An Emotional Day

Dear Constance Family,

I am able to get on the internet today! It was a hard day - I shed tears while observing the work of the Tandala hospital in teaching the mothers about nutrition. Many children were brought in for care. I watched as they weighed the babies and toddlers. One 18-month old boy weighed only 12 pounds and was not able to walk yet. Another 8-month old weighed under 9 pounds. One child who has been on their feeding program for only two months went from 9 to 17 pounds. They were very happy about that!!

The mothers are bound by tradition and don't understand proper care and feeding for their children. They nurse a child until the next one is born, and then go about feeding the new baby without caring for the older child (teaching to eat more solid foods, etc.). The mothers are learning things that they hopefully will teach others in the places they come from.

Several of our team also walked the trail the women walk to get water. It is about a half mile, uphill, narrow, bumpy trail up to the hospital. The women (note, not men) do this walk several times a day with jugs on their heads that weigh around 80 pounds.

How blessed they will be when the well digger gets there and digs the wells around that area!!! The well digger is to arrive in the country around November, and it could take a few months (not so great of transportation) to get it to the Congo area.

Well, the power supply is about done. See you all soon!! We leave here tomorrow at 3:00 in the morning on our trek back to Zongo, crossing the river to Bangui, and there catch the Air France plane to Paris and civilization!! We appreciate your prayers for our trip home.

God bless,

Pastor Randy

Visiting Tendala Hospital

Hey Church!

I am e-mailing from Tandala Hospital. The internet is on for about 2 hours. What amazes all of us is that we have internet at all. It has been available through a satellite system only about 6 months.

We had a rough ride here yesterday and buried our 4 wheel drive in a mud hole. All in all we got through on very rough roads. It is about 75 kilometers from Gemena and took us around 4 hours. We were greeted warmly. We are all staying in the missionary guest house. Actually pretty comfortable if you donèt mind no running water, no electricity, with high humidity and hot temps. Sorry about the french accents the computer I am using is set to French. I do believe I have eaten goat 10 days in a row. Starting to get a taste for the little fellows. Today we were awaken by a goat making a bunch of noise tied behind the house. They only get tied up when they are close to being dinner. Well Nate and Mike saw the little guy being prepared for dinner a few minutes later. He was quite tender.

Enough of the menu. Tandala Hopital is an amazing ministry. Two of our guys observed two surgeries today and on the second surgery our team leader assisted the doctor a bit. I passed on the opportunity to observe due to fear of passing out. I was able to see today where all our White Cross projects come. They do so much with so little. The whole hospital (180 beds) runs on 300K per year. I was able to walk through the men's and women's wards, the materity ward etc. I also saw the dental clinic and some work being done. Now this is not like a hospital most of us would want surgery in but praise the Lord for this ministry. When people get sick they want to come here.

They are also in charge of public health and run 30 clinics in many villages. It is amazing. They are very short on medicines now. I think I brough more ibuprophen than they had on the shelf. They have recruited four very sharp doctors who are committed to this ministry with one more being trained as a surgeon on Cameroon.

We will be here one more day before we start the long journey home. Tomorrow we will have opportunity to meet with some more staff and doctors about their vision for Tandala Hospital.

God Bless,

Pastor Randy

Heading To Tendala

Dear Constance Family,

Tomorrow is our second and last Sunday in the Congo. I do not have to preach this week so that will obviously be more relaxing for me. Today was a rather quiet and enjoyable day. I did alot of playing with the children around here. They enjoy the 'white folks' who pay attention to them! They are beautiful children.

After church tomorrow we are driving the two and a half hours to Tandala Hospital. The roads are not very good and so we appreciate your prayers. We get to see the ministry the hospital has had among this people for many years. What a blessing for them all! Tandala is a Free Church hospital started many years ago, and with whom we now have a connection with the Mayo Clinic for help and supplies. This came about through other teams who came before us, people who provided the technical equipment and who had the connections to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. God has blessed this work.

Tonight is the coolest one we have had so far, and that makes for better sleeping. Most days and nights bring alot of perspiration (what about this COOL season??). Thankfully I have not faced any sickness on this trip (the food must agree with me). With the busy past week it is nice to face some quieter days ahead.

Please pray for our final days here, and for the wonderful people in the Congo. Pray for the pastors and evangelists serving our God faithfully among their people and beyond the Congo. May God bless your Sunday and worship together in Minnesota!

Serving Him With You,

Pastor Randy