Year of 2011

It’s been a little rough updating in 2011 so we wanted to have a look back and show you what the past year has held. Comment any questions that you have and we would be glad to answer them.

We experienced our Christmas in Pointe Noire with Fabienne and Nicaise’s family. For Christmas the kids all get their hair done and dress up. It is the cutest thing.

Fabienne and I are pictured here at the women’s retreat this past August. It was an amazing time together. It is nice to have good friends.

With new friends came new food. 2011 was a great year for getting to know the Congolese diet. In this picture is manioc (the one that looks like a worm J) and fish in a tomato sauce with some fried eggplant on the side. YUM

Avocado’s grow here but they are yellow on the inside so we made some yellow guacamole.

Sometimes we feel quite spoiled like the mornings when we get fresh beignets (fried dough balls, like doughnut holes) from down the street and a fresh mango. Of course Carma added some green tea to this special breakfast.

The sky here at the port can be so beautiful. We take a walk almost every evening when it is cooler. It’s the most beautiful time to walk.

Unfortunately, this beautiful scene is often interrupted by trash or oil. In this scene all of the black lines on the beach are oil from a spill offshore. It is sad to be reminded of how the world’s oceans are being polluted.

Right off the beach we have a mangrove filled with nesting white egrets. They are funny birds and quite a sight to see.

“Chaud, pain Chaud, Chaud…” It is the call of the bread sellers. It translates to “Hot, bread, hot, hot…” We hear it outside our house. If you want bread you call out “Chaud”. He finds where the call is coming from and then you go to the gate and buy some fresh bread.

Radio Sangu ya Mbote (Radio Good News) got their broadcast tower up this year. Nicaise is the leader of this successful 10 (going on 11) year Christian Radio operation.

This is Nicaise recording for the radio station. He will come over and talk to Wyman for hours to prep for his on air sermons. Wyman is also called over to help with electrical problems.

Nicaise asked Steve Clouser to come as a guest speaker on the radio. He gave his four day seminar in front of the Radio Station.

Steve Clouser is a long time friend. Wyman and he enjoyed being together, goofing off in their free time.

This is the church in Mbukou. Honorine is currently heading the church. It may not look like much, but it has a roof and the bamboo siding allows the breeze to roll through. God is working in this little village church.

This is Honorine translating Wyman’s sermon into Munakatuba.

Our women’s group got together in Mboukou for a retreat over several days to pray and fast as well as celebrate life in Christ. We are coming from prayer at the house Wyman built. We had the money to build a concrete church instead of the bamboo one, but Honorine said that the bamboo church was fine. She suggested that we build a house in hopes that God will provide a pastor. In the meantime, Honorine is the leader of the church and is using the house as a part of her ministry.

This is the site of a church plant that Wyman and Jean-Philippe are working on in the village of Tchiamba-Nzazi. These are remains of an old structure that Wyman is considering to use as a foundation or a new building. We are looking financial support to get his building up and a church started here.

Last year we had the pleasure of working with a team from Georgetown, Ontario, Canada, to set up an English Camp. We enjoyed teaming with them to teach English and share the gospel of Jesus at the same time. They inspired this year’s upcoming program to help addicts in Pointe Noire. There is a huge alcohol problem here; we will be counseling addicts through the beginning steps of recovery from their addictions. We are currently in need of funds to support this new endeavor.

Wyman leads the construction of offices at the Center for Christian Studies. He is hoping to finish them soon.

The construction of this church building was halted for several years.  Wyman is helping this congregation to finish the work that was started so that they can have a suitable place to worship.

This coming year, we are going to begin a sewing class as one of our first initiatives to train women skills to be used to supplement their income. Honorine makes pictures like this one and sells them to make a living. Each picture has a Bible verse that goes with it. This one is Proverbs 31:27, “She does not eat the bread of idleness”. 

Part of Wyman’s ministry is to pray for the sick. Children are often sick in this area and infant mortality is high.

 Children make up half of our congregations in most churches. They are half of the general population, but they are mainly ignored in terms of ministry and within the society. Reaching children needs to be a priority within our local churches.

This is the neighborhood where the Jean-Philippe provides for just shy of 100 orphans. He provides homes for street children and trade training to help get the young adults financially stable enough to get off the streets. He is also the pastor of a church in the same compound as the orphanage and has planted two more churches. Jean- Philippe also has a full time job for a government. It is a privilege to work with him.

In June we returned to the States to celebrate the marriage of our oldest daughter, Lindsay, to a fine, young man from Burma, Lamin Oo. Wyman had the privilege of marrying them. It was a joyous event.
 

During that time we went to visit Wyman’s family in Minnesota. This is Wyman and our daughter Andrea kayaking in Upper Bottle Lake there.

Unfortunately, Wyman made an unexpected trip back to Minnesota later that summer for his mother’s funeral. This is a picture taken during the time of our earlier visit. Ardis will be greatly missed.

 Our son, Joel, started his Masters program in Creative Writing this year. He is a budding, young poet. Lindsay will graduate this coming June with her MS in Social Work. She is interested in counseling children in trauma. Our youngest daughter, Andrea,  will graduate with her BFA in art with a minor in philosohy from the University of the Arts this May. We are so proud of our children.

 Drea, got to bring in the New Year with us here in Congo. She gets one trip paid for by the Christian and Missionary Alliance so she took it this winter before she graduates from college. What a blessing to have her with us.

 Our barefoot, Congolese Christmas.

We end this look back into 2011 with a picture at our New Year’s celebration in 2012. 

Hot little peppers

The photo shows some of the local produce. These are strange looking little peppers. They are strange and hot. They are the long slow burn type of pepper. I know. I used two of the little critters in a chicken and plantain dish that I made. At first it did not seem to hot but as we continued to eat the temperature continued to go up and up. Not the instant fire effect, slow burn that lasts. Not exactly what I expected from the little peppers. It did spice up the bland French recipe that called for green peppers.

Life here is often not what you expect. There is a bridge building project just down the hill from where we live. Currently there is a one lane bridge over the stream. They are building a new two lane bridge. In the process they have broken our water main twice and we spent nine days without water. (We have a cistern so we were not without but we did get very low). When we got water back the first time I noticed that the float valve was broken and as I watch a piece fell to the bottom of the cistern. I recovered the piece by taking a swim only to find out that two more pieces needed to be fixed. One needs to be remade totally. (You can’t buy replacement parts here, only the whole assembly). I am trying to close the hole in the float with epoxy glue. Until the project comes together I need to regulate the level of water in the cistern with a shutoff valve. You may ask “Why not buy a new valve?” Good question. The answer I have is that it is $80 US. I can buy one in the US for $20. So I will fix this one for now.

The good news is that we have water and we can try to flush the long slow burn chili pepper out of our systems. Next time I will use only one hot pepper. Well that is all for today from Pointe Noire, where things are often not what they seem to be.

Christmas in Pointe Noire

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

from Pointe Noire

The weather here in PN does not feel at all like Christmas, more like the 4th of July. Soon we will have the longest day of the year in the Southern hemisphere. Last year we were in the Alps, this is the tropics. We could not resist the temptation to have our picture taken with Santa. The owner of the store is Indian and when Carma wished him a Merry Christmas he responded that it is not his holiday. For him it is a chance to make money, which is the reason he is here. Christmas is our reason for being here. God sent his son into the world so that we might have life. This life is offered to everyone.

Year-end Giving: Some people may wish to give a year-end gift. Gifts to the Great Commission Fund are used for our support. This pays for our salary, insurance, housing and travel costs.

A gift to Nelson Work- Congo allows us to purchase things that are necessary for our work here. I, Wyman, have used these funds to buy tools, cement and Bibles for distrubution.

A gift to Nelson Outfit-Congo will help us buy things for our house. Items on the list include a washing machine and an air conditoner.

A gift to Nelson Vehicle-Congo will help us buy a vehicle for our work here.

See the side panel for the link for giving.

Problem solved

For the last couple of months I have been spending a lot of my time working on remodeling offices at the Christian Education Center here in Pointe Noire. I finally solved the lighting problem for the space which will serve as the office for the church district.

What do you think of my solution? Now if I could only solve the rain problem.
Actually, I removed the metal roof to fix termite damage to the wood and replace the roof.

Visit to Mboukou

On Saturday morning we found a taxi and we went to an area on the edge of town where you can get an out of town taxi. We took a ride up the National Route 1 which will eventually connect Pointe Noire and Brazzaville (the capital). The road that has been redone is in great shape, but unfortunately, that does not last for long. Mboukou is only 30 miles by road from Pointe Noire but It takes 1.5 hours to get there. Village life is very different than city life. The pace is more relaxed; you might say too relaxed. Our objective was to visit the church there and to get a feel for church planting outside the city. It is our only village church in this area. There are other villages where we could plant churches but we don’t have pastors who want to serve outside the city. Leadership is crucial for any new works so we are investigating ways to train leadership for the future churches in the surrounding villages.

Village life is very different than city life. We were in Mboukou during some of the World Cup matches and missed the US vs. Ghana game. The village does not have electricity but some people have generators, TV’s and satellite dishes. You can watch the World Cup if you pay admission. We tried to rent a TV and DVD player to show the Jesus film but there were none available because of the World Cup. We will try again in the next few months before the rains come.

Moving on up

We spent a busy weekend packing and moving from our one bedroom apartment to a larger upstairs apartment vacated by one of our colleagues. The move was scheduled to happen in July but because of the medical evacuation of the former resident the date was moved forward. Our co-worker is receiving medical treatment in the US and will stay there for at least a year. The first challenge was to pack their belongings and store them. The second was to move our stuff out of storage and from the one bedroom apartment into the new location.Don’t ask how many trips I made up and down the stairs.

I wished to post a photo of our new view towards the port of Pointe Noire. Technical problems make posting photos a challenge. I will try to post the photo soon. We get a nice breeze here and are not dependent on air conditioning like we were in the other apartment.

Looking to the SW we can see the port of Pointe Noire. The port is lit up every night while other parts of the city are dark. The ships line up and wait to be unloaded or loaded. There is a stream that flows into the bay not far from our apartment. There are interesting birds to be seen. A crested hoopoe visits our yard and speckled mousebirds rob our ripe papayas.

Hello from the Republic of Congo!

We are getting settled in Pointe Noire and are spending most of our time learning about the country and this city. Here are some of the things that we discovered.

Where is Congo? What is it like?

The Republic of Congo is found in Central Africa and shares a border with Cameroun, Central African Republic to the north, the Democratic Republic of Congo to the east and south, the small exclave of Angola to the south, and Gabon to the west. It is a little bigger than Italy and has almost 2.5 million people who live in the south mainly in the two main cities, Brazzaville (the capital) and Pointe Noire (the economic center and port). The northern section of the country is mainly rain forest. Congo is located on the equator and has a tropical climate with an average temperature of 75 degrees.

What are we doing here?

Our main priority will be to help the local churches grow and plant other churches in and around the city of Pointe Noire. We will also help the pastors develop leaders in their own congregations. We will work in cooperation with the CEC-PN (Christian Leadership Center-Pointe Noire) in this task.

How can we help?

You can pray for us.

1. We are looking for God’s guidance. We are not sure how and where to start our work here.

2. Pray for our housing. We are looking for housing as well and not sure what to do. We are living in a guest house now which is a little small but larger than what we were used to in France.

3. Pray for your participation with us in the ministry here. You play an important role in all aspects of our ministry here. We are excited about what God will do in and through us as we begin this journey together in the Congo.