The Lord Is Good, and is Worthy to Be Praised

Hello friends and family! We are currently spending our second day in Beberati. A good sized town 9 hours in the car away from Bangui. We have lots to share. The enemy has been busy trying to attack us. We are seeing that even though you are so far away, our God is so big that he hears all our prayers, and answers them. Thank you for being with us during this trip, through prayer.

We set out for Bangui early in the morning on Monday. We stopped at a roadside eatery, and had coffee and doughnuts. While eating breakfast, we watched two men butcher half a cow, for the lunch crowd..... mmmm.... Jo and I decided not to watch. It was a great cultural experience, a little different from eating at Bob Evans. We traveled on to Beberati. We decided we were going to stop in a town called Yaloke, where Jim (director of ICDI ) and wife Faye Hocking served for 20 years as missionaries. We were going to stop and see their old home and town. This whole area, including their home was looted during the war after they evacuated. We were 20 minutes outside of Yaloke, when we entered a smaller village. Here in Africa, everyone walks on the road. This certain area was fairly crowded. As we were about to leave the area, a small boy suddenly ran in front of the car, we instantly slammed on the brakes, and laid on the horn. The little boy saw us, looked up, but continued to run in front of us, most likely as a natural reaction. We later found out that our skid marks were 100 feet long. We couldn't stop in time, and heard him hit the car on the front passengers side. Once we stopped, Jim opened the door, but heard screaming so he decided for our safety that we should keep driving. Sometimes the village people will mob the car, because they are mad. We hurried to catch up the other car. Finally we got up to them. The other driver, Etienne, was from this particualr area and spoke the local dialect, so he decided to go back and get the boy to take him to the hospital, if he was still alive. The other 9 of us piled into one car to drive the rest of the way to Yaloke where we would be safe. We prayed HARD. We were all praying for the next hour and a half. Jay left soon after we arrived in Yaloke to go to the police station to report the accident, and return to the site with the police. We all waited, praying, in Yaloke to hear what had happened. We waited until Jay and Etienne returned, both unharmed. The boy was fine!!! His only injuries were a scraped toe and knee. Jay was sitting in the passenger seat, and saw the boy get hit, and said there's no way he couldn't even have AT LEAST a big bruise on his chest or abdomen. The boy told Jay, that he doesn't even remember being hit. I believe our car hit the angel that was protecting the little boy. When we heard this news, we all celebrated with tears and hugs and prayer. We were overwhelmed by the way God had protected this little boy's life and Jim from getting in any governmental trouble. (People normally go to jail for these things.) The police said there was nothing to record, no problems, and we were free to leave. Jim called his wife Faye, and she told him that she woke up in the middle of the night, about an hour before the accident, and she couldn't go back to sleep. So she started to pray, through out the whole situation. I was so happy that she could support her husband over the ocean, because we have such a God. The pastor in Yaloke told us something, something I've now heard three times while being in Africa, "The one thing we have is prayer." Sometimes being here, I feel so helpless. So I pray, and the Lord has answered me. We arrived later into open arms in Beberati of Josh and Kimia Danforth and Kimia's parents Kim and Jan Cone. We had a dinner and went to bed.





Tuesday, Jim and Nancy Zuck, and Jay and Debbie went with Josh to a cooperative ran by a catholic mission. This mission houses about 12 teenage street boys that they are trying to re-introduce to an agricultural lifestyle. They cleared a huge amount of land, and planted almost 1000 bean plants!!



The rest of us got some extra sleep, and some quiet time by the in-ground pool! Nate and joanna took a walk into town, Jim did some projects around the compound. Later in the afternoon, Josh took us to see his garden.... wow. This is an agri-forestry project which is growing plants for seeds, to give or sell to people in the village so that they can grow their own garden as well. The main food in CAR is called gozo, which comes from a manioc plant, and has very little nutritional value. Josh's garden contains beans, a plethora of fruit trees, and bananas. Some of these plants leaves are edible, and are a huge source of protein. As I write this, Josh is in a seminar with some of the village people teaching about how to graft fruit trees, and it's value.



We had planned to visit another cooperative, and help with some planting and landscaping but it started raining around 3 and didn't quit til noon. I didn't know it could rain SO hard and SO long!! Nate, Jim and Jim worked on some plumbing problems around the compound, Jim Z also helped Kim in the garage this morning.

I almost forgot... We all went over to Jay's childhood best friend Marcelin's house and met his beautiful wife, Lisa and their 3 children. We had a wonderful meal with them, and asked lots of cultural questions. It was lots of fun!

Joanna and I are going to have a cup of tea with Kimia. Hope all is well back in the states! We love you, miss you, and think of you often!

-Lisa W.

PS Please continue to be in prayer for us, especially for Jim right now. The life and death situation with hitting the little boy took an emotional toll on him, as it would anyone. He has many important ICDI tasks at hand, not to mention taking care of our team. Pray that he would have his spirit filled, and that we would be able to encourage him as much as possible.