Seeking God's Peace in Africa

Dear Friends and Family,

First, my thanks for your prayers, your love and support.

Second, my apologies for not writing in a month.

Third… well, where to begin?

The last time I wrote, I asked for prayer about visas, vehicle registration and travel.  I want to thank you for your prayers—all went well.  The entire Davis family has legal residency in Congo for the next 5 years!  The Davis vehicle is also a legal resident; and my trip to the countryside went well, with only one flat tire (in the center of a busy market) and a worthwhile training with village farmers.  See the pictures for more—passports, license plate, and Tovah and Lami with sugarcane and pumpkin from the farm.

As things have opened up and we have enjoyed success in some areas, we must also say that this month has had its share of challenges:

• We face the frustrations of constant begging—as we walk, in our home, at church, or in town.  It’s a struggle to handle it in the right way, and to always show love.
• We are forced to deal with deceit constantly—even among those you’d hope you could trust, within the church and even our own local organization.  We find it discouraging and destructive, and are looking for ways to address it and establish integrity as a norm in our relationships and work.
• We are confronted by issues of power—where people use their position in unjust ways, to extort, or to control others.   We hope that we can address it in our school and programs to establish that grades are earned and that even teachers must submit to the law of the school.
• We are sapped by logistical tasks—electricity, water, internet, housing, bureaucracy…we are trying to be patient and to accept that everything does not work as well as it did in Kenya (or the US.)

Still, we recognize that there is work to be done!  That we have an opportunity to be agents of change in the small spheres of influence that we have, and that through it all we hope to show people Jesus’ love for all—even for those who lie, who extort, who cheat and steal.  Please pray for courage and wisdom in our work.

Thank you again for your concern for the people of Congo.

God Bless,

Davis and Jen

Dear Friends and Family,

First, my thanks for your prayers, your love and support.

Second, my apologies for not writing in a month.

Third… well, where to begin?

The last time I wrote, I asked for prayer about visas, vehicle registration and travel.  I want to thank you for your prayers—all went well.  The entire Davis family has legal residency in Congo for the next 5 years!  The Davis vehicle is also a legal resident; and my trip to the countryside went well, with only one flat tire (in the center of a busy market) and a worthwhile training with village farmers.  See the pictures for more—passports, license plate, and Tovah and Lami with sugarcane and pumpkin from the farm.

As things have opened up and we have enjoyed success in some areas, we must also say that this month has had its share of challenges:

• We face the frustrations of constant begging—as we walk, in our home, at church, or in town.  It’s a struggle to handle it in the right way, and to always show love.
• We are forced to deal with deceit constantly—even among those you’d hope you could trust, within the church and even our own local organization.  We find it discouraging and destructive, and are looking for ways to address it and establish integrity as a norm in our relationships and work.
• We are confronted by issues of power—where people use their position in unjust ways, to extort, or to control others.   We hope that we can address it in our school and programs to establish that grades are earned and that even teachers must submit to the law of the school.
• We are sapped by logistical tasks—electricity, water, internet, housing, bureaucracy…we are trying to be patient and to accept that everything does not work as well as it did in Kenya (or the US.)

Still, we recognize that there is work to be done!  That we have an opportunity to be agents of change in the small spheres of influence that we have, and that through it all we hope to show people Jesus’ love for all—even for those who lie, who extort, who cheat and steal.  Please pray for courage and wisdom in our work.

Thank you again for your concern for the people of Congo.

God Bless,

Davis and Jen

It is strange to be in Africa and to be using US Dollars.  But that is what it is here.  The Congolese currency is Congolese Francs, know here as “waCongoman”.  Currently there are 800 Francs to a Dollar, and the biggest denomination they print is a 500 Franc note; which means if you should need to pay for a big ticket item, say a refrigerator for $600, and you were to use Congolese Francs, you would need to hand over a minimum of 960 Congolese bills, which would mean you were lucky enough to find that much in 500’s which is unlikely (or impossible.)

It’s also unlikely that the vendor would accept it, because first of all the franc is an unstable currency and nobody wants to wake up one morning and find out that the $600 worth of francs under their mattress is suddenly worth nothing more than toilet paper.  Secondly, people don’t want vast amounts of francs because they are filthy.  It’s the same reason you wouldn’t hide them under your mattress—they reek, and you need to boil your hands afterwards (the toilet paper joke is not funny, if you think about it too much.)  The Congolese are a very clean and hygiene conscious—they don’t like the dirty money either.  It’s also a bad idea to accept too much in Congolese francs (especially the 500s) because you might have fakes.  Someone with a color-copier has printed out thousands of 500s, covered them with an acceptable level of dirt to make them unnoticeable (and undesirable to inspect closely) and has circulated them into the money stream.  Finally, it’s completely impractical to use just francs—it is like trying to buy a dishwasher with nickels, and unless you are trying to make a statement, it’s quite inconvenient.

So, in Congo we use dollars.  Since we don’t use quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, anything less than a dollar is done in Francs.   Since all Francs are bills, there are no coins in the system.  The smallest bill is 10 francs (1.25 US cents), which, although completely useless, is often pleasantly clean from disuse.  

I can only imagine what the “money” chapter is like in the 4^th grade math curriculum.  I have included some math story problems for your solving enjoyment.

1.)    A case of 24 sodas costs $15 dollars.  If you buy 12 at the same price, how much change will you get if you pay with a $20 bill.  Please use dollars and francs in your answer.

2.)    Because the vendor has no change for your $50, you pay $20 and 9200 waCongoman for 9 kilos of dried fish.  (Moreover, the fishmonger is less concerned about the dirtiness/smelliness of Congolese Francs.  You are secretly pleased not to be receiving change back from the fishmonger)  How much does a kilo of fish cost?  Please give two answers, one in dollars, one in Francs.

Answers can be posted in the comments section.  The winner receives 50 francs!

Dear Friends and Family!

It’s hard to believe we have been here for a month!  We have kept busy—but not necessarily the doing what we anticipated….this is Congo.  So, while my passion is teacher training and improving the learning experience for students, I have worked mainly with administration—money, salaries, trying to figure out the best way to keep our fees low to serve our population in the Keredi Slum.  This is not an easy balance, while we also try to pay teachers a decent salary.  

As a school we pay our teachers the government recommended salary—something not even the government pays.  But we also charge the lowest school fees in Bukavu--$1.50 a month or $15 a year, providing an education and free meals for some 600+ students.  Unfortunately the disparity between cost and income is a burden.  We are trying to work out ways to raise school fees for those who can afford to pay a little more, without losing those who can’t.  We are also working on developing scholarships that can be donated from abroad, or given by local Congolese churches.  None of these decisions are top-down executive actions….they demand lots of discussion, research and consensus; and this takes time.

I can only have so many meetings a week, so our time is also spent working on our house.  We have rented a house from Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF—the ones who fly the planes into the inaccessible areas of the world carrying aid, medicine, literature, patients, missionaries, etc.)  It is a nice house although badly neglected since the war.  It has bullet holes at one end, but otherwise it is intact.  So far I have….repaired the roof that was leaking, replaced ceiling boards that were rotten, plastered cracks from the earthquake last year, re-plumbed sinks and toilet, rewired interior lights, added exterior security lights, painted the interior, and added curtains.  I’m sure that makes the house sound like a gem, but for further insight you can read Jen’s entry on our blog found here.

This month has also been a month of orientation.  We love our Congolese church—I (Davis) have gotten a chance to meet once with the youth and to preach, Jen has joined the ladies group (she will be hosting them all tomorrow), but the girls find it very tedious to sit for 3 hours while everyone speaks a language they don’t know….please pray for them to endure, to learn Swahili, and for wisdom in addressing this situation.

We are also enjoying lots of new friends.  Part of our orientation is just asking questions and listening to stories.  We eat lunch with our staff every day and probe them for as much information as we can.  Often talking takes a lot more time than lunch.  Speaking of friends, one of our friends is Chantalle, who has been helping us get this house into shape, and is a new mom (for the fifth time.)  Imagine, on Monday she was helping us clean, and on Tuesday (my birthday) she had a 10 pound baby girl!  Jen went to visit her in the hospital to take her food and see the baby.  See picture.

Logistics also consumes our time.  Please pray for our passports with our visas to come soon!!!  Jen and the girls are here legally until June 8^th, but seeing as we don’t have passports, we can only stay put and wait.  Again…something for prayer.  Also, an answer to prayer and also a prayer need—our car is finally being licensed for Congo, but I had to pay $2900 today!  In order to decrease the fee they valued our vehicle at only $1900, but still customs and registration cost 150% more!  Finally, please pray as I make my first trip into the “interior” tomorrow, driving out to ELI’s farm—an initiative to empower local farmers.  Pray for safety and a trip with no breakdowns.

That’s our news.  If you want more of the daily stuff, please visit our blog, http://davisandjen.blogspot.com where you will find these emails and a couple more entries.

God Bless,

Davis

Pictures:  The girls and some of their friends—eating beignets and climbing the mango tree.

Most of Bukavu’s car-owning community roll through the streets in SUVs—Toyota Landcruisers are the most common followed by Mitsubishi Pajeros—cars that take a daily beating driving from home to the office, and may very well need 4 wheel drive if it rains.  We are blessed to have a Nissan Patrol—a white ex-UN vehicle with bullet holes in the back that is powerful and unstoppable and equipped with a big roof-rack, winch, bullbars, bushlights, and seating for 8.  But I seldom drive my own car.  

I walk in places cars can’t go (and when I have time), take “taxis” on certain routes (a Taxi in Bukavu is a Toyota Corrolla that drives a set route--one with relatively passable sections of pavement, picking up as many passengers as can fit for $0.45), and most often take Motos.  

Local transport is one of the best ways of interacting with the local community and supporting business.  It’s also the best way to get around when you don’t know the city.  “Take me to the Ministry of Transport” you can say authoritatively (as if you know where you’re going) and that is the best way to find out where things are.

Moto’s are something special.  Often driven by ex-soldiers, you start by bargaining a price (usually less then $0.50) then you climb on the seat behind the driver who hands you a “helmet”—a piece of plastic or Styrofoam that is mainly a formality to avoid being hassled by the police.  Of 100 or so rides so far, I have only encountered 2 helmets that were capable of A.) staying on in the event of an accident  B.) providing any fraction of safety.  Still everyone must wear one, and little thought is put into it, except by women who have just done their hair (the police are understanding about this) and for those who fear lice—can wear a plastic bag inside the helmet also provided by the driver.

Helmeted and perched on the motorcycle holding onto a handle behind your seat, your ride begins.  The motorcycle swerves around potholes, past cars, and through crowds of people beeping all the way.  On downhills the driver cuts the engine to save gas, but must start it again when the hill ends (or when he needs power to the horn to beep at someone.)  Some drivers talk to you, asking questions and opening opportunities to share about God’s peace and love; others stay silent—perhaps they find the ride as terrifying as you do.

It’s a ride filled with peril and prayer; perhaps the closest people feel to God in a long time.  For me, my record is 9 death-defying motorcycle rides in one day.  I was almost sainted on that day.

So next time you want to take stock of your life while running an errand to an obscure government office, I encourage you to take a Moto.

I walk the girls to school at 8am every day.  It takes almost half an hour – probably almost a mile; a bit far for two little girls, but they haven’t complained as yet, and I’m sure they behave a lot better at school, having gotten all that energy out on the way.  When we pass the two UN compounds (the camp for Pakistani UN soldiers and the Hospital and Administrative blocks are opposite each other, a couple hundred meters from our house) there’s always lots of traffic.  Many days they have to wear gum boots and change into shoes when we get there, because the rain makes the dirt road very muddy.  I do pick them up at lunch, instead of walking (because it’s hotter then and they’re hungry), but I feel like it’s important that we walk and see “real” life.  It would be so easy to become insulated – if we were to leave our little compound in our car and drive, we wouldn’t have daily contact with people other than the kids at school (who lead lives similar to ours) and the people that work at our house.  

We live at the beginning of the Peninsula called “Muhumba”.  The girls’ school is almost at the tip of this peninsula.  Here’s a sampling of what we would miss if we were to drive instead: 

- Lots and lots of UN vehicles in and out of the UN compounds – some are air-conditioned land cruisers full of “suits” on their way to offices and meetings. Some are land rovers full of soldiers in blue helmets (les casques bleus); their “peacekeeping” mission involves supporting Congo’s own army, which is known for pillaging small villages, raping women or running away if the fighting gets too intense.  Is it my own biases I’m reading, or do these soldiers so far from their homes, wear expressions of despair?

 - Men and women walking to their jobs in people’s homes and gardens or in some NGO’s office on this peninsula.  Women wear brilliantly colored and artfully tailored skirts and shirts made from Kitenge cloth; many men wear shirts fashioned out of the same cloth, elegantly embroidered at the cuffs and collars.  If they work as housekeepers or gardeners, they carry a change of clothes, but for the walk to work, they are decked out in all their finery. 

 - Several small shops set up on wooden boxes under trees or umbrellas – featuring bananas, soap, tomato paste, avocados, bread, shoe repair, phone credit, lollipops, sodas…  Often there is a group of people gathered around, chatting and laughing.  Someone always calls out “Bon jour les enfants”, smiling at my girls.

- Beggars.  Sometimes we open our gate and able-bodied adults are waiting; they let their hands fall out in the question that’s too obvious to ask out loud.  Sometimes kids along the way see us and drop what they’re playing with to come over and ask us wazungu for something.  Often, there are people who seem to practice begging as their full time professions – they have letters and stories and interesting anatomy to show you, all to prove you should give them 500 francs.  Somehow they’ve missed that the population of Muhumba isn’t that big and they told me this same story last week.  I usually say we like to help people, but this is a bad way. 

- Lots and lots of “motos” - motorcycle taxis.  Many have multicolored plaques on the front with a word or two – like “Karibu” (welcome), “Kiss Me” or “Pardon”.  This last one made me laugh out loud – I have narrowly missed being hit by motos several times.  Often passengers are wearing their helmets backwards, which also makes me secretly happy.

- Muhumba’s one cow with the long horns, and the teenaged boy who “herds” her up and down the peninsula.

- Land cruisers belonging to OxFam, UNHCR, Save the Children, War Child, Malteser, etc., etc., etc. – there are lots of NGOs in Bukavu…

It’s not all that different from other cities I’ve been to in Africa, but there are subtle reminders that this region is still a conflict zone.  The UN and the myriad NGOs seem innocuous, but if it weren’t for the war, they wouldn’t be here.  There is also this sense of mistrust and fear that permeate so many facets of life.  Davis and I have commented that in our conversations, it’s sometimes hard to know if things said are based on reality, based on fears of the unknown or if we’re just being lied to.  We’ve heard that the motorcycle taxi drivers are often former Congolese soldiers and if you ride them at night, you’re taking your life in your hands. We’ve heard from several places that people who have had white people in their homes later experience harassment or worse, since if they know white people, they must be hoarding all the money they’ve obviously received from them.  Can this be true?  If it’s true, it’s depressing and if it’s not true, the thought that people are lying to us about this or might believe it out of fear are also depressing...

Yesterday as we walked, Tovah said, when I grow up I want to be a UN soldier, and I’ll go and tell people they need to stop their wars.  We had some interesting conversation about that – I promise I didn’t get too deep with my almost 5 year old about my conflicted feelings for the UN.  Shortly after that we passed a woman who was standing on the side of the road preaching in Swahili – “Where are you going with your life?  God loves you, but we can’t go on like this!  We are your women – we are your wives and sisters and daughters and mothers.  Where are you taking us in this life?...”.  Her congregation – a group of 6 young men sitting across the road at one of the small shops, were all laughing.  Tovah asked what the woman was saying, and I told her.  She asked why the men were laughing, and I told her partly because what the woman was saying made them nervous – uncomfortable (I restrained myself again, neglecting to mention to my five year old that I thought maybe the other part was that they were nincampoops).  She asked, “Why is the woman doing that?” and I told her, she’s uncomfortable too.  She knows bad things are happening, but she doesn’t know what exactly to do.  What can she do but cry out against it – just like how you want to go and tell people to stop their wars – she’s asking people to stop this war.   But it’s not easy, is it…

By Jen

If you were going to house-sit for us, here are some of the things you’d need to know.  First, as in any good house in Africa, there is some important plumbing info.  The kitchen has hot and cold taps, they both turn on and off and they are on the sides you are probably accustomed to, however, don’t be alarmed if the cold water comes out rust-red or if the hot water doesn’t come out at all.   If there is no hot water, you need to fill the hot water tank on the roof.  Just turn the knob located in the large bathroom, above the tub.  Don’t forget you’ve turned it on or in about 20 minutes, you will have gallons of water pouring off your roof.  The sink in the main bathroom has 2 taps, but the hot water does not turn on and the cold water does not turn off.  There is one more bathroom off the master bedroom.  It also has 2 taps, but only the hot water tap works.  Wash your hands quickly if you don’t want to be scalded – our hot water heater works great!  The shower in there is the best thing about this house (if you can get past the smell of sweaty gym socks, which we hope we can eventually tile over).  The water pressure is great, it usually drains well and most of the time you can regulate the temperature so it’s warm and not scalding or freezing – though this takes a little practice.  The toilets work well, but the one in the main bathroom needs to be flushed with a bucket of water.  

On to the electrical wiring, none of which reeeally matters, since the Bukavu electricity will turn off the moment you turn the knob of you front door, or when you’re cake is 10 minutes away from being baked or when you are ready for your morning cup of tea…  Sometimes in the evening, after you’ve put the kids to bed the power will come back on at a voltage high enough to light the incandescent bulbs in their room (which you forgot to turn off), but not to light the fluorescent bulbs in the rest of the house.  At this point, you might want to go to the garage to see if one of the 3 lines that connects your house to the grid is working better than the other two, so you can switch to the strongest one.  You can use a tester for this, or just jiggle them and see which one makes your heart feel more funny than the others and sends showers of sparks onto your bare feet.  Eventually we’ll get a generator, and then we’ll be able to stumble around in the dark with fuel and wires, etc.  so we can stay up till 9pm, at which point we’ll crash, exhausted, into bed.

The Kitchen is nice enough – it’s not pretty right now, but it’s a good size and things generally work (when the power is on – so basically exactly when you’re not using things).  If you want to use the stove or oven, your guess is as good as ours about which direction to turn the knobs in.  There is a circle painted on the stove above each knob – if you point the knob to this circle, we think that means the burners and the oven are off.  It could also mean the power is out coincidentally while the knobs are pointing to the circles.  From there, there are several settings, but none of them are marked.  We take a stab at it (“hmmm, I think I’ll try turning it 2 clicks to the left today…”), knowing the power is going to go off at some point while we’re cooking anyway.  Basically there is a perpetually cooking pot of beans on the stove and something in the oven and we randomly turn knobs throughout.  When it’s hot, it’s hot and we eat it.  The fridge in the kitchen works (when the power is on); the fridge in the living room does not.  We are using it as a mouse and roach-proof pantry at the moment, till more of our rubber maid containers and tins come in the truck in a few weeks.  One more thing about the kitchen – it is inhabited by millions of tiny ants, who will swarm over any dirty dishes left in the sink.  They are harmless and you will feel quite powerful when you put down your tea cup in the morning and they scatter like so many New Yorkers when King Kong comes walking down Broadway. 

The reddish patina on your socks and pressure points is paint which comes off of our cement floor.  It washes out ok.   

The bedrooms are self explanatory.  Just remember that your curtains are see-through and that there is a guard patrolling your yard at all times.

The yard, by the way, is wonderful.  You will not believe you’re in the middle of such a big city.  It has 7 mango trees, 3 orange trees, a grapefruit tree, 2 avocado trees, 2 lemon trees, a guava tree and several other trees I can’t identify.  The grapefruits are particularly refreshing after you’ve used them to play a round of lawn bowls.  Please be careful not to step on our “guard” dogs; they get their feelings hurt easily.

I think that’s all.  Welcome to Bukavu!

By Davis

In the city of Bukavu you often see people carrying tools.  Sometimes a hammer or a saw, more often a trowel or a mason’s square.  I asked Mudekereza why they carried those;  Just one tool? Where are they going with just one tool?  Is that the only tool they have?

“He is a mason.” Replied Mudekereza.  “oh” I said dumbly.  I mean, I kind of figured, but, right, of course.  “You see,” continued Mudekereza, “if he didn’t carry a tool, you wouldn’t know he was a mason.  Now he has identified himself by carrying a tool, because….well, you never know.”  The others walking with us laughed—“You never know!” they all chimed.

Few people are employed by companies here.  Most ply their wares or skills on the street, and someone without consistent employment must be ready at all times.  So the saying, “you never know.”  Mudekereza says it comes from a survival mentality—when opportunities come only occasionally you need to be ready at all times. 

“That’s why people used to carry an empty bag at all times during the war.” Continues Mudekereza.  “A bag for what?” I ask.  “In case someone gives you something, of course!  So that you have something to carry it in.”  “Like what?” I persist.  “Well….” he says patiently, “…you never know.”

Dear Friends and Family,

I know you have gotten a lot of emails from us recently, perhaps it’s because we finally have some news, and perhaps because we feel the need for your prayers!  So, thank you for your prayers, and your emails and kind words—both are encouraging.  We are slowly learning more about our new home, but Bukavu is a challenging place.  The electricity is often off, and while we have a generator coming, cooking gas is not available in Bukavu for our camp stove, so we have found ourselves eating sandwiches for dinner or cooking over a kerosene burner.

Food is difficult to get and has to be purchased from passing merchants, or from the limited selection at the over-priced import shop, or within several of the many markets in the city—a task challenging because of the distance, our limited knowledge, and haggling which is exhausting because people assume we should pay more as foreigners and there is always an audience.  So while we are not keen to have a cook, we have hired one for 3 days a week who can do our shopping a couple times a week.  The mission compound we are renting requires a night watchman, and a groundsman (who is currently attacking the overgrowth of neglect for the past 14 years).  We have also hired a woman who is helping us clean this house and settle in.  Having a staff of 4 is a little overwhelming, but we are glad we can provide jobs, and we are trying to be good employers and to make tough decisions like how much to pay people in an economy where such jobs pay only $50-$100 a month.

Logistically, I have spent a lot of time at the immigration office, and now all our passports have been sent off to Kinshasa for processing (scary) to get work permits and long-term visas, and more time trying to get my car registered locally without paying the $6000 they are suggesting.  All other paperwork seems to be done—we have registered with all the various ministries and the police.  Everyone has to give you permission to stay, and of course everyone has a fee for you to pay.  Money is a challenge here as there are no ATM machines, and only two banks: one which has no money, and one which advertises ATM machines (which it does not have.)  I opened an account at the latter today, which seems legit (it has money and people in suits in it.)  So hopefully we will be able to start receiving our salary soon.

The girls did their first day of school today.  They did well, came back with lots of stories (mainly tattle-tales) and Elami says she already speaks French (“I peeped wench mama!”).  We also got 2 dogs today.  They are local mongrels - a lanky puppy Tovah has named “Shotsi” (no meaning given), and a porky puppy Lami has named “Woofy”.  Shotsi seems to be adjusting well, Woofy seems to have a fear everything and a penchant for squeezing into small spaces and whining (after which he flees in terror if you come to the rescue.)  

Our house is old and in need of lots of work.  I would list things, but that would take too long.  In some respects it seems the house should just be replaced instead of repaired, perhaps by one of those “Extreme Re-model” shows, but labor here is inexpensive even if hardware is mostly Chinese stuff designed to Congolese tastes.  We are trying to prioritize the work, and to keep it from becoming a distraction.

So….what about our work?  We have been here one week so far, and we have asked for a couple weeks to get settled in, but already I have had a few administrative meetings and there are more planned, as well as a trip out to ELI’s farm out in the country this week.  It appears my experience in school admin and teacher training will be very useful not only to ELI’s school but hopefully also to the broader community of schools.  There also seem to be lots of opportunities in youth ministry—a crucial ministry not only because of the trials of any teen life, but also because of the looming threats of AIDS, and the prevalence of violence and sexual predation in Congo.  

On Sunday we enjoyed going to a very Lutheran and a very Congolese church.  We did the full liturgy—sung with beautiful Congolese fullness and harmony.  When the hymns were sung the church vibrated with the tremendous percussion section made entirely from USAID food aid cans—some turned into drums, others into shakers.  After the service the men met with me, and the women with Jen, who has been invited to join the women’s group who buy food on Monday, cook it on Tuesday, and serve it in the Bukavu Jail on Wednesday.

We have been touched by the faith of a people who have seen the worst of humanity, yet still praise God in the face of poverty and trials, and claim his miracles daily.  We have been challenged by how well they put their faith to action—the women feeding prisoners in a jail that makes US prisons seem like the Hilton, the watchman who finishes his nightshift and goes to the church to wash chairs, the many who speak of God’s goodness to them throughout the war which claimed millions here in Eastern Congo.  Even while we face the challenges of toilets that don’t flush, electricity that is undependable, bureacracies that seem designed by lunatics (the Belgians?), corrupt policemen and soldiers determined to get bribes……we are reminded and challenged by those who face far greater trials and still say, “God is good.  We are blessed.”

That’s our news.  Sorry if this is a rather long and tangential email.  We seem to have a lot of stuff to say these days J, we may try putting more of the daily news on our blog as to not clog your inbox.  You can find our blog at: http://davisandjen.blogspot.com/ 

Thank you again for your support and love.

God Bless,

Davis for all the Davises

I leave you with this Franciscan benediction:

May God bless you with discomfort

At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships

So that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger

At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people,

So that you may work for justice, freedom and peace

May God bless you with tears

To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger and war,

So that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and

To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness

To believe that you can make a difference in the world,

So that you can do what others claim cannot be done

To bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.

Hello again Friends,

We have arrived in Bukavu!  What a trip – we felt very well prayed for.  Things went as smoothly as they could have gone – even the road was smooth (ish) most of the way.  As Davis described it to a friend, we didn’t have to go lower than 3^rd gear at any point on the highway to Kigali (although we were in 1^st gear sometimes on the way to Bukavu) – maybe that helps you picture it better, maybe you just need to come visit us some time J.  The girls did well, without even one complaint of car-sickness, let alone the usual tag-team vomiting.  They even slept well in all the new places along the way.

We all enjoyed seeing new parts of East Africa, especially western Uganda.  As we passed green hillsides dotted with contented cows, property borders marked with rows of tall old trees, homes built of clay bricks, Davis wondered aloud if this was what God meant when he asked people to work the land and take care of it.  We didn’t pass even one McDonalds on this road trip, but this wasn’t completely wild bush either.  Ironically, the fact that it was somewhere between nature overpowered by suburbia and nature completely untouched made for some interesting potty breaks – well, interesting to the locals and bit harrowing for me.

Besides doing the driving, Davis took care of the border-crossing paperwork and dodging bribe requests, veiled and otherwise – as in this one from a guard between Uganda and Rwanda: “My favorite team is Arsenal – I’d really like an Arsenal jersey…”  “Pole bwana, I’m a Liverpool fan – maybe next time.”  Each border-crossing took about an hour and a half; immigration for us was quick and easy, but getting the car through took a bit more time and effort.  We made it though, and now we are hoping that the process of importing it to DRC is not too expensive or time-consuming.  Davis has been working on that today.

Yesterday morning I thought to myself, “God made the trip so smooth and enjoyable so that our first day in Bukavu wouldn’t make us pack up and head right back out again.”  Suffice it to say, being awoken in the night by crying girls and falling mosquito nets, waking up in a house that hasn’t had a lot of maintenance done in the last 12 years or so, several callers at the gate wanting work (the earliest coming at 6:15), an early power-outage that meant no morning cup of tea, several appointments falling through and being stopped by bribe-hungry policemen all before 9:30am, topped off by a flat tire conspired to make us downhearted and irritable (and when I say “us”, I should point out that it was quite a bit heavier on the “me” side).  The afternoon was much better; prayer, food and sleep helped a great deal.

Today we are digging in with work.  Davis is working on navigating Bukavu bureaucracy for getting work permits, importing the car and banking.  I’ve been working on unpacking, laundry and cleaning.   It is as this point that I need to confess that this house came with a washer and dryer! It doesn’t have a working fridge, or even a broom, but it has a washer and dryer. And they still work, even though they have sat unused for 10 years.  Today may be the only time we use them – we’d rather give someone a job then use the machine – but what a gift not to have to do our mountains of laundry by hand, in the bathtub while also playing with the girls and unpacking.

In some ways we will be living a much more difficult life than in Kenya or America and in other ways it’s as if we’ve bumped up our standard of living dramatically.  At the same time as I’m a bit worried about how I will cook for my family here, without a lot of familiar staples, we also hired a gardener this morning and discussed with him which fruit trees should be pruned and where to plant flowers and a vegetable garden.  Our house is old and getting worn out and will take time to fix up, but any enquiries at the gate – from people selling fruit, vegetables, bread, fresh flowers – are as of today, intercepted by Chizungu, our gardener.  At night Maendeleo guards the property.  This staff is soon to be joined by a housekeeper and although we could even hire a cook, as most people with well-paying jobs here do, we won’t as I like to cook too much.

So, that’s the news from Lake Kivu.  We’ll keep you posted as Davis begins working at the school in the next couple of weeks and as Tovah and Lami start school next week.

With love and appreciation, Jen for us Davises

Hello Friends,

As I write this email, Davis is on top of our “new” (to us) Left-hand drive Nissan Patrol tying down boxes and footlockers, having just finished securing our winch to the front (thank you Bob!).  We have said our goodbyes (several times) in Ilula and here at the college where Davis’ parents work and where we have spent many a lovely weekend over the last 2 years.  We will spend the night here at Davis’ parents’ house and leave early tomorrow morning for Uganda, then Rwanda on Saturday and (finally!) arrive in Congo on Monday.  

Like Davis hinted at in his last general email, it’s usually good to hold plans lightly, especially when it comes to travel in Africa.  A week before we were set to leave, we received an email saying our house would not be ready till May 7^th.  After we had adjusted our plans, bought travel insurance for all the border crossings we are about to make and made bookings along the way, we received another email saying, false alarm, our house would be available May 1^st.  SO, we readjusted and now we are planning to do the 3 day drive in 4 days, instead of 6 days as “originally” planned (actually the original original plan was to fly in 5 months ago…).

So, this is the closest we have come yet to making this move.  There are still a lot of unknowns – will we be able to cross the borders with our new car?  What is the road like in Uganda?  Will the border guards give us a hard time about the amount of stuff we’ll be carrying?  Will the truck carrying our belongings in a few weeks have room to bring our belongings?!

We have made our plans, but we’re holding them lightly as we head into uncharted territory.  God has promised that he knows the plans he has for us (Jeremiah 29:11), that he leads us with his loving eye on us (Psalm 32:8), and that he will never leave us.  We are trusting him to carry us through this trip and into life in Congo, because we know he has brought us this far.  And we need prayer!  Please pray that our car would work well and that we would be safe (especially while we are driving a left-hand drive vehicle on the left side of the road in Kenya and Uganda), that we all get along well with each other spending the next few days in a car, that border guards would be kind and for all the transitions coming up in the next weeks for us.  

We’ll keep you posted J  Thank you.  

Jen for us Davises

Hello Friends,

This is a quick note to say that Davis left this morning on his way to Congo.  He is in Rwanda tonight, staying with some friends from high school who have a school there.  Tomorrow he will fly down to the border and hopefully catch a ride with some other friends from the airport – from there it’s about a 15 minute ride to Bukavu, but there is the small issue of the border-crossing J.  

He hopes to be able to connect with ELI staff and assess how ready people are for us to come and start working with them.  We are both hoping God reveals a house for us to move into and the right date for that to happen.  We are currently planning to drive from Kenya to Congo sometime around the 25^th of April.  

If you think of us this week, please pray for protection for Davis through all of the traveling and as he meets with people.  Please pray for a house and that the details of our move will fall into place.

Please also pray for us girls.  So far I have managed to drive from the airport to town, park, walk a few blocks to and from Nakumatt with a daughter’s hand in each hand and several bags of groceries over my shoulders, negotiate with a couple of boys who live on the streets in Eldoret while loading the girls and the groceries into the car and drive away, without hurting myself or anyone else – definitely evidence of the power of prayer.  Please pray that I’ll be able to handle whatever oddities come up this week.  Please also pray that the girls would sleep well at night.  

Thank you,

Jen for us Davises

P.S. – I apologize if you receive this several times, it’s because I’m not usually the one to send these and I’m hoping I’m choosing the right lists of people.  

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for your prayers for me and my family while I was in Congo!  We appreciated your emails, you concerns, and the hopes you shared for our ministry there.

I am pleased to say that I am safely back, finding Jennifer both safe and sane upon my return!

Bukavu is not the same.  The last time I was there the city was a hive of military activity-- swarms of Congolese soldiers speeding around in their Bombadier Jeeps, the columns of Pakistani UN peace keepers driving their white convoys of Land Rovers with gun turrets mounted on the tops, armored personnel carriers rattling the dust off the ceilings at 5:00 AM, and the constant rumors of war and rebellion.

But this was not the Bukavu I found; it’s almost as if that Bukavu has been forgotten.  The Congolese soldiers were hardly to be seen, the UN soldiers found mostly in their barracks or out grocery shopping, and there were no brooding rumors of war.  The main rebel leader, Nkunda, has been captured, the main road through town is being repaved, new buildings are springing up, the old buildings damaged in last year’s earthquake are cobwebbed with scaffolds and crawling with men repairing, painting, building.

It’s not that Bukavu has turned into Palm Springs or anything; there is still no gas at the gas stations, you change your money on the street, and electricity goes out at least once a day.  Still, having seen Bukavu before, I was cheered.

My agenda in Bukavu was pretty extensive: here’s the summary:

• Met with missionaries, aid workers, and expatriates to learn the ropes on Visas, shopping, living, the girls’ school, etc.
• Met with Congolese staff, pastors, administration to discuss the challenges we face in our approach to building a successful school.
• Performed all the bureaucratic tasks set before me—and for this I must go into further detail:

First I have to get a visa to live and work in Congo.  This demands 3 letters, 2 filled forms, multiple “attestations” of officials for housing, health, good behavior, and some passport photos.  Thankfully, everyone is very cooperative in this process, as long as you pay the fee, everything happens and there was no pressure for bribes or anything (perhaps its in the fee.)  So if you need a doctor’s exam, no problem, go to the hospital, pay the fee ($9) they give you a letter that says you are healthy—no check-up, nothing.  You go to “La Commune” for a background check, no problem, pay the fee ($29) they give you a letter that says you’re a good guy who’s never been in the rebel army or in prison, off you go, no questions asked.  You need to have your vaccinations checked, no problem, the Department of Hygiene promptly stamps your card stating they have brought you up to date with your vaccinations, pay your fee ($10), no injections given, off you go.  Go to the department of Transport for a driving license, no problem, select which vehicle classes you would like to drive—Motorcycle up to Semi-Truck, pay your fee ($5 for each class), no test, off you go.  It is certainly a different world of bureaucracy, and while I was not in agreement with them stamping my health card stating they had given me a shot, I was relieved they didn’t actually give me one.  (By the way, for those concerned, the whole family is really and truly up-to-date on all our vaccinations.)

So at the end of it all, I have a complete “dossier” now that awaits our return to be turned to work permits and visas!  Also my Congolese driving license now allows me to pilot helicopters, trains, submarines, and oil tankers—not exceeding 19,000,000,000 liters.

So when are we actually moving to Congo?  Well, according to plan, (which is a bad way to start off any statement in Africa) we will be heading to Congo at the end of April!  For those of you who have been praying for a house, we are 95% (actually, not a great percentage in Africa) closed on a rental house to move into!  It is a three bedroom with a yard full of fruit trees.  The house is in need of some repairs—which we will be responsible for, and which can be taken out of the rent, but the location is ideal, close to friends, office and on the way to the girls’ school.

Our move is dependent on a few things—the update of all of our passports (new ones for Tovah and me, pages added to Jen and Lami’s full passports) and the registration of a car that we bought from a former schoolmate.  One of these tasks is being completed by the US embassy, the other by the Kenya Revenue Commission (guess which one is more efficient), so be praying for that.  We are also coordinating with Feed the Hungry International to pack our household belongings onto one of their trucks bound for Congo…pray for that too.  Finally, pray for our own travel—we plan to drive through Uganda and Rwanda—a four day journey from Nairobi to Bukavu.  Jen and the girls flying is another option we are considering.

There’s the update!  I hope I haven’t made it seem too easy—for those of you who have followed our previous attempts to go to Congo, you know that we have come this close before.  But whatever happens we are trusting in God’s direction, not only for our safe arrival, but also for direction in a very challenging ministry for which we feel hardly prepared.  Still, we can only be open to God and trust he will equip us in our desire to minister to the poor in Bukavu’s Keredi Slum, and anyone else who crosses our path.

We appreciate your continued prayers, love and support.  

God Bless,

Davis for the Davises

The Congolese embassy in Kenya looks more like a lounge in a Frat house.  It has 3 sofas and 4 armchairs—none of which come from matching sets.  There is a brown carpet (original color unknown) that has been nailed back down in places where it is fraying.  One wall is entirely windows covered with unmatched bedsheet curtains, still drawn except in places where hooks or tape has failed.  Another wall is entirely bookshelves without a single book on them.  There are three coffee tables each with a scattering of old magazines or newspapers in English, French and Swahili.  In front of the windows are two desks, side by side.  On one desk is a nice laptop computer, on the other is a phone.  Next to the phone permanently lounges an old man in an armchair, asleep.  Behind the other desk sits a well-dressed woman in business attire tailored from Congolese cloth.

She seems to conduct single-handedly and in three languages the affairs of the consulate: welcoming people, taking appointments, explaining procedures, accepting forms, answering phonecalls (all on the cell phone—the landline phone remains silent).

The embassy itself is on the 12^th floor of “Electricity House”, a fourteen storey building in the center of downtown Nairobi.  To access the embassy you start in the lobby waiting in a line at the elevator.  There are 3 elevators, but only 1 works, and none of the buttons to call the elevator are still intact—instead there are only gaping holes where frustrated Superhumans must have punched the call button clear into the concrete wall.

So, unless you want to climb the stairs, you line up under a sign that says “please queue for the elevator” and hope that someone inside the elevator above decides to come to the ground floor.  When the elevator doors suddenly open the formality of the line is forgotten, and there is a sudden crush of people rushing in.  Some of the buttons on the elevator don’t work, so if you wish to get off at the 8^th floor, you must hope that someone on the 8^th floor has summoned the elevator, otherwise you must get off at the 9^th and walk down.  Happily, the elevator does stop at the 12^th floor (even though the button doesn’t light up).  Upon exiting the elevator you find yourself facing 2 soldiers slouched in plastic chairs sleeping or reading the newspaper with automatic weapons lying across their knees.  (They are only there in the morning—when they go for lunch they usually don’t come back.)

I learned all this in the 3 trips I made to the Congolese embassy fulfilling their visa requirements: delivering letters, photos, forms, $300, and finally leaving my passport (fearfully) hoping that when I came back there would indeed be a visa inside.  And on the 3^rd trip, there actually was a visa there!!!

So that is my story!  I now have a Congo visa, allowing me to make multiple entries (legally) for the next 6 months!  So what is our plan?  Well, the security situation has calmed—the rebels who marched to the gates of Goma (the sister city of Bukavu, ELI’s ministry site) have dispersed and entered into an agreement with the government, and the new conflicts, while violent and ongoing, do not affect our security in Bukavu.  

Based on the improved security situation, and the timing of joining ELI Congo, our current plan is for me to go to Congo in March to try to (re)lay groundwork for the family move, which we are planning to make in April, after celebrating Easter with our family (the Davis family is celebrating 99 years and five generations in Africa this year.)

So thank you for being on this journey with us.  We are trusting in God to guide us through the difficulties.  We are praying for wisdom on how to transport our family to Congo, and for the right living situation/house for us.  We are praising him for the visa and the blessings we have enjoyed in the meantime serving in Kenya.  Please be in prayer with us about all this—and let us know your news, your needs, your prayers in this difficult time.

God Bless,

Davis

Pictures by Jen

1. The girls in the back of our car – Davis found a great deal on a Land Rover pick-up with a cage and canvas cover on the back, then bolted seats in the back for the girls.

2. Lami being passed through the window to her seat in the back.

3. Tovah and a lamb – after the mama sheep had insisted Tovah stop hugging the lamb & put her back on the ground.

4. The kids in Kipkaren “salamia”-ing (greeting) Lami’s doll.  Before our long trip down to Nairobi, we had a few nights in Kipkaren visiting old friends.

Dear Friends and Family,

The timing of my email Friday could not have come a day sooner. Friday night I checked on the rabbits at 9pm to see if one expectant mother had kindled (given birth). Saturday morning I went to see the new litter. But the rabbit and the kits were gone. So were 8 other rabbits. In one night we lost 75% of our rabbits to the dogs who penetrated the garden chain link, jump the fence around the rabbitry, and destroyed chicken mesh on the cages, pulling the rabbits out.

The same morning we got an email from Congo alerting us to some complications with the house we had been offered to live in, we also got a phone call that one of the cows I gave a farmer (so he could sell the milk to pay for his children’s education) had instead been sold, AND to top it all off, Jen’s quiche for a prayer day luncheon got broiled instead of baked!

It was not even 10:00AM and we had been discouraged 4 times over. We filled the day with prayer, tried not to pity ourselves, to question our calling, or to despair. These are little things after all…our ministry does not consist of the success of our rabbits, cows, housing or quiche, but of people.

We know these things, still God wanted to remind us a little more. Saturday evening we got an email from some friends, “Discouraged or Thankful?” the subject read. It reminded us of our daily choice to be discouraged by the things we face, or thankful for the blessings we have—this from a couple who is choosing to be thankful in the midst of facing an aggressive cancer.

So, we choose to be thankful—for health and food and shelter, for family and love and peace, for forgiveness and grace and reconciliation. We are thankful for you too, for being with us through it all, for your love and kindness and encouragement on the good days, and the bad.

God Bless,

Davis and Jen (in collaboration)

PS. Attached is a picture from after church today (where I was spontaneously asked to sing a song.) These are what my kids look like (Tovah is coy, Elami is mad because she had a thorn in her hand that we had to get out with a needle), what my wife looks like (always composed despite scolding the girls and being laughed at by the neighbor kids to make this picture happen), and me (although my beard seems to be developing a mind of its own.)

The photos:

1.      Every day Lami brings a “snack” to the cows (handfuls of green grass which are only found under our solar water heater because everywhere else is too dry these days).

2.      The Davis Family acrobatic troupe, choreographed and directed by Tovah.

3.      “Obama” the goat, who belongs to Naomi and her family.  Naomi has been working in our house in the mornings.  She is to the right in the picture.   She has completed high school and is waiting for her exam results.  She is aspiring to be a doctor.

Dear Friends, Family, and others who are on our mailing list for no apparent reason,

It’s been a long time since we wrote, and a lot has happened in the world!  I’m not sure about the US, but the biggest news in Kenya has been President Obama.  Views in the US maybe rather polarized, but in Kenya everyone is thrilled.  For the last week the papers have been headlined and filled with pictures and articles about him, Obama bumper stickers are multiplying on cars, hospitals are full of new babies christened “Obama” (both boys and girls), and on Tuesday night (Tuesday morning in the US) every hotel, club, bar, and restaurant held parties with entrance being charged at 1000 Shillings and up!!!  (1000 Shillings is about 14 dollars, or about 20% of a monthly working class salary.)

Tuesday night was also men’s fellowship here, so we gathered at 8:00pm, our usual time (and the same time as the oath of office), to find our host had a feast for us of chips (French fries) and fried goat meat.  After the ceremony the TV was shut off, we resumed our meeting, and ended in prayer.  In the prayer we were reminded, “God, the world places it’s hope in many things—in money, in medicine, and in men like Bwana Barack.  But we have our confidence in You.  We know economies fail, medical knowledge lacks, and great leaders fall…”

Regardless of your opinion of Obama, we are praying for good leadership and reminded that our hope is anchored in a God.

Enough politics.

How are you?  Are you surviving winter?  Can we be praying for you?  We’d love to hear your news—thank you for the Christmas cards some have sent!

We are well!  I never know what we are doing tomorrow, but today is always full.  Yesterday I spent all day working on spreadsheets to record our operations on our demonstration farm here in Ilula.  We now have record sheets for 10 projects:  Rabbits, Goats, Chickens, Layers, Broilers, Fish, Honey, Mushrooms, Forestry, and Vegetables!  We also visited a neighbor’s home (where we met Obama the goat), and then visited my mother who has malaria. 

Jen has been building relationships with the women here and homeschooling the girls (while we are in Kenya).  Tovah is busy making known her political opinions “Do you know that being president is like being the daddy of a country?” and reading a selection of words that end in “at” and “am”; Lami is excelling at coloring pictures and providing tender mothering for her perpetually needy doll.

As for Congo….  We are looking forward to meeting with the ELI international director, and the ELI Congo director next week.  We continue to pray for God’s timing in moving to Bukavu, for wisdom in moving our household there, and for preparation and peace in the meantime.  The Tutsi rebel insurgency has taken an odd twist with the DRC government now combining forces with Rwandan forces to attack and disarm the Hutu rebels—the very enemies of the rebels.  Put very simply two months ago:   A was supported by B to fight C who was supported by D.  Today C has joined with B to fight D, the enemies of A. 

Key:

A – Congolese Tutsi rebels (who live in Congo)

B – the Rwandan Army

C – the national Congolese army

D – Rwandan Hutu rebels (who live in Congo)

Meanwhile the Ugandan army is back in Congo chasing Ugandan rebels, the LRA who are now retreating north through Congo and into Central African Republic leaving a wake of death and destruction, and taking hundreds of slaves for child soldiers and “wives”.

Sorry if I’ve confused you, but I hope you are praying.  Bukavu has remained relatively calm.

So that’s our news.  Thank you for your prayers, news and support.  We know the economy is struggling, but we have still been getting our full support!  Thank you for your faithfulness in giving!

God bless,

Davis

Yup – judging by the clusters and trails of itchy bites on Tovah’s back and neck, it seems we have a bed bug problem.  Bad news.

The good news is we have a fast enough internet connection to google “bed bugs”.  Turns out sometimes people don’t even know they have a bed bug problem, but Tovah is one person who definitely reacts to the anesthetic they use (so kind of them, don’t you think?) while they are sucking a warm parasite’s blood.

The bad news is we don’t live in the “high desert”, where the extreme heat would make them easy to eliminate.  We read that bed bugs tend not to like fabric, but that the females can lay 300-500 eggs in her lifetime; no word on whether or not the eggs mind fabric.  A Kenyan friend of mine prescribed “maji moto” – hot water, for this kind of infestation, so I decided to take her advice.  The good news is at least it’s the dry, hot season in Ilula, so our sheets and blankets will dry quickly. 

The bad news is, it’s the hot, dry season in Ilula so water is trickling in s-l-o-w-l-y.  As we do not have a washing machine at the moment, I spent the morning filling kettles and pots to boil water and then soaking our sheets, blankets, pillowcases and stuffed animals in a big basin of hot water (whilst also lathering Tovah with hydrocortisone cream and making granola, which turned out quite well considering the lack of attention I gave it).  This all made me late for church, which is good or bad news, depending on your feelings about our notoriously long church services.

Besides hot water, vacuuming is purported to work well.  Would you believe that when we moved into this house, we inherited a vacuum cleaner too?!  I was amazed to find such a thing; maybe it was put there for such a time as this.  We’re told we might never actually see a bed bug, even though they can be the size of an apple seed or a lentil, on account of how quickly they scurry (sh-sh-shiverrrr).   They like to hide out in cracks and crevices in wood and come out to feed in the early morning hours.  Davis spent the morning chasing bed bugs out of the crevices and cracks in the girls’ bunk bed with my hair dryer and (theoretically) sucking them up with the vacuum cleaner.  The girls’ bed was not made with a power drill or one of those sketchy Ikea screwdrivers, so there are some fairly large craters for them to hide in.  He never did see a bug.  He followed everything up with a healthy dose of DOOM bug spray (sorry Aunt Janet!).  Then, despite giggles from neighboring children, he donned gloves and soaked our mosquito nets in pemethrium (grown men don’t usually wear gloves and bend over wash basins here).

One helpful site reassured us that having a bed bug infestation is not an indication of how clean you are – they just like warmth (awwwww – how endearing).  Cleanliness comes in to play in getting rid of these bugs and their babies.  Ok, alright.  So, if we can just keep Tovah and Lami from indiscriminately hugging kittens, dogs, rabbits, sheep, cows, and goats, we should be alright, right?  Please pray for us. 

Stay tuned for more installments including, “How My Family Overcame Bed-Bug Induced Insomnia” and   “What I Learned About Ticks, Lice and Earwigs in the New Year”.

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you for your prayers, your support, your love!

This is the second, shorter version of this email—the first one was too long, but will probably be available on our blog (sometime).

So, let me sum it up.  We have taken a short assignment with ELI here in Kenya.  We will be working with the management of ELI’s programs in developing goals, record keeping and effectiveness.  There is a lot of good work going on here, and we have the opportunity to provide some orginazation and leadership support.  For that we are living at ELI’s other site in Kenya, called Ilula.

Ilula is 5 miles outside of Eldoret town, and only about 3 miles from my parents.  On the compound there is a children’s home housing 96 orphans cared for in 4 families of 24 children (12 boys, 12 girls) each family has parents and an assistant parent (an “auntie”.)  The majority of the compound is a demonstration farm with many projects—vegetables, fruits, tree nursery, rabbits, chickens, fish farms, mushroom farms, cows and dairy goats.  We also demonstrate multiple gardening techniques, and business start-ups like home-made bread ovens.  Also on the compound are conference facilities for youth events, trainings, etc.

So there is plenty for us to be involved in, and already we have been incredibly busy.  We have moved into a house on the compound which is very comfortable—already furnished and featuring electricity, hot water and one of the most comfortable couches we’ve ever experienced.  We moved in 6 days ago, and this is what the week has looked like:

Wednesday: moved in, cleaned out several rat’s nests (including one in the fridge), played with the orphans, ate dinner with the director of the children’s home.

Thursday: shopping in town for household items, signing up for French class, Davis spoke at the youth conference, dinner with area youth.

Friday: made the 2 hour journey to our old home in Kipkaren, to celebrate the engagement of Lillian (who used to care for Tovah and Lami)—this involved singing, making speeches, and eating lots of meat. Came back to show a film in the evening to the youth group.

Saturday: washed clothes (by hand), visited children’s home parents, had our first dinner at home—rice and beans.  Lami went cold-turkey on daytime diapers too - so far, so good!

Sunday: church, followed by lunch at my parents, and then we received Lillian and new fiancé David from Kipkaren who stayed the night, and enjoyed looking at old pictures late into the night.

Monday: we took Lillian and David back to Kipkaren, and visited many old friends followed by a Christmas party, and a late night return to Ilula.

Today: I took the car to town to get fixed (it needs a starter, a horn, and a hand brake), in the afternoon we hosted a Christmas party with the orphans performing their own pageants; in the evening we had ice cream and a film of the nativity.

So…. that’s our news.  I know the Christmas rush is at its peak in the US, and I hope that your noel will be a blessed one, and one of celebrating Christ himself—reminded of the baby born to a teen mother with a ruined reputation, in a shed on the farm, a refugee in Egypt in his childhood, the son of a humble carpenter in adolescence, a homeless prophet who died rejected as the messiah on the contemporary device of torture and execution….

We were reminded of a different Christmas yesterday—the Christmas that few will enjoy in Eastern Congo this year.  Yesterday at our Christmas party we spent time on our knees—friends, family, ELI staff, and a hundred orphans crying out to God for peace in Congo.

So, thank you again for your thoughts and prayers—for us, for the Congolese, for those in need.

God Bless,

Davis

Pictures:

1.)    Jen and the girls washing clothes

2.)    Joseph and Mary in the pageant

3.)    King Herod—the villain in all the pageants

4.)    Three wise men follow a star (a flower)

Dear Friends and Family!

Thank you for your prayers—We are here in Kenya!!!  It was quite a journey, starting in the snow in Ohio on Sunday morning, and ending Monday night at midnight in Mayfield guesthouse in Nairobi.

A couple highlights (and a couple low points.)

-Highpoint:  all our luggage went through uncharged (we had extra pieces and overweight pieces so we had expected to pay several hundred dollars.)

-Lowpoint: at Dallas airport British Airways informed us that they would not transport our generator, so it had to be sent back.

-Highpoint: All our connections went well , the girls slept on the plane to London.

-Lowpoint: London security didn’t allow our kid’s meds through security, so they got one more dose, and were onto the next plane.

-Highpoint: Flight to Kenya went well, no visa issues, all our bags came through (all of them had been opened but were otherwise intact.)

-Lowpont: Only half of Tovah’s carseat came (this is the second time in 4 months this has happened to Tovah.)

-Highpoint: We were picked up by Mayfield van and in bed at midnight!  Jen fell asleep by 1:00AM, Elami by 1:51AM, Tovah by 3:13AM, and me (Davis) by 4:00AM!!!

So we are a little jetlagged, but very blessed and thankful to be here.  We will be in Nairobi a few days getting recalibrated before we head out to Eldoret.

God Bless,

Davis and the Davises

Photos:  It has been too long since we sent photos of our girls—these pictures are only 3 days apart—Saturday, Dec. 6^th  and Tuesday Dec. 9^th.

PS.  Please remember that now that we are in Kenya not to send us large attachments or email forwards.  Try to scale pictures down to a couple hundred Kbs or less.  Thanks.

Dear Friends, Family, and fellow spammers,

We have been receiving two kinds of emails recently—those asking if we have a computer virus, and those asking us if we are still in the US….  Let me start with the first question….

Let me begin with giving my heartfelt apologies if you received one, or a dozen, email(s) offering excellent deals on electronics (or “electornics”).  While we do raise support for our ministry, this is not one of our tactics (yet. J)  It seems that somehow our MSN account was compromised, which held email addresses of many of you.  The good news is that it seems our main email account was not compromised, our computer still works, and that we hopefully have the situation under control.  

So, we apologize, although we have been humored and touched by the emails we have received in reply; some said that they spotted it as fake because of the inferior spelling (thank you—now I have added pressure to use spell check), some assumed it was from entrepreneurial African friends—and replied wishing them the best, and one dear lady found the products “nice, and inexpensive”.  

Hopefully she hasn’t lost her credit card information to a teenager sitting in his mom’s basement, and hopefully you all still trust us enough to open our emails.  Again, sorry.

The second question, are we still “here?”  Yes.  We are.  But we have some answers!!!  Finally!  Unfortunately, our answer is not a simple trip to Congo.  Due to Congo’s ongoing conflict and the current needs of ELI’s Congo ministry, we are waiting to see how things resolve before we head in.  What that means is a 4 month delay, working in Kenya, with time to monitor the situation and reevaluate our timeline.

So, in nine days (Dec. 7^th) we head out to Africa, just not Bukavu.  Our time in Kenya will be used to continue our preparation for going to Congo--keeping in contact with ELI Congo, and providing what support we can—possibly with trips to Bukavu or hosting the Director of ELI Congo in Kenya.  Our second priority is working with ELI’s programs giving support and direction as needed—but the details are still being worked out with Kenyan and International leadership.

That’s where we are….  We are a little let down that we are not in Congo, but we are pleased to be on our way back to service in Africa.

Sorry this email has been so much about us….   War continues in Congo with glimmers of hope and shadows of despair.  

I hope you are all well, and well-fed; that your thanksgiving time was blessed with family, and that your Christmas time will center around redemption more than Walmart!  (a challenge in American society.)

God Bless,

Davis and Jen and the girls.

Conflict makes Congo "worst place to be a child"

Tue 11 Nov 2008, 19:01 GMT

Reuters

Dear Family and Friends,

Thank you for your prayers, your support and your emails along the line of “what’s going on in Congo?” and “are you still going?”

Some of you have seen Congo in the news, but probably many of you have not.  The world’s deadliest conflict continues scarcely making a headline in the Western world, often cut by editors who know that this corner of the world, the dark forgotten bowels of Africa, do little but depress and discourage—besides, everyone is far more interested in Brittany Spears.

But for us the US elections have passed with constant visits to our computer, not to track Obama and McCain, but to see what the news is on Congo.  We have been watching the escalation of conflict, the advance of a rebel army up to the gates of Goma, Bukavu’s sister city across Lake Kivu, and the fresh pictures of the dead wounded.  We have read the stories, watched the clips, and fired off countless emails and phonecalls.  We have waited.  We have prayed.

In all of this we are reminded of a couple of things: That the world is badly broken, and that God is in control.  So as we watched the security situation dissolve in Eastern Congo we have been faced with the decision of our next move.  We have made that decision multiple times, with each new piece of information, but finally, in accordance with the administration of ELI, it has been decided that we will postpone our departure at least 2 weeks while we wait for the outcomes of this weekend’s negotiations and the EU and UN calls for additional troops and action.  We will continue to update you on our plans.

The other thing we have been reminded of is that this is not about us.  It’s easy to feel discouraged or inconvenienced as we try to plan for an uncertain future or try to negotiate ticket refunds—yet we have health and the blessing of safety while 1 million Congolese in East Congo are displaced and fleeing violence at the height of the rainy season.  No place seems safe for these people; even their own national army commits atrocities against them as do at least two rebel groups.

Usually I end these emails with an article from the web for further reading—instead I am attaching links to two BBC slideshows—just a dozen pictures from this war, reminders that these are people, individuals—from the boy being beaten by a policemen while trying to seek refuge in the ministry of health, to the little girl who has had shoes tied on her feet so that she can walk the miles to “safety.”

So please pray.  Pray for the individuals in this war, for the face among a million.

God Bless,

The Davis Family

BBC slideshow 1: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7704187.stm

BBC slideshow 2: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/7713979.stm

Dear Praying friends and family,

Jen and I have been watching and waiting and wondering about what is going on in Eastern Congo, and especially what that means for us and for our plans as scheduled. It's an unsettling place to be, and the only thing we can do is pray about it.

So, this is an email just to ask for your prayers, to tell you a little of what is going on and to let you know what is burdening us. We aren't sending this to our whole email list, as our information is incomplete, while our need for your prayers for us and for Congo are tremendous.

Here's the news:
As you know, East Congo is an unstable place with an enormous conflict. Bukavu, the city to which we are going is the principal city of the Kivu provinces, the area of the most dramatic conflict. While this has never been a war with clear sides or objectives, the main player is a man named General Laurent Nkunda, who controls a formidable army, and has successfully maintained territory firmly in his control.

While he signed a peace agreement in January, that has effectively fallen through in August, and subsequently lead to a build-up of arms in the region and hostilities. In the last week, Nkunda's forces have invaded and taken possession of larger pieces of territories and towns, routing Congolese forces, and defying UN peace-keeping troops, bringing the conflict right to the gates of Goma, a city on the north shore of Lake Kivu, Bukavu's twin city across the lake about 60 miles away.

Without taking the city, Nkunda declared a ceasefire and waited. Congo is waiting, everyone is waiting. Jen and I are waiting. The question is where does this go next? What does it mean for us? The next events will guide us--If he takes the city, what is the response of the Congolese army and of the UN, do they withdraw? Do they re-fortify Bukavu? The feel we are getting is that this is a turning point, the only question is which way.

We don't know the answer, but we do know that the answer will affect our timeline in going to Congo, and possibly even whether we go at all at this point in our lives.

Very simply, please pray about this. Pray for the individuals and forces whose decisions affect thousands in Congo.
Pray for the displaced, the injured, the sick, streams of people who are walking by the CNN camera for the 10th time in 5 years.
Pray for Jen and I and those we are working with in guiding our decisions. Pray for wisdom, for peace, and for unity.

Thank you for your prayers.

God Bless,
Davis and Jen, Tovah and Elami

For more information, a good place to start is today's New York Times Front page article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/world/africa/31congo.html?hp

Photo and article by Ron Higgins Chairman of ELI’s Board of Director’s (USA)

Congo’s load-carriers

Consider Momma Ellie, a young

‘load carrier’ that walks around

town with a 132 pound bag of

charcoal on her back. She tries to

sell two bags per week and if she is

successful, she will earn enough

money to feed her family one meal,

every other day! If it rains, her job

gets even harder. Her prayer is

that she will not get sick because

there is no safety net for her and

others like her in Congo. Life is

simplistically brutal: no work, no

food. Momma Ellie’s daughter will

soon be old enough to be enrolled

in our ELI school and Momma Ellie

rejoices at the opportunity of a

brighter future for her child.

This update is entitled

‘Imagine’ but honestly, it is difficult

for me to imagine what life would

be like in East Africa without ELI. I

have received hugs from proud

children wearing their new school

uniforms. I have served rice and

beans to a hungry student and I

have seen the tears in the eyes of a

parent who realizes their child has

a future. So I push on with the race

set before me, imagining the joy we

will all experience when we hear

our Savior remind us that what we

did for one of the ‘least of these’ we

also did for Him. So thank you for

partnering with us because

together, we are empowering lives!

What are we doing while we are in the US?

Frankly, we ask that question a lot ourselves! Our time here in the US is short, yet I am aching for the time when we get to head back to our ministry in Africa. In the meantime….what do we do?

First, we try to visit and reconnect with supporters and family. That has been busy but tremendously rewarding and successful. We know that we would not make it without you. We’ve seen a lot of people, eaten a lot of home-cooked dinners, and shared and heard a lot of stories. We feel more connected with our family and supporters, and we have put on a few pounds for lean times in Congo ;)

Second, we try to prepare ourselves and our family for our next ministry assignment. We talk a lot with our girls, we read the Congo news, we pray. We take some time for ourselves, with our kids and try to make sure we are a healthy unit going in.

Third we try to get all of our logistics in order—booking flights, researching cargo options, getting financial and tax stuff set up for minimal maintenance while we are abroad, purchasing and packing reading curriculums, medicines, tools, etc. etc.

…..Once again, I’m aching to be back in Africa. But we are glad for our time to prepare, and especially for the chance for the girls to be with their US grandparents and for us to be able to be ministered to in a good church. In the meantime, we are making one last trip south to visit supporters and family, a few more purchases, and hopefully getting some intensive time to gear up our French again!

We also want to mail out a recent picture of our family. If you have moved, or you know we don’t have your physical address, could you send it to us?

Thanks for your love and support,

The Davises

Pictures: Jen had a birthday (she’s somewhere in her 20’s I think.) Tovah and Lami made a gingerbread house (the ultimate torture for a 2 and 4 year old: constructing something out of cookie, icing and candy without just eating it.

PPS. Sorry this email is so boring. For more excitement watch the ELI videos on Goodtube, or check out our blog—there is some stuff that doesn’t make it into emails, like an embarrassing video of me harvesting bananas in the traditional way (with a machete and some lame attempts at re-creating bad ninja movies—trust me though, this is the way it’s done in Africa, everyone pretends they’re a samurai and hacks down the tree.) My attempts at humor are a little embarrassing, but maybe it will make you smile J

Dear Friends and family,

It is amazing to think but in 6 weeks and 3 days we will be on our way to Congo! Our tickets and evacuation insurance are purchased and now we are trying to make sure we get the rest of our lives in order.

Last week we returned from visiting supporters in Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan—So far we have met face to face with more than 90% of our supporters! It has been tiring, but fantastic to share our stories God’s blessing over our last two years, and to share our calling for what lies ahead. We have shown pictures and told stories, but in this email, I wanted to give you a chance to see footage of ELI’s work that was taken during my last visit to Kenya and Congo in July by Profiles in Caring, a group that highlights the work of ministries all over the world.

Would you take some time to view it? I have included links below showing specific footage from our home in Kipkaren and our future home in Bukavu.

Also, would you pray about our finances? This is not the best time in history to be fundraising, and we are aware of that. We also want to make clear that for those who made a 2 year pledge commitment in 2006, that you are released from that if you wish. We know there are all sorts of financial troubles out there, and we understand if this is not an area you can give to, or if the current market makes your contribution a burden on you. We will still be friends and God will still provide for us J

So that’s it. I tried to keep this short, hoping you will follow some of the links below,

Thank you again for your faithfulness and support.

God Bless,

Davis

Please take some time to watch some ELI footage on GoodTube. I would especially recommend you scroll down on the left side and watch Part 4 and 5 to see footage from Kipkaren and of my former students. Part 5 and 6 has footage of Congo and the school I will be serving in.

The web address is: http://www.goodtube.org/video.php?organization=17&l=Empowering+Lives+International

I confess we hadn’t really considered it before, so when I got the same question twice in two days, I didn’t have a very good answer. Now I have thought about it, and I think I have some more depth.

“Will you be packing heat in Congo?” “Will you carry a gun?”

The answer is simple: nope -- but the reason is deeper. You see, Jen and I have given our lives to serving God, and God has asked us to live in Congo. If that’s where our life ends, so be it—it will end doing what we were supposed to be doing. That’s the answer.
Of course I could give more reasons:
1.) Our lives would be more endangered by carrying a weapon—a valuable source of power, a statement of having deadly force and possibly an agenda that required violence.
2.) We would be placing our lives in priority to those of Congolese—suggesting if it were “us or them” that we would be more valuable.
3.) We are not in a battle of flesh and blood, but of spiritual principalities that manifest themselves through a war that has used guns to murder, orphan, displace, and even rape.
4.) etc.
That said, it is unfortunate that guns are a part of every day life in Congo, even apart from the war. It would not be unusual for our house to be guarded by a Congolese guard with a gun, and in trips out of Bukavu into unstable regions in East Congo we may have an armed escort. You will have to ask them why they pack heat.

Pictures:
#1: The war child gate in Bukavu, congo, with the sticker showing it to be a gun-free compound.
#2: A picture of friends and ELI co-workers, William and Michelle Kiprop, with a former Congolese child soldier in Bukavu Congo.
#3: A picture of me holding an AK47 in Sudan. For a second I felt cool, then I felt like an incredible idiot, then I felt deep relief that my role in conflict areas is fighting poverty, not people.

We are back!!!! (I guess) which is to say, we are back in Ohio! We had a tremendous journey to the Northwest and New York which was a wonderful time to connect with friends, family, churches, supporters, airports, etc.

Here is quick summary:

We spent 2 weeks in Tacoma, and had 25 appointments! Elami became an avid swimmer (with some flotation help), Tovah turned 4 (the legal limit for gum-chewing in the Davis Family), Jen survived “microwave confusion” in using 8 different microwaves to heat milk for the girls, and Davis talked (a lot.)

At the end of that time we went to the coast of Oregon, for a 2 night stay with family! Elami and Tovah slept in sleeping bags on bunkbeds, flew kites, kayaked, and saw deer (all firsts) and Mom and Dad got to relax in the beauty of it all.

The next day it was breakfast on the Oregon coast, lunch in Portland, tea in Lakewood, supper in Tacoma, breakfast in Dallas airport, and lunch in New York!!! We had a reunion time with our family from New York over labor day weekend.

Now we are back in Ohio, done talking for a little bit, but reflecting on what we talked about—our calling to Congo.

How do you explain “a calling”? In the past 3 weeks I came to understand it a little better, here goes:

We believe that a calling is something you do that is bigger than yourself—something that may not line up with your personal interests or even desires, but which you are doing because you know it to be what your life was designed and destined to be doing here and now.

Does that make sense? We believe the world is badly broken—filled with suffering. We don’t believe that somehow those born American and wealthy are any more or less deserving or valuable than those born American and poor, or Congolese, or born with HIV. We don’t believe that our efforts alone will bring about the healing this world needs, but we have started by responding to God’s call for justice and compassion for the weak and defenseless, and are ourselves empowered by God’s love for all people.

So where does that put us? We are going to Congo because we are called, not out of guilt or insanity, not for adventure, pleasure, or money. We believe God’s call for compassion is for everyone—and does not require people to move to central Africa, it just so happens that for the Davises (that’s us) we have that specific calling to be in Bukavu, Congo for a period of time.

So where does that leave you? Why are we telling you this? I guess one’s first thought might be that you are the people who financially support this call—but over the past couple weeks, I have realized there’s more to it. We want to share our call with you! We want you to have the same desire to see people helped in Bukavu, to see suffering cared for, children educated, empowerment for the weak and impoverished—no matter how small the impact. We hope that you can support and pray about and care about this ministry because YOUR heart aches for it too!

Jen and I hope that our connection with you is a window into a part of the world that you may not be familiar with, with needs beyond your personal experience, and with a calling that is far bigger than us—that you can support God’s call to the poor not only through us, but in your own life and that your own relationship with God and your purpose in life will be richer from it.

So…..that’s what we have been doing here in the US, seeing people and trying to explain something we are still coming to grips with.

If you are interested in more details, philosophical, logistical, or financial let us know. We are scheduled to leave the US on Nov. 10^th and we continue in our preparations.

Thank you again for your love and prayers,

God Bless,

The Davises

Extras

Picture of the girls from our day on the Oregon coast

News from Congo:

http://africa.reuters.com/country/CD/news/usnBAN442354.html

Dear Family and Friends,

Let me give you 3 random moments from my life right now….

First, is from our time in California, where we borrowed a beautiful fancy car from friends that was equipped with a GPS Sat-Nav system. The system provided guidance through the intimidating California road system…..it also provided plenty of entertainment. The girls looked around every time the “lady’s voice” spoke in the car. Eventually they got used to it, although Tovah felt strongly that instead of saying “You have now arrived at your destination” it should say “You have now arrived at your picnic” (or other appropriate venue.) So if any of you work in the Sat-Nav industry, take note. J

My point is, this was a profound cultural moment. We are truly back in the USA. It has seemed a bit like a whirlwind. I got back from my time in Congo and was in California a couple days later trying to piece together something of a presentation, trying to meet with as many friends as possible, and enjoying some family time at a cousin’s wedding. Now we feel our world is settling. The girls are not waking up at 4:00AM, and the mail (some of it two years old) has been dealt with. We are ready to focus on our time here—the goals of seeing family and friends, of preparing for our assignment in DR Congo, and fund-raising for the additional needs this move incurs.

Second random thought occurred to me as Jen and I watched a movie in French last night. Besides the oddity of hearing French come out of Robert Redford’s mouth, I was struck by the fact that just over a month ago, Jen and I were completely dedicated to learning French in preparation for our Congo time. This might explain some our cultural confusion, and also some of Lami’s temperament (is it because she is 2 or because she is now Parisian?)

Third random thought was generated by a coin I have—a Zimbabwe dollar, now worth about 1/58,718,000,000 US dollars. That’s right, I would need 58 BILLION of these to buy the 99 cent special at McDonalds. The citizens of Zimbabwe, one of Congo’s southern neighbors, suffer from a failed political system, abusive government practices, food inflation that is triggering shortages, and over 80% unemployment (even if you are employed….) Right now the government plans to issue a 5 trillion dollar note tomorrow (Worth about 85 US Dollars….for now.) and lop 10 zeroes off of the exchange rate….that’s the planned solution.

How is someone supposed to deal with that? How do you handle a problem like that? I don’t have the capacity, do you? Sometimes we look at the Congo with its problems of war, poverty, and a history of state failure, and we feel the same thing. It leads us one of two directions: Despair, or hope in something outside of ourselves. We can place that hope in the UN, in a charity or aid organizations, or whatever, but that is the place where we put our hope in God and ask to be used in whatever way we can be.

In our case we are preparing to serve a small school in Keredi, a slum of Bukavu, to live in one of the few stable places in Eastern Congo, and to love and encourage anyone we can between our time in the US, and there.

We would love to connect with you about this and about you. We have 3 months left in the USA and time is ticking away. Our next stop is in Tacoma, WA from August 11^th-28^th, New York from August 29^th-September 2^nd, and hopefully a trip to the South—Tennessee and Alabama. Our apologies to those we miss because of time, expenses, or oversight—you will just have to come visit us in Congo J

We would love to hear from you, to talk to you, to see you, to share with you. Give us an email or a call. Many of you we do not have phone numbers for and we would like to update our records. Our number is (937) 838-1015. *note, the old number is gone.*

Thank you again for your love and support.

God Bless,

Davis and the rest of the Kenyan/Congolese/French/Ohio Davis Family

Dear Friends and Family,

Thank you so much for your prayers for our family!

We are all doing well. Jen is currently at the Women of the Harvest retreat in Irvine, California. Tovah and Lami have been enjoying their time at grandma and grandpa Barber’s here in Ohio playing in the “hotbath” and bossing the dog around. I returned two days ago after a trip that had started 41 hours earlier in Kipkaren, Kenya!

My trip to Africa was excellent. I crossed borders 15 times (explanation available), visited old friends and contacts in Kenya, Rwanda, Congo, and Burundi, and made plenty of new ones. I have seen a lot of the challenges that lie before us, and feel better prepared to face them. Here’s what I saw:

1.) We still have not found a house in Bukavu. It is a difficult market due to house availability, price, safety, and negotiating relationships. We have offers to stay with other NGO workers if one has not been found by our move in November, but continue to pray.

2.) It seems that purchasing a vehicle in Congo will not be a major obstacle.

3.) Banking in Bukavu is now possible! (With a bank that actually has money!!!)

4.) Shipping stuff to Bukavu is possible, but we are still to work out details.

5.) Our residency in Congo will need to be dealt with probably with a trip to Kinshasa (the capital). Hopefully, this will ease pressures at the borders, where entering and leaving is difficult, and bribes are often demanded.

6.) More shopping and food supplies are now available in Bukavu (still no milk though.)

7.) There is much work to do—pray for strength in what we do, and for wisdom to decide which projects most need our attention.

8.) I learned that our time in France was well worth it, and my foundation in French very helpful—now we will just need to change our accents from Parisian to Congolese!

So another chapter in our life is done, and now we are focusing on our time in the US. Our goals will be first, to see as many family and friends as possible (our next anticipated return to the USA is fall of 2010) and second, to raise support and awareness of our ministry Bukavu (our budget and needs will increase with this change.)

Our first trip is to California. As I mentioned, Jen is already there. The girls and I will fly to Pasadena tomorrow where we will be staying from the 12^th to the 18^th. We have presentations planned for the Tuesday the 15^th and Thursday the 17^th in Pasadena and church at Sunrise Community Church, Temple City on Sunday the 13^th. The weekend of the 18^th we will be celebrating my cousin’s wedding with my family in Newport. After that it’s 2 days at the office, and off on the 23^rd. Let us know if you would like to connect or to see us sometime before we go.

Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

God Bless,

Davis and the girls

PS. For those of you who want more Congo reading, I just finished reading King Leopold’s Ghost—about the monarch who’s rule in Congo resulted in the death of about 10 million Congolese from the 1890’s to the 1910s. If you are interested in a summary, this article (although written in 2004) is pretty good: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3516965.stm

PPS. For those of you who only look at the pictures J, here is one from my time in Burundi. I visited a community of pygmies in Burundi (the Twa people) who have been pushed off their land, and stripped of their traditional livelihood of hunting, gathering, and pottery. This group of 360 families lives on 4 hectares of land located by the city garbage dump and subsists on casual labor from nearby rice paddies and brick kilns and whatever they can scavenge from the dump. They have no school, clinic, or church, and are often excluded and derided by other tribes. In this picture I am standing with children and 10 fully grown adults. I am 5 foot 6. Please pray for justice and help for these people.

Well here I am in Congo. I got a lift to the train station, a train to Charles De Gaulle Airport, a flight to London, and then a flight to Nairobi. That was the easy part. The next morning I flew to Kigali, Rwanda. Unfortunately (but not unusually) the flight was delayed and I missed my connection in Kigali. So, I was stranded for the day, since I could not a get a bus that would get me to Congo before the border closed. Luckily, I had met a priest on the flight who lent me the use of his vehicle, which I used to go to the Bureau de Change to get money, to the bus stop to buy a ticket for 6:30 the following day and to leave 2 of my 3 bags, and than to drop me off at the Wellspring Academy in Kigali where they graciously fed me and put me up for the night.

The following day I caught a scooter taxi at 5:30 to the bus stop. The scooter was quite underpowered, and we used it to transport the bag up the hill with both me and the driver walking. When we reached a hill the scooter could not climb, I switched to a motorcycle taxi. The bus ride from Kigali is a horrific 5+ hour journey through the Nyungwe forest and on a road so steep and curvy and riddled with potholes that a lot of people threw up. (Refer to our newsletter in Sept 2007 to find out how many people in our family threw up the last time we took this trip.)

When I arrived at the border I went through all the difficulties of Congo bureaucracy (bribery demands) and got a taxi to the ELI office. Unfortunately, I had missed all the tours of the land ELI is considering buying, but I did get time to talk with ELI leadership Don, Ron, Dan, and Mudekereza (can you guess which man is the director of ELI Congo?) We talked about budgets, and mission, and realized that we had much more to talk about before their trip to Kigali at dawn the following morning. I was not keen to get on a bus again, and after talk of what the bus trip was like, it was decided we would fly instead.

The next morning we got to the airport at the time we had been told, and then were told to wait almost three hours because the flight was delayed. We did finally get to Rwanda and satisfactorily wrapped up our meeting by 1:00am that night. The ELI leadership was going back to the States the following day, and I was going back to Congo on the bus. The following morning, I took the scooter and the bus again to Congo. Almost everyone on the bus threw up…. I’m pleased to say I did not.

Back in Bukavu (Sunday afternoon) I found friends from Food for the Hungry who had graciously hosted us for a couple days during our previous trip to Bukavu. I have learned a lot about basics in Bukavu—about car-buying, shipping household goods, banking, residency, shopping, etc. It looks like the biggest challenge remains to be housing. Bukavu’s housing market is extremely expensive. The presence of thousands of UN peacekeepers plus administration, and dozens of other NGO’s and aid groups, means that housing is at a premium and there are customers with deep (really deep) pockets. The scarcity of houses has been further intensified by the recent earthquake that damaged many buildings in Bukavu. A house in Bukavu rents for between $1000-$3000 per month.

What I mean by a house is basically a huge gaudy mansion in a compound from Belgian colonial times, or from a rich Congolese. This is not really our style, but we are also strongly advised not to take cheaper housing in the heart of the city, in a country where war is still current, and where crime is currently on the rise due to the hardship suffered from the skyrocketing food prices (150% inflation for beans). With two little girls…well, that’s what we are weighing, and something to pray about.

Unfortunately, we haven’t found any middle ground. Today (Monday) I called around after some leads and was shown 2 houses. The first one is a furnished 12 bedroom, 6 bathroom mansion on lakefront property (quite far from the office/school/expat community) done in the Congo style--$2000 per month. The second is a brand new mansion, considerably closer, with 4 or 5 bedrooms, lots of terraces, and no garden from $1800 a month. I have another lead to check out tomorrow, which is supposed to be $700 per month. We will see. Again, prayer is the key.

It’s amazing to be back in Bukavu and to be reminded what a truly different place this is. I have been given an office to sleep in while I am here. I have a mattress lying on 8 chairs, and a balcony that overlooks the street, and a bathroom down the hall (sans toilet paper.)

This morning I woke up at 5:00am. There was a tremendous racket and I could feel the building shaking. I jumped out of bed and went to look at the street where I saw a UN patrol convoy with 2 armored tanks personnel carriers on tank tracks. Just about every 5 minutes they would roll by rattling the dust off the walls and ceiling. The Congolese call them “gari ya vita”—the cars of war.

By 5:30 the city was pretty much awake. Convoys of UN land rovers mounted with machine gun turrets and filled with Pakistani soldiers rolled by, and pickup trucks full of armed guards who have finished the night guarding the dozens of compounds around. From the bathroom window I could hear a church already drumming and singing. I can look down across the valley where our school is and see shacks built next to the giant mansions built with wealth from Congo’s minerals, or colonial past, or corruption—perhaps the biggest business here. And interspersed everywhere are banana trees.

By 6:00am the street was pretty much free of the convoys of weapons, and instead Red Cross ambulances and medical convoys made from transformed Mercedes Unimog trucks roll by with their lights flashing. In a strange juxtaposition, there are also joggers in the street, and the neighbors to the ELI office, a couple from China, take their morning stroll. This morning I also watch as a Catholic priest, out for his walk, stops to shred posters off the wall of Alfajiri College—the Catholic university directly across from our office.

Alfajiri College is probably the best illustration of Bukavu I can think of. Its sprawling campus is filled with grand buildings, some four stories tall with columns and architectural details that mirror universities in Europe. But the buildings are derelict; windows are broken, plaster is marred by bullets and shells, and the 6.8 earthquake that rocked Bukavu in February has caused damage. Education continues in some of the buildings, while people (tenants/squatters) have moved into others. The gardens in front of reception contain vestiges of careful landscaping including ornamental cacti. Now there is also a vegetable garden there, and a small crop of maize someone has planted to combat their rising food bill.

It’s easy to see what Alfajiri college was, and it’s very plain what it is now. Please pray as this country struggles for peace. We are trusting that God can use us in our limited capacity to bring some help and hope to the people we come in contact with in Bukavu.

Thank you for your prayers for me, for Jen and the girls and for your support of us on this journey.

God Bless,

Davis

The girls and I have reached Ohio safely and are in the throes of adjusting to life in the U.S. again. Thank you for your prayers for us. A friend from our class drove us to the train station and two other friends escorted us on the train to Charles DeGaulle airport. We never would have made it without them! It was a precious time together and focusing on the girls and luggage made the pain of the goodbyes slightly less acute…slightly ;).

The girls did great on the airplanes, but were a little more “active” in the airports. At one point a woman leaned over to me and said “I don’t know how you’re doing it…I don’t know HOW you’re doing it!” I said a lot of people were praying for me! To be fair, they had to sit in an overcrowded boarding area at Heathrow during much of a 2 hour delay, because our airplane needed some repairs. That delay made us miss our connecting flight and the flight British Airways rebooked for us from Chicago to Dayton, OH. So, we had to spend a night at a hotel in Chicago (which British Airways also arranged). I was gutted when I realized that a) I wouldn’t get to see my family that night and that b) I had another late-night-to bed-early-morning-start-with-all-of-our-luggage-and-2-little-travelers to look forward to. God put many kind strangers in our path the next morning though, and they renewed our strength. Without their kindness we would not have survived accidentally getting off the hotel shuttle at the wrong airline (by the 3^rd rebooked flight, I was really confused), being randomly chosen for extra security screening and a 100m bathroom-dash right at boarding time – all during the last 2 hours of our 36-ish hour long trip!

We spent Saturday resting and got to go to church on Sunday. Tovah enjoyed Sunday School and Lami slept on my lap all the way through church. After 2 good nights sleep, our bodies seem to be recovered from jet lag, although Tovah has a bad cold. I would like to ask prayer especially for her – she has definitely noticed saying goodbye to her friends more this time than other times. I think this is compounded by the fact that her daddy is not around right now either. Please pray for peace for her.

I have gotten to talk to Davis several times since he left for Congo on Wednesday. Today he sent me a letter to send out with an update. (next email)

Thanks for your prayers,

Love,

Jen and the girls

Dear Friends,

This is one last note from France. We took our final exam yesterday and I will find out how we did tomorrow. Davis will have to wait a little longer, because he left this morning at 4:30-ish en route to Bukavu, Congo! All told, he will have 4 flights and he will arrive around noon tomorrow after an overnight tonight in Nairobi.

Once he arrives, he will have 2 whirlwind days with Don, Ron, Dan and Mudekereza – 4 men in leadership of ELI. We pray they can have some good talks together about goals and visions for ELI Congo, as well as for our time at the ELI school. Davis will stay for close to a week after Don, Ron and Dan have left. We hope he will be able to get some good leads on where we will live, how we will do our banking, and a few other “details” like that. He will have a few days in Kipkaren, Kenya after he returns from Congo.

Please pray for safety as he travels, extra luggage allowance on the last flight (so we don’t end up needing to leave 2 bags at the airport in Rwanda!), and especially that his time in Bukavu will be fruitful.

I will also need your prayers as I fly out with the girls early Friday morning. We will leave here around 5:30 am, have 3 flights and 2 long-ish layovers and should arrive into Dayton, OH at around 9pm, eastern-standard time. Yikes, that looks a little scary written out so plainly like that. Please pray us through that looooooong day J Please pray for us too, as we finish saying goodbyes these next two days.

Thank you Friends!

Jen for us Davises

P.S. – I’ve attached a couple of pictures from Lami’s birthday parties. She turned 2 this past Monday.

Dear Friends and Family,

First off, to the many who wrote to wish me a happy birthday—Thank you! As it turns out, I turned 30 on Monday; some of you may be surprised, and, let me assure you, know one was as surprised as me. Not only do I not know when my birthday is, but I also did not know I was turning thirty. Somehow I thought I was a lot older than that. With this new knowledge I can no longer, in clear conscience get the senior breakfast at Denny’s.

Jen took me to Paris for my birthday—which makes us sound like we are in a different tax bracket, but it was “free museums day” so we walked around the Louvre and enjoyed brunch at a bistro—sans enfants (without children). The girls made me cards, and Tovah gave me an interpretation in very serious tones of the artwork on the card. Anyways, a lovely day, and I feel so much younger.

Speaking of the girls, they are doing well. Lami is a rough and tumble little redhead who’s hair is starting to curl and who is learning to assert her demands using words. She is very mothering to her baby and comforts it in French, “dodo bébé” she says. It’s adorable. She has mastered door knobs and climbing out of her crib this month, so nap times are more adventurous, and lately we are woken up in the morning with a warm breath on our faces and demands for milk. We’ve included a picture of her after she fell asleep mid-escape last week. Tovah is a wonderful big sister, who has re-entered a tantrum-ing phase, which has been challenging. She declared the other day that she no longer needs to go to school because “I already know all the French.” She does very well in school here. She won her race at the school sports day in a bittersweet victory over her classmate and most-mentioned friend Sakina. Her teacher tells us that Tovah “Is speaking more French than the other children.” We interpret this to mean she talks too much in class. J

Today is exactly 3 weeks away from the day I head back to Africa!!! Our French is far from perfect, but I have noticed that when I walk into a store and have a question, I don’t have the anxiety that I used to (maybe I’ve just gotten used to how poorly I speak). But at this point we feel like we can understand what’s being said around us, catch the message in church, read most everything, and talk (albeit poorly) using 5 different tenses!

Nonetheless, we want the last three weeks to be as beneficial as possible, and we are trying hard to stay disciplined in our learning through to the end. (While I type this Jen is studying—I’m using you guys as an excuse not to.)

So as our time in the US approaches we want to update you on our current travel plans. We bit the bullet and purchased our plane tickets. We are in CA from July 12-23, in Tacoma from the August 11-28 with a couple days in Portland, and in New York from August 29-September 2^nd. The rest of the time we will base out of Ohio, with one trip to Tennessee/Alabama (hopefully) in October. We plan to return to Congo in early November.

Amidst all of what we are doing in the meantime in France and the USA, we have not lost sight of our mission in Congo. Every night we pray for Congo, our ministry team there, and the incredibly tiny role we will play in this massive humanitarian disaster. It’s our daily reminder that we work by the strength of God—not because we are rich or powerful or influential, but that we are called to do what we can in a school in Bukavu that serves 600+ children from the slum.

We want to tell you about that during our time the USA. We also want to see our friends, our family, and to prepare for our trip out with some of the essentials we will need. So please be praying for us—for our last few weeks in France, for our time in the USA, and for Congo. Please also let us know if there is anything that we can be praying for you about. It is our blessing to share in your lives through prayer.

Also, if you would, please read about Congo, online or keep an eye out for it in the news. If you need a place to start the International Rescue Committee has a page that deals mainly with the crisis and the resulting health needs. Check them out here: http://www.theirc.org/special-report/congo-forgotten-crisis.html

So that’s the news….I look forward to talking more and typing less.

God Bless,

Davis (age 30), Jen (probably 20’s…maybe 30’s), Tovah (almost 4), Elami (almost 2, wrestling at the 5 year-old level)