The Long Road to our Congo home

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!