Today after the first plenary session the representatives for the bible society took the platform and their leader introduced them. There are six representatives, three of whom are women. It was great to see the women who hold important administrative roles in the ministry, but they really got a buzz when it was stated that one of the women is an ordained minister.
After the Bible society session, we went for a walking tour of the mission property. We saw the first homes built on the property and then we came to the first high school ever built in Gemena. It consists of two buildings with a courtyard in between. They have open windows rows of benches and a blackboard. Tom says they have 40-60 students per room. They split the day in two, with one group of students attending in the morning until noon and the second group from 12:30 on. Now there are several schools in Gemena and each focuses on a specific area, such as carpentry. This school teaches teachers.
Elsewhere on the property is another building that is used as a preschool in the morning and elementary school in the afternoon. Then there is a dormitory for girls not far from this building.
A short walk from the area with the schools is the health clinic. When we arrived the waiting room was full of pregnant women. Wednesday is pre-natal day. The nurse gave us a tour of this shell of a building and it really is amazing what all they do there. They have 5 or 6 beds (without mattresses, because African’s use mats instead, and boards instead of springs) for those who need to stay and there happened to be a mother with her baby there. The baby was anemic and could use a blood transfusion but the hospital is out of resources so the nurse is taking care of it. Tom explained that it was probably Malaria and worms related. Malaria attacks the blood cells killing 2-5% with each infection and a person can be infected every three days. So the nurse will hydrate the baby, give anti-Malarial medicines and some iron to the baby and hopefully it will recover.
They also do a variety of tests at the center, including screening for HIV/AIDS. The nurse said the clinic has about a 7-9% positive rate for the tests (of those that consent to the test), which Tom said is the in the regional range of 5-10%. The center is responsible for immunizations within a certain distance and that includes just over 10,000 people. From his records he and is counterpart are doing a great job.
Then lunch time at President Selenga’s house (he is in his last year as the Congo Free Church president) and his favorite food—pizza! It was good pizza, too. But in the midst of the fun there was sadness as well. A woman who joined us for lunch works for the orphan’s project and part of her story came out. She became a believer about five years ago and her Muslim husband did not seem too concerned. She began to grow and wanted to be baptized, but waited in hopes he would meet Christ. He didn’t, so 18 months ago she was baptized and he was very angry. He has not spoken with her since, even though they were in the same house. About six weeks ago he came and took their children with him and will not let them have contact with her. Oh, how her heart breaks. Pray for her.
After lunch it was back to the conference where they had a session on AIDS including two testimonies of people HIV positive. They are working hard to hit it head on. We didn’t get much in the way of translation, but fortunately we get to meet with them tomorrow. The final session of the conference was quite powerful and the time ended with a big hug and smile from the pastor who received a Cougs hat from me. He was delighted.
Tonight I meet with the dean of the French speaking seminary to talk about prayer in Africa. It should be informative.
One of the team is sick today, please be praying for us and our health.
In His Grip.
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