And we lose some of the team...

Wow, was it tough getting up this morning. We had to be up as usual at 5 for prayer at 6. We are all feeling the soreness of our bodies from moving the tons and tons of rocks....literally tons! I think we estimated that we have movd anywhere between 2 and 3 tons of rocks....with our hands and no equipment. Its been really hard work but we are so happy with how its come out. We have all made a great team in working and building this project together!

Today was a mellow day. In Goma, today is a holiday. Its thier form of Labor Day. No one works! So it made being able to do stuff a little trciky as everything was closed. We knew we were sending off two of our team members to Kinshasa this afternoon. So we spent the morning with Michael and Patrick playing Catch Phrase and as a bonus for them leaving the girls let the guys win....hahahaha! We took the adventerous drive to take the guys to airport and got a chance to see the workers who were celebrating the holiday marching done the "road" in a parade. I say "road" because the streets here are not a street like you are thinking. In 2002 there was a volcanic eruption that took out most of Goma. So what remains is mounds and mounds of lova rock. The roads here are mostly all lova rock...which of course leads to an extremely bumpy drive no matter where you go in town. So at the airport we parted with two of our team members wishing them good luck and lots of prayers as they continue their work here with Sons of Congo.

The drive back to the house was very quiet. I think we were all a little sad to see some of the team leave but even more so realizing our trip is slowly coming near its end. Back at the house we had some lunch with some special guests. Priscilla joined us along with three boys she has taken under her care here in Goma. We ended lunch with giving the boys a soccer ball that they kicked around for hours in the front yard. It put smiles back on all of our faces.

Tonight was our last bible study with the women at Heal Africa. It was very powerful as Jen shared about what it means to be a Christian and how you can turn your life over to the Lord and the results you get from that. The women loved what she had to share and responded very well. After bible study the women got a chance to share whatever was on their hearts with us. Many of them shared about how blessed they have been by our presence here, others about how they will miss us when we go. There was many tears and lots of hugs to go around. We ended our visit by giving each of the women at the study a peice of fabric that they could use for sewing, clothing, etc. This brought many of them to tears as they were overwhelmed by recieving the gift!

After bible study we got a text message from Michael and Patrick saying they arrived in Kinshasa safe and sound so that made us all feel good. We headed back to the house were we shared a dinner prepared by Nona. We sat around the table for a few hours after dinner sharing many laughs, tears, more laughs, more tears from laughing so hard and many stories of our lives. It was a great time of reflection on where the Lord has brought us all in our lives. God is so AWESOME!!

Were now getting ready to plan out our last day in Goma for tomorrow....lots of things to do! Looking forward to it all. So until then..... we miss you and love you all very much! See you soon!!



Jess