Emotions

Nice to sleep in air conditioning, we actually got a little cold.

There were no team plans for the day but Camille was going to his sister's college graduation, and I wanted to find the biological family of Davina (my daughter). The problem with finding the family is that I did not have a phone number and no idea where the house was. So I did what I do in Kinshasa when I need to find something, call Francis. Francis is a good friend I met in 2004 and has helped in every trip I have taken to Kinshasa. We went to the house of Major Mwabidi who help in the adoption process. We picked up his son who new the way, so with Camille driving we headed out. I do not know how people know where to go. There are so many side roads and the ones we took were an absolute mess from recent rains. Fortunately we where in a nice Toyota Land Cruiser 4x4 that handled the roads easily. I drove a lot in Goma, but I have zero interest driving here! As we drove up the street I had a flash back to the last day Davina was in that house. We came to pick her up to get passport and visa pictures taken. She was running around with a lot of other kids and her mother quickly changed her cloths and put her in the truck. We took her into the city and a simple process took awhile. By the time we where finished, we needed to return the car we were borrowing, so since we were the legal parents, we called and kept her with us. She never went back to her house again. I quickly came back from my memory to see a girl standing in the doorway of the house looking at me as if she new me. It was Roland, the 23 year old sister of Davina. Five of the seven children where home, one was in Angola and the other was at school. I talked with all the kids and my emotions were running very high, I did not expect to feel this way. Joanna had printed some pictures for them and I handed them to Roland one at a time. She grabbed a picture and said "my baby" and kissed the picture. I lost it, tears could not be contained. She could tell that Davina was healthy and very happy, and she was cool with that. I was a able to get pictures and write down the kids names and ages. I told them as much as I could and they asked me a couple questions. Roland and Enoch (9) were the most interested. I met Enoch last year, a really sweet boy. I did not know what to think or feel when I left. I was glad that Patrick was there to experience this with me, he really loves Davina.

From there we went to Camille's sisters graduation. In a word I would describe the scene chaotic. People everywhere on the campus, one big party. We were not there long, then we head over to Camille's dads house for the party. The party would not really get going until much later, but we stayed awhile, had some food, then head back for a team meeting.

Meeting was really hard to focus, partly because I preaching the next day and had to finish and partly thinking about the Nsombi family. We were focusing on our schedule and who we needed to meet with.

Got to bed, finished preparing, then slept!

Sleep in good.

More to come... Grace & Peace.

Michael.

http://sons-of-congo.blogspot.com