June 6, 2006
On a recent trip to the interior of Congo, Joyce McCabe and Sharon Howell experienced a number of unexpected—and unplanned-for—ministry opportunities. Here’s Joyce’s account of their time in Mossendjo:
We boarded a tiny plane where we could see the pilots fly. We landed on a grass airstrip and were greeted by a delagation from the church. There are no taxis in Mossendjo, but the people were able to line up a ride for us and our heavy luggage. Otherwise we would have had to use a wheelbarrow to take it into town! One of the first things the church did was to send an announcement to the local radio station that we had arrived!
Sunday morning we were awakened by wailing from a courtyard just two away from ours. A young woman had given birth around 3 a.m. and died around 5 a.m. because medicines were not available and the doctor also was not to be found. How sad to hear this sound. We walked to church that morning about three and a half kilometers. God’s annointing was apparent as Sharon preached. The church is made of bamboo, but the congregation is planning to build a brick one on the foundation that is already on the property.
Sunday afternoon, I spoke on the Biblical View of Sexuality. After this time, I was asked to repeat this teaching on the local radio that evening. So I was able to do this, and we received some feedback during the week from those who heard the message. This radio reaches a radius of 100 kilometers into many villages. Praise God for this opportunity and His enabling.
The rest of the week was spent having morning services, which Sharon and I shared. Then in the afternoons, Sharon taught principles of leadership to the church leaders while I taught Sunday school teacher training. I had 17 teachers from three areas.
I was so heartbroken to realize the first day that half of my teachers don’t even own a New Testament and cannot buy one here! I had taken five of the new Munukituba New Testaments up and gave those out. How exciting to see them using this and reading it and understanding it easily! How thrilled would be those faithful ones who translated and corrected this!
But how sad that there are no Bibles even to buy there. One man, the elder of the church, showed us his Bible that he had left open on the table when he went to bed. A rat ate a lot of the inside and that was all he had! How can the teachers teach without a Bible? Would you pray that this situation would change?
We found this whole area so needy of teaching and any kind of resources that we could leave. They were hard hit by the war and the aftermath of looting and destruction. Even the Post Office doesn’t work, so the people can only send stuff out by the little plane that we flew in on.
As we wound down our week, we were thanked over and over for coming. Apparently this was a huge boost to the credibility of the church there. We were presented with two live roosters. These were boxed up for us and off to the airport we went. We sat under the palm trees (which is the airport) and waited four hours until the plane came. By then we were late getting to Brazza so that our connecting flight was boarding right next to where we taxied in! God is so good! Ron Julian had prechecked us in and was able to get onto the tarmac to give us our tickets. We grabbed our luggage and boarded our plane for Pointe Noire—the last two to do so! We arrived safely home—including our roosters!
God graciously enabled us to teach even when we hadn’t planned on doing so at certain times. Several people came in from surrounding villages where the Christians have been evangelizing and have small cell groups started. These included several pygmies, who walked 20 kilometers to get to Mossendjo. These all will take the teaching back and share it with others.