Saturday and Sunday

It's hard to keep track of what the day of the week is, right now, much less the dates. We have been going so hard and seeing so much it feels like we have been in the CAR for a week and a half already, not just four days!


Saturday


In the morning we arose before the sun. We wanted to get on the road early for our trip to Mbaiki. Departure time was at 7:00 a.m. We met Janet Varner at the GBIM mission station and then loaded into two trucks for the 2 hour trip. The purpose of the trip was to introduce us to the 3 year young Bible school.




The 2 hour trip was an inundation in sights, sound, and smells. The drive bordered on sensory overload for some of us as we took in the lifestyle of the people who live in this area. The road out of the capitol city had a steady stream of people walking along both sides of the road as they travelled to the countryside to farm or gather wood to take back to the city and sell. We had been driving for 30 min. and were still seeing people on this mission! It was mind boggling to see what lengths people here were travelling by foot.




The homes we passed were varried. The most common home was made of baked clay bricks and palm frond roofs. These are mostly one room huts and the cooking and washing is done outside in the front yard which dirt. The majority of the homes had items sitting in their front yards to sell to passerbys. The most popular (and the most pungent) is a food these people love call gozo or mantioch. This food is actually a root which is soaked for 3 days to remove the poison, crumbled into small pieces and then dried before being put through a press and then mixed with water.











We took a break from the travel and stopped to visit a gorgeous waterfall. It is amazing to view God's creativity!

We arrived at the Mbaike Bible school around 11 and were encouraged to rest and eat before we were given an official tour. Fresh banana's and delicious cooked squash were served to us as well as the feast that we had brought to share. Lisa and Nancy had the opportunity to speak with one of the teachers at length and find out more in depth about the ministry at the school





This is an African run Bible school that has 13 couples enrolled for the fall semester. Janet Varner teaches women theology, knitting, discipleship, and even math 2 days a week. All the other teaching is done by Central Africans. We loved seeing and hearing about the school and were very impressed by their vision for the people here. We even got to see one of their daughters using water from an ICDI well.







Upon arriving back at the mission we discovered we had several hours before dinner, just enough time to hit the artisan market. Always an experience in culture when you barter with people, we got some good deals, and enjoyed the relational experiencing of haggling people down from 7,000 francs to 3,000 francs ($6).




Dinner was a wonderful time of sharing common experiences with the other GBIM missionaries as they hosted us to pizza and ice cream, african style. It's been such a pleasure and honor to rub shoulders with people I have been praying for, in the case of Janet Varner, my whole life. We stopped to take a picture with WLGBC missionary Tina Walker.






Sunday:


Today has been a day of rest. It couldn't have come at a better time. We have sat around for hours discussing culture and experiences and our thoughts on everything from the poverty we are seeing to the amazingly vital faith of these people.

Church this morning was a whole new experience as we worshiped with our brothers and sisters in a different language. Although most of us had no idea what was being said, we knew that we were worshiping the same God and are united together in our faith. What an incredble opportunity!

Thank you so much for your prayers and your support. Please continue to pray for us as we experience such new things and want the Lord's guidance in understanding them. We have had amazing unity on the team thus far, and we would appreciate your prayers that this continues. We leave tomorrow for Berberati. So far travel has been safe and we ask for your prayers that God continues to protect us and give us good traveling conditions. Thank you...