The trip has now gotten a little harder for the youth team. We are on our own. All the missionaries from reach global have gone to Tandala. We have been left in Gemena to do our trainings. We have two people from the CECU that are working with us. They both speak English fairly well.
Yesterday we started the first training session. We were supposed to start at 2:00pm but did not get to the church where the training was being held until 3:30pm. The driver must have misunderstood the guy who is making all the arrangements for our group. I was driven to the training by motorcycle while the other two guys waited for the truck to pick them up. While on the motorcycle we drove through the market at Gemena. I saw even more poverty and a little worse than what I had previously seen. I just want to say that if I do not ride on another motorcycle in the Congo I will be happy. The streets are packed and the roads are horrible. I have no reason to ever complain about the roads we have in the US.
Our first training went well. We have 128 people there. We tried to teach them an icebreaker game. I am not sure how it went over. It was funny to watch. We only were able to get through the first part of the training. Today we finish the training.
Please pray that the training would go well. Pray that we would speak in a way that the translators can interpret.
Thank you for praying. It is making a difference. Our trip has had very little go wrong. We are not used to waiting around as much as we are, but time is not a big thing in this country.
Nice blog post, Brian. Keep it up. I am mining such things for updates to post on the http://www.CongoBlog.org/. This morning I posted your Tuesday blog in its entirety, plus a photo from Cal.
ReplyDeleteLorie, since you are on Facebook, basically you are getting the same info I am. I haven't yet had any direct updates from either Amanda or Elissa, though I would be delighted to receive one. Since they haven't posted to Facebook, my assumption is it's probably pretty tough to get computer time to do so there.
But keep checking the Congo blog. Whatever I learn I am posting there each morning.
Also, to comment on Brian's blog, click the link (at the bottom of each posting) which says "# comments".
Brian, also tweet me any details if you can, assuming you can get Twitter access.