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