The attack began before I had my coffee on
departure day. Our former colleague and neighbor called to say that thieves had
forced their way into our place and taken some boxes the previous night. That really curbed my excitement about
getting back to our home…knowing that it had been compromised to some degree.
And the timing felt like this was not chance but a spiritual force of
discouragement and fear. We prayed and asked you to pray via the facebook
group. ;)
I had my coffee and breakfast, said goodbyes
to Mark’s family, and headed to the airport where things went well. We got all
six of our checked bags off of our hands with minimal rearranging of stuff from
one suitcase that exceeded weight limitations. I was feeling pretty emotional
when we took off from Austin. We prayed.
The flights and connections were pretty
uneventful with no delays or changes. We ate, watched movies, caught some
shuteye, etc. It passed pretty quickly and we were soon on African soil
again. It all felt so familiar so
quickly! The smell of cooking fires, the sight of motorcycle taxis waiting on
the side of the road, the sound of the white noise track on my phone that I use
when sleeping in hotels here.
That’s when the second onslaught came – in
the middle of the night in the hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. I’d been sleeping well
enough even though I’d heard Mark coughing some. About 2:30am, I asked how he
was doing, and he said he felt pretty sick. He had chills then was feverishly
hot. He was coughing so much and had hardly slept since we lay down at
9:30pm. We prayed and again asked for
your prayer support through Facebook. I read Psalms and eventually he slept and
woke up the next morning feeling pretty good.
We took a short domestic flight to the
Rwandan town that is on the border with Bukavu in Congo. And at the border,
again we met resistance. The immigration officials had no problems with our
documents, but there was a problem with the driver who had come to help with
our luggage. He’d taken a shortcut on his documentation and ended up stuck with
the car full of our luggage for 2.5 hours. Meanwhile, we crossed on foot, as is
normal, but a health department lady found a problem with my yellow fever card.
Mark got a bit hot under the collar with her. I crossed the bridge back and
forth a couple of times, trying to sort out these two problems. Entering both
Rwanda and Congo, there are people with digital thermometers who aim at you
when you pass by. They took my temperature 5 times, and I washed my hands in
chlorinated water 3 times when entering Congo! Mark was tired and
short-tempered. But finally we got a taxi and went to our place with just our
carry-ons.
We got to our apartments and found that, in
fact, thieves had only broken into the exterior entry way and taken some boxes
that were meant to be given away after we left in May! They didn’t enter our
apartment at all and in fact did us a favor by taking away some junk! That is
the moment when I started singing and breathing more easily. Our other luggage
eventually arrived and we slept. Also, we’ve had pretty good power, and our
water tank was full when we arrived. Now I am SO glad to be at our home in
Congo and thankful for victory in Christ!
