Republic of Congo Info

Anna made me get my own posting name so she doesn't get blamed for my writing. Therefore this is my first one.

I thought everyone might like to know some fun facts about the Republic of Congo (hereafter the ROC).

You have the location from a prior post.
The size in area is about the size of Montana.
There are 3.8 million people in the country and they are divided into around 5 ethnic groups:
Kongo 48%, Sangha 20%, M'Bochi 12%, Teke 17%, Europeans and other 3%.
The infant mortality rate is 83 deaths per 1000 births. This ranks 24th worst in the world and is a lot higher than the United States 6.7/10000.
In a country of 3.8 million there were 9,700 deaths from HIV the last time there were totals.

The current head of state is President Denis Sassou-Nguesso. He used to be a Marxist but was ousted in the 80s. He then returned in the 90s and is now more "rightward" in his overt politics.
It was under his regime in the 80's that the current hospital site was started as a Communist Youth Camp. He currently overtly suports the work there in Impfondo.

The issues in the ROC are similar to other nations...unequal wealth distribution, dwindling resources, and ethnic conflict. The latter affects the ROC because they are a host nation for lots of refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

To get more information about the the govt facts and compare the ROC to other countries go to:

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html

I hope this helps.

Awanas

Last night was our first night of Awanas class. Last week we had registration, and it was fun to see all of the kids after the summer break. Stephen and I work with the Cubbies, which are the preschool class. They are 3-4 year olds, plus Caleb. We had 8 last night (not counting Caleb.) We have 3 teachers total, plus one teen helper, which is a nice ratio for that age. Caleb almost needs his own person, as he wants to grab the puppets, and remove the flannelgraph figures, and help in other ways.
At the beginning of each week we are going to line up on the "Awana square" which is used for game time. Each class takes one color.
Here the cubbies are lined up on the blue line. One girl was a little late, so I didn't get her in the picture.
We do the pledge to the flag, sing some songs, and then head back to our classroom.
In our room, we have a puppet show, Bible story, work on our Bible verse for the week, and do a craft.
After that is game time and snack time.
One change this year is that the cubbies end at 8:00, while the other classes end at 8:30. The kids can stay until 8:30. (Some of the parents are teachers, or they have other siblings in the older classes.) About 1/2 way through the class, I was looking at the schedule to make sure we were on track. I realized that we had planned everything out for class time, but forgotten about those last 30 minutes! Oops! We just worked on the craft some more and colored. We will have to plan a little better next time.


These pictures are of the Sparks, the K-2nd grade class. It is the largest. They were instructed to line up quietly on the red line. Who is that kid in the middle play fighting with his friend-- IAN. He was a little wild last night, and we had to talk to him afterwards. Hopefully, it was just the excitement of the first week.
The sparks are the largest class. I think they had almost 20 last night. I'm glad that we are teaching the cubbies!

Say cheese!

Caleb likes to have his picture taken. On Monday morning, he was pointing at the camera and saying, "Cheese, cheese." Of course, I had to take a few pictures. The hard part is getting him to hold still for the picture. He wants to walk toward the camera, and then put his face right in front of the lens.
Things are mostly back to normal after our weekend trip. It snowed again while we were gone. (Too bad we missed it- ha-ha- sarcasm doesn't translate well when typing.) It has been cold since last week. I'm afraid that winter is here already!
Ian was supposed to have his first drum group on Monday, but it was canceled. Yesterday, I went to make sure he got to drum group OK, only to find out that it was only for 3rd graders. I think that the 2nd graders are going to meet on Mon & Wed. I am going to go again today, just to make sure that they actually have it and that it is for his grade. (He is supposed to go right after school, and then we pick him up at 4:00. He is very excited about starting, so I really hope that they will start today. I will try to get some pictures of him drumming when I can. It may be awhile before they let them actually use the drums.

More RV pictures

The kids actually did better riding in the RV than in our car. On the way to Missoula, Isabelle and Caleb were beside each other on the bench seat, and Ian was in a bucket seat. On the way home we switched Ian and Isabelle. They enjoyed having a little more space. The table in front of the bench seat was a great place for them to play. They have trouble sitting still for long, so it was still hard for them by the end of the trip. The good thing about having a bathroom in the RV is that when one of the kids "had to go right now" they could just get up and go. We didn't have to try to find a bathroom out in the middle of nowhere. Ian and Isabelle are already asking when we can do it again!

Fun in Missoula

RV fun in Missoula.

The RV....

The bunk where Isabelle and Ian slept

The eating place.

This weekend we went to Missoula in a borrowed RV (there should be a song about that). Mary Jo ( a friend in Browning) let us borrow her RV and off we went. While in Missoula, we reconnected with old friends, met new ones and had some fun.

The old friends were David and Becky Thompson. We spent six weeks with them in Gabon Africa when Stephen was in medical school. They continue to serve there. They are both currently involved in doing a lot of teaching. David even has helped organize a residency training program for young African Christian surgeons!

The New friends were Brad and Laura Torsen. They currently work at an Alliance church in Missoula and were on the appointment committee from last week with us. They have been missionaries in the past in Guinea and Ivory Coast.

We arrived Friday night and after some head scratching were able to get everything on the RV hooked up without major incident.

Saturday morning we attended seminars that David and Becky were doing at the Missoula Alliance Church. Anna and I would take turns listening to them speak and watching the kids. It worked out well since the church had a good sized nursery.

We also met a retired anesthesiologist named John Bradford who has quite a heart for missions. He was very interested to hear our plans and even asked me to speak after the last session of the morning. now more people know about what we are doing.

The rest of the day was taken up by swimming for Ian, Isabelle and I while Anna and Caleb rested, then relaxing as a family.

Sunday we attended church, had lunch with some of the above mentioned families and then drove on home.

Overall an exhausting but fun trip.

This weekend we are speaking at our home church and letting them know more details about our progress towards Africa. Continue to keep us in your prayers

Snow Day

On Wednesday, we had our first real snow. We had some flurries before, but nothing that stuck. I should have taken more pictures, but it was a little too depressing. I have tons of pictures of our house and kids in the snow over the past 3 years, and couldn't really stand to take anymore. I'll get over it, I just wasn't ready for snow-- in September!
The next two pictures are some that Stephen took outside our house in the morning. It continued to snow until early after noon. We probably got over an inch, but then it mostly melted off during the course of the day.
The first picture is one of Ian walking into school
in the morning. He just looked so small!
Isabelle had a chance to go out and play in the snow after we took Ian to school. I didn't let Caleb go out, b/c he still needs snow boots and a snow suit.
We usually go to storytime at the library in Cut Bank, and then preschool on Wed, but I decided not to drive in the snow yesterday. We did have our first Awanas in the evening at our church in Cut Bank. It was just a registration night. Next week starts the first lesson.
We have big plans this weekend. I hope to post more about that later.

Splish, Splash

We had something unusual here today-- RAIN! The kids all put their rain boots and jackets on and splashed in the one puddle that we had in the yard. They didn't stay out for very long, because it was pretty cold.
This was a typical Tuesday for us. Stephen works 6AM-6PM on Tuesday. Ian has school, and the rest of us stay home.
Today after school, we went to a meeting for drumming group for Ian. He really wants to do it, so we are going to give it a try. They meet after school for about 45 min Mon- Thurs afternoons. There are certain requirements that they have to meet to stay in the group. They can't miss more than 5 days of school in a semester, 3 days of practice, be tardy more than 5 times, etc. The really hard part for Ian will be that they are supposed to have outstanding behavior in school... That could be a challenge! The first practice is on Monday, and we will see how he does.
I am posting a little early b/c I have craft night tonight- the most important part of Tuesday! As long as Stephen isn't working I go to craft night at 7:00 every week. It is my one chance to have some child free time. As much as I love the kids, sometimes I need a break! Stephen is kind enough to take the kids for an evening, even after working 12 hrs in the ER... Anyway off to fix supper and get ready for craft night.

Monday

Our Monday was uneventful. Stephen was off to work at 8AM, and Ian was off to school shortly thereafter. Isabelle, Caleb, and I hung out at home until about 11:30. Then we left for Cut Bank to take Isabelle to preschool. Her class is from 12:15-2:15 on Mon & Wed. While she was in class, Caleb was stuck running errands with me. Today, it was Radio Shack, the Dollar Store, Albertson's (grocery store), and JC Penny. We also had time to stop by a friend's house to chat (for me) and play (for Caleb). The picture is Isabelle at the end of preschool. That is the most I could get her to smile. After we picked Isabelle up, we drove back to Browning and picked Ian up (at 3:10). Stephen worked until 6ish and then we were all home for the rest of the evening. We live such an exciting life. (ha-ha) But that is a pretty typical Monday for us.
Stay tuned for more excitement tomorrow...

Our typical sunday

I thought that it would be fun to try to blog about our typical week.
This morning we went to church. Of course, I forgot to take the camera! So after church I did take some pictures of the kids. Isabelle and Caleb are looking at pictures, which they love to do quite often. The reason all of the kids are looking past me is b/c we just turned the Charlie Brown Halloween movie on when I took the pictures. I can't compete with that!
I teach the preschool Sunday school class. It is 3-4 yr olds (plus Caleb). We had seven this morning. They are a fun group, but they definitely keep me hopping. Stephen is in a adult Sunday School class, and Ian is in a K-2nd grade class. We don't have Sunday School in the summer, so this was only our 2nd week.
The next thing is church. Everybody starts out together for prayer, songs, and announcements. Then the children go back to children's church.
This week, we were teaching. We started the program this time last year, and it has really grown! We started with 7-8 kids. This week we had 20. Our church has added alot of people, and many of them are families with young children. It is exciting, but it can be a little hectic in children's church. We are dividing them into two groups. We still have some wrinkles to work out, but it is going well. The younger (preschool) group is about 1/2 of the kids, so we make them one class and then Kindergarten and up for the other group.
We have been very blessed to have lots of volunteers to help us out with Children's church. We always have a teen helper, and we usually teach 2 weeks a month and other people do the rest.
After church, we come home for lunch. Then, if I'm lucky like today, Stephen watches the kids while I take a nap.
The rest of the day, we don't do much. It's just a nice day for us to relax and spend some time together as a family.

"THE MEETING"

Anna and I wanted to thank everyone who prayed for us yesterday as we met with reps from the C&MA. There were four people who interviewed us and the interview was scheduled to go for 1.5 to 2 hours. I thought "what can we talk about for two hours?!" Well it went to almost 4pm. That is 3 hours if you were scoring at home, and at time was even emotional for everyone there (again, who would of thunk it?) The dynamics in the room were pretty cool, and overall very supportive. I was encouraged both by one member of the committee who was almost cheering us on, but was also relieved by another member who was relatively dogged about getting us to talk through some theological issues. The encouragement from the former was obvious but the the latter was encouraging to me because it reassured me that the C&MA as an organization is dedicated to having strong Christians in its ranks as missionaries.

The bottom line is that they were recommending confirmation to the C&MA for us. There were some details of Alliance distinctives that we were a little hazy on. I will have to talk to Pastor John (our Baltimore pastor at the C&MA church) about slacking on a couple of issues in his preaching topics.....of course it could be I might have dozed off a couple of times:)

From here we wait to here from Phil Skellie who is the director of IFAP to go from here. Further issues to be addressed are:
1) how much money will we need for support?
2)Where can we do language study? (we have a good idea on this one)
3)How is the relationship between C&MA and GO mission will be worked out?


Anna and I are very anxious to be going and doing so continue praying for us.

In other news, we will probably travel to Missoula next weekend since a missionary couple that we were with in Gabon will be speaking. They have served for a couple of decades in Gabon, he is a surgeon and she is a nurse (David and Becky Thompson).

New Haircuts

This is Isabelle's new haircuts. Lee Ann left it as long as she could. There are still some shorter parts in places. We will have to let it grow out a little bit, and keep trimming until it is all about the same length. I thought she might be upset, since she likes having longer hair, and being able to wear ponytails. But she seems happy with it. (Maybe too happy- if you know what I mean.)

This is Caleb's new haircut. Doesn't he look tough! He still has a few almost bald spots in the back. Poor baby, it's tough having an older sister!

Haircuts.... by Isabelle

This morning, I made some cards with Isabelle and Caleb.There was an online challenge. You are supposed to make a card within 45 minutes and you can upload it to the gallery if you want. Last night, Isabelle helped me make one card.
Today the first challenge was posted at 10 AM (mountain time). Isabelle and Caleb were excited, and picked out a few word stamps that they might want to use while we waited for the challenge. We knew that it was going to use crayons, so we were ready with those.
The challenge was to use leaves to make leaf rubbings and put it on a card. We went outside and picked some leaves, and then they did the leaf rubbings. They each got to pick some cardstock to use. After that, Caleb lost interest and decided to go outside.
Isabelle continued. She cut out her leaves, stamped some words, drew some more with crayons and added glitter. Then she decided to take her scissors and cut some more leaves off the trees... Sounds perfectly reasonable... right? About 5-10 minutes later the doorbell rang. Our neighbor noticed that Isabelle was giving Caleb a haircut, and came over to let me know. When I went outside, I saw that Caleb had hair all over him and there was hair everywhere. I then noticed that some of the hair was pretty long.... I think you can see where this is going.

I took a picture of the back of Caleb's head while he was sleeping. I didn't think he would hold still long enough while he awake. Some of the spots on top of his head look almost bald. His hair is maybe 1/8-1/4 inch in places.
Isabelle was happy with her haircut. She said, "I like haircuts." Maybe I should hide the scissors!
I have appointments for myself and Isabelle to get haircuts on Monday morning. I thought we would get her bangs trimmed, and maybe a couple inches off of the rest. Now I think she is going to get a very short haircut. There are some spots that are only a couple of inches. I will post pictures of how her hair turns out on Monday.

Back to School!

Ian started school on Tuesday. Even though today is only his third day, it seems like this has been a long week already! I think we just need to get back into the routine. It does help to have more of a schedule to the day.
Last Thursday was Ian's open house. He got to meet his teacher (we finally found out who she was). He in Vina Chattin this year, which is for 2nd and 3rd grades. He saw the new building, and lunchroom, gym, library, etc. After that he was pretty excited about school, but he still feels like he will miss out on all of the fun things that we do without him. (I'm not exactly sure what that is!) On Tuesday morning, I could hardly get him to sit still long enough to take his picture. When I was going to leave, I was trying to get his attention to tell him, but he was so busy talking to his friends, I just gave up. At the end of the day, we practically have to drag him out of the classroom. At least we know he is enjoying himself.
His teacher is from the area, but was living in WA until this summer, so is new to the school. They hired her in August, so she didn' t have alot of time to get ready, but she seemed like an experienced teacher. She has 17 kids, where most of the teachers have 20, so I hope that her class will stay a little bit smaller. I am going to try to take some more pictures of his class. He looks so small compared to some of the students. He did grow some over the summer, and I'm hoping that it is part of a big growth spurt.
On Tuesday, when we asked Ian what he did all he could do was talk about the movie he watched in Blackfoot Language class. It was all about monsters-- vampires, Medusa, etc. Sounds like he's off to a great start in 2nd grade!
Isabelle had her open house for preschool last Wednesday, and her first day was yesterday. She is very excited. She wants to go to preschool all day, every day. I think all kids love Ms. Olson. She does such a great job. Caleb would have liked to stay, too. At least I don't have to worry about our kids being too clingy!
She will be going on Monday and Wednesday afternoons from 12:15-2:15. During this time I will stay in Cut Bank, run errands, visit with friends, go to the library, etc.

(In other news we are meeting with the CMA reps in Great Falls next Friday the 14th at 1pm as a final step in our confirmation process with them. I hope that light at the end of the tunnel is not a train....
We would appreciate your prayers for that meeting as well.-- added by Stephen.)

Before and After

Before Summer at Running Eagle Falls




After Summer