April 1st 2013

Thursday 14^th February 7:00am.

 Prayers and service in the church followed by breakfast at 8:00am.

At 9am we set out for a tour around the community, visiting the bible school, health center and small hospital.  

 Again we saw the needs for better equipment and repairing / rebuilding of the buildings.  There was excitement at the hospital, which is one of the newer buildings in the community, because solar panels were being erected on the roof. The workmen are just visible in the picture below!!

A special celebration this morning was the distribution of 3 motorbikes, 50 bicycles and several hundred bibles to the pastors and evangelists of some of the 20 Church Districts.

  These were a gift from WEC as part of its centenary celebration.  Bicycles are the best way of travelling for the Pastors to cover the widespread communities and little settlements in their Districts.  Bicycles are seen in various states of dilapidation transporting people, huge bundles of wood and charcoal and bananas!  Also all kinds of household goods (including huge mattresses!)  or several  5 gallon water cans strung  all over the bike.  

 In these cases the rider becomes the “pusher” often walking for miles through the forests.

If it was interesting to see a young girl repairing the walls of her home with the usual clay-like orange mud!  

 These mud and cane houses can be destroyed by termites in two or three years so there is constant repairing to be done until the termites win and the little house collapses. (They also catch, dry and fry termites for food!)

After lunch and a short rest we set of at 3.30pm to Isiro. To get there we always had to drive across an old disused railway line. 

 We were going to a small church in the town for a local Centenary Celebration and welcome service. 

 A lovely time with the usual bands, singing and preaching.  The service was suddenly drawn to a close (it would probably have continued for another couple of hours) because a storm was imminent.  We scrambled into and onto our two vehicles, John traveling in the back of the pickup truck this time! Again we got home just before the rains came!!

We had our evening meal, time of prayer and chat about the things and people we had seen and experienced today and then off to bed!