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
