted to say very carefully in order to be both realistic and accurate... all while not sugar coating anything. Before I came I was expecting to have a lot of good experiences that I would be excited to share but there turned out to be very few happy, blog-worthy moments. If I continued this way there would be nothing at all to talk about. So, here we are, at the end of day 3 and I've decided to tell it all. The Good, Bad, and the Ugly. For this post I'm going to start with just the first day.

Day 1:

This trip to Africa started out with my mom and I heading to Ethiopia for 9 days. During that stay we decided that it would be a good idea to bring our Ethiopian country representative, Dereje, to the DRC with us. He could help us by talking to our new Congolese workers a little about Ethiopian adoptions and give and them an idea of what's worked well in the past and what hasn't. It turned out to be a good idea... but more difficult to accomplish then we could have imagined. It turns out that bringing an Ethiopian into the Congo is not just a difficult task... it's a nightmare! We had done all of the appropriate steps before coming but that wasn't good enough.

We had nothing but difficult experiences the first day accented only by an encounter with a Congolese man whose name means "welcome" and a very appropriate meaning as he was the first person I met worthy of that title. He was very friendly and was kinder then anyone we'd met so far. By the end of the day I was referring to him as my angel because I probably would have ended up in tears within the first few hours upon arriving if I had not met him on the short ride on the people mover. We lost sight of him as we made our way to the immigration lines but that wasn't the last time i'd see my new friend.

We finally got to the immigration desk and my mom was first. She went through without a problem. When I went up the only question I was asked was if I was with the woman who was in front of me. "Yep." Apparently that's all she needed and I was through just by uttering one syllable. But Dereje did not get so lucky. Mom and I tried to wait for him on the other side of the counter so we could walk to baggage claim together but the guards were not happy with our lingering and briskly sent us away. We didn't need more then 5 minutes to realize something was wrong. My mom left me to wait for our 7 duffle bags while she went to go look for him... but we didn't realize that it would be over 2 hours before we would see each other again.

I don't know the details of what happened during that time, but all I knew at the time was that I was starting to get scared. All I could do was to keep watching for the bags b/c worrying wasn't going to help anything. During a small confusion that involved a lot of people running I realized that we had been waiting at the wrong conveyer belt and that I had just lost my wonderful spot in the front. But that was ok because that led me to finding "Welcome" again! Normally I would be more hesitant about talking to a "stranger" in a brand new place but this man was the only english speaker I'd met and was just a kind man. He eased my nerves as he told me about his return from America and what I could expect in the DRC. And then he emphasized what i'd been told many times. Congo was not a friendly place and that if I didn't speak French i would have many difficulties. And he was very right... When the conveyer belt came to a stop and none of my bags had arrived yet, "Welcome" encouraged me to go look for the other 2 members of my party. But I was not treated very well at all by the guards and and one laughed as he told me that my mom and Dereje had been taken away. What?? Why? They were set on speaking French until one finally told me in English that she knew where they went but I couldn't go see them until I had gotten all of my bags! So many things were wrong with that... What if they never arrived? So far there had been none at all! I was about to breakdown but "Welcome" saw my distress and just talked to me some more while we waited and waited... He told me that sometimes this happens and all that the security guards want is some money in order to let someone go. That is just wrong. That's not how a system is supposed to work at all...

I had long lost track of the time when finally I saw my mom coming back through the doors and I could just see the distress on her face. She explained what happened and how after the security found out that she had come with Dereje, they took away her passport so that she had to be retained with him! She had already been let through once but then all of a sudden she wasn't even allowed to come tell me what was wrong! But after a couple hours of misery she was allowed to come find me, but Dereje still needed to be questioned. I was starting to think that he was being held for ransom after all. Mom helped me find the bags, which was not easy when it's a system of every-man-for-himself. But we made it and went outside to find our translator, Dido. Finally! He found us and we were escorted to his car to wait while he

talked to security to try to get them to release Dereje. And boy did we wait... because all I could do for my first 3 hours of being in Congo was sit in a van playing angry birds :P. But at last we saw our Abyssinian friend was free! Whatever Dido did saved the day because it turns out they were getting ready to send the poor guy back to Ethiopia! The entire day was gone by the time we reached the hotel but we were just glad that we were all finally here to stay and could get started with seeing kids the next day.

I doubt every entry to this country will be this difficult but we learned a lot about the system just through this experience. People have warned me that this is not an easy place to stay and after several difficult experiences I've seen this for myself as well. As hard as it may be, it's not a good enough reason to stop what we're doing. Immigration may try everything in their power to keep us out and the government may not consider adoption work and helping orphans a good enough reason for Dereje to enter the country but that's all the more reason to get as many of these kids into family's as possible! These orphans are the victims of a system that considers them of the lowest priority and they are not being cared for adequately. I have seen some of the most malnourished kids I have in my life here and they are the ones suffering, not us. We will find a way to keep coming back because this may be some of these kids' only hope.

It makes Sense!

"To God be the Glory" a Packers football player said in an interview just after winning the Super Bowl. "Cool" I thought. I was glad to see a football player giving God credit for the win. But then I started thinking about why we do that. Does God really have control over things as trivial as a football game? God didn't "help" him win so why do we give God the credit for it? I've realized that thanking God for all the things in our lives is more important then we recognize sometimes. As I thought about this, I came to understand further God's nature and how it connects to the suffering in the world.

I met Rona in the Philippines. She worked at the orphanage next to our house in Manila and I was able to have some wonderful conversations with her. She talked about her insecurity in God's care for his people. In the midst of her suffering country she can't make sense as to why God doesn't help, or at least help more. I told her that I believed that God does love them and wants the best for them, but they don't necessarily see his hand in the way they expect. God likes to use people, his servants to change the world. Her prayer should be that ordinary people see the issues in the world and become moved to act, some even to become missionaries and helping first hand. These people make themselves malleable to God to be used by Him to do awesome things for his kingdom. God strengthens them and grows them to become great people doing great things. And when these people look back on their work they see that there is no way they could have done anything on their own or made it this far without God's help. I believe that God gives people the ability and the passion to help (James 1:27). So it would be SO wrong for us to take any of the credit or the glory for what we do for ourselves. It's through Him that we receive the strength to do anything.

I think part of the reason why people doubt God's intervention in the suffering of the world because He isn't given enough credit for what He does do (Psalm 82:4). Everything we do is through God and we wouldn't be able to do anything on our own. So, yes. Praise God for all of the missions groups that travel the world helping in poverty stricken areas, taking care of orphans, and assisting widows in their distress (James 1:27). So when the football player looks to the sky after the win and praises God for it, he's thanking Him for the ability and strength to play that resulted in a win. We as well should give God the glory for all the wonderful things we have been able to do in our lives because "all good things are are a perfect gift from above" (James 1:17).

"Sometimes I would like to ask God why He allows poverty, suffering, and injustice when He could do something about it because I'm afraid he's going to ask me the same question."

Chill Day #2

I was suppose to leave for RENEW, the agency that rescues women from prostitution, today but due to a few unforsceen issues I wont be leaving till tomorrow, creating another day mostly for myself. It's a Monday so all of the social workers are at work and I got to catch up on journaling and email T'was sweet. I had the day to process and get mentally prepared for the next 4 days of my life. I know it might be intense, but I don't know how much. I dont know how much I can help due to my lack of experience, but I am going to learn a lot this week.

After lunch I went to hang out at the childrens home with the other social workers after they got home. I was hoping my buddy Paulo would remember me and I was overjoyed when he did.

He didn't leave my side all day, and when I walked away for a minute I came back to a confused boy scanning all the faces in the yard until he saw me and ran toward me with arms wide open :D And the most precious moment of the day occured when my very chapped lips started to bleed. My little 4 year old friend ran and got me a tissue and held it on my lip until it stopped. The concern on his face was my favortie as his "big-little" heart shown through. When it had stopped he asked, "better?". Yea buddy... much better :)

Chill day #1

My practicum with RENEW felt like it was going to fall through. I had to decide if I still wanted to go on the trip to the rescue house for sex trafficking. It is a 4 day long trip that I'd spend at a city 4 hours north of Manila so I would not be spending as much time with my group. 3 girls from "The World Race" that are living with us, who would have been so much fun to go with, can no longer come. And so I have to decide if I want to still go by myself. It not the safety that I'm worried about, but my competency to dothis alone. I have very little knowledge as to what I will be seeing and experiencing. I wont want to pass this opportunity up if they will allow me to go alone because I know it will be an experience unlike any other.

Since Christy and were the only 2 without assignment for the day we went to the children's home orphanage which is not more then 50 steps from where we live. The kids were more active then they were yesterday, and were a joy... what's new? And I got to hang out with one caretaker, Rona, whose main job is to run the nursery and other job is to entertain us :) I got to talk to her more and she ended up telling me her story of how she came to the children's home and how beinghere has changed her life and impacted her and her son. She used to be Muslim but became a Christian after seeing how much God has done for these children. She questions sometimes why God doesn't help more then he does. "There is so much bad things happening in my county" she said "why doesn't God do more". This is actually something that I've been thinking about for awhile now. "Sometimes God doesn't act directly from heaven but uses people like us to help". It is up to all of us to do our part and her prayer should be for other people to be changed and moved to help the needy. Tom Davis' book "scared" gives a very vivid image of this.

The rest of the day was Rona day and we accompanied her to yet another homeless feeding. I even tried the sloshy type stuff we were

serving and it wasn't that bad! The group of us after dinner went went back to play with the babies again and WOW (Rona's fav word :) the kids were OUT-RAGEOUS!! They were in these giggle fits that we could not snap them out of! I dont think I really wanted to either... My little friend, Paulo, who I met earlier was the source of it all. He and another boy, KenKen would start singing the Justin Bieber song "Baby", and would sometimes instead would sing "chicken" sending all the toddlers into a hysterical fit! I had to video it b/c it was worth remembering :)

Day 1 in Addis Ababa!

We arrived in Addis at 3 am this morning and I was immediately reminded why I had missed it so much. Alazar, our taxi driver friend (the dedicated fellow he is) picked us up at the airport and greeted us with a warm welcome. He took us to the New Flower Guest House where we stayed for a couple nights. The showers weren't working (Surprise!!) but I wasn't too upset because the only thing on my mind at that point was sleep. So instead, Christy and I just crashed to rest up for another crazy day of business that my mom had planned for us.
We woke up to a freshly cooked plate of scramble eggs and delicious Ethiopian Coffee... or buna. The day started out relaxing but the rest of the day was everything but. We visited 3 orphanages across the city and were so involved that by dinnertime we realized that we had completely forgotten about lunch! We spent the whole day playing with the kids, taking video of them to send to the families that would be adopting them, and giving them gifts and donations that we had brought with us. I was most excited to visit the transition house again and see the nannies that it had been a year since I last saw. I loved spending time with them last year as they laughed at my attempts to speak Amharic and taught me new words. They are all a lot of fun and most of them are about my age.I was also pleased when Nanny Chef (who's real name is Sanite, but that's not as much fun) was still happy to see me even after our monkey incident last year ;-). I really enjoy spending time with them, and I hope Christy and I can move to the transition house soon to spend more time with our nanny friends and the kids they take care of.