Home Sweet Home

Since we are currently "cameraless," I'm going to record a few things about our home.

First, just living in a house that has an address is somewhat unique in the Congo. Most of the recommendations for baptisms we get in the mission just say Lubumbashi, Congo or maybe have a commune name or number on them. Addresses are not common and harder still to find if you know them.

We live in the midst of great poverty. It is very difficult to see the living conditions of some of the people here. And even more amazing to see how they get along so well with so little. They are remarkable. Homes are small ,close together and most have no yards. They lack many modern conveniences that we would consider necessities-lights, indoor plumbing, flooring, furniture, appliances, etc. Many people live without running water and power every day. Everybody loses power and water for an hour or a day here and there. There are few paved roads and the paved roads are sometimes worse than the dirt roads.

We live like royalty in this land where so many live in such need. Our home is a wonderful place!

We, personally, think that they have kept this wonderful property because someday it would make a good mission home. We feel like having a mission here is the ultimate goal for this area. It would make a big difference in how the missionary work could progress and how the area could grow. With more support as a mission here good things would surely happen. It will happen someday. But, until that time, we live in a house that is far too nice for a senior couple anyplace in the world. But in the Congo, it's a luxurious home in one of the nicest parts of the city of Lubumbashi.

We really like this old house and it's potential!

It's a refuge for us from the world, just as we have always tried to make our home throughout our life. It is comfortable,safe and nice, although, like all of us old things, it has it's quirks.

This is the back door,patio and corner of the laundry house.

The house, like everything else here, is built of handmade red bricks that have been plastered over to make smooth walls.

For people who like antiques, it's a good place to live. It was built by the Belgians, probably sometime in the 40's or 50's and whoever built it did amazing work considering the time and place that it was built. It has not always been well cared for and shows many signs of abuse. During the copper boom the Chinese came in and rented big homes and put 20-30 workers in each house.

They were not well taken care of and there was a great deal of damage done. The Congolese do not speak kindly of this time with the Chinese. Many will still not rent to them. Interestingly they also don't like to rent to Congolese either. I'd love to just tear into this house and restore it to it's original glory, but that's not my job right now. However, there are many lovely things that remain from it's better days. It has amazing mill work in it.

The ceilings in the foyer, dining room and living room are beautiful.

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Hand carved door frames and beautiful hardware.

The metal front doors are very nice, although they've not been kindly treated.

And I love the poured terrazzo floors throughout most of the house, even though they have many stains and chips in them, the patterns and workmanship are really quite remarkable.

We have a foyer and a large dining room,

a big office where we spend half our time sitting across from each other at our computers

There two bedrooms, a bath room and a powder room.

It's not perfectly furnished but we have much more than any Congolese that we know. So we don't complain at all.

The kitchen is large and has plenty of storage, although the cabinets are not well made and the plastic handles fall off regulary. It also has a refrigerator, freezer and a stove. We are the only people we know of who have a stove. Most people cook on braisers with charcoal.

The front porch also has terrazzo floors and would be a good place to just sit and enjoy the yard, if we had time to do that and I wasn't terrified of mosquitoes. But the yard and it's story is for another chapter.

Behind the main house is a laundry house, guest house and boyerie. We use the guest house for people who come to stay here when they do church work in Lubumbashi. It is small, but very comfortable, except for the tiny kitchen in which you can hardly turn around. At one time there was a missionary couple in each house. This small house would make a great misison office someday.

Then there is the boyerie. It's a small brick house with two plain plastered rooms and an outside bathroom and shower. It was built as servants quarters. We use it for storage. It is a little creepy right now, but would be good storage for a mission someday.

Water is stored in three huge holding tanks and pumped by an electrical pump to the house. This is problematic because when the power goes out, so does the water. And that is often daily and sometimes for 12 hours or more. Not fun!!

So, this is a marvelous place to live. We are living in the best place that we have seen in all of the Lubumbashi. We feel very grateful and sometimes feel guilty that we live in such luxury (Congolese style) when so many others have so little.

We pray for the day when the this area is strong enough to be a mission and maybe this compound will serve that mission well as a mission home and office.. This old home is by far the most beautiful man-made thing we've seen in the Congo. What a great blessing it is to live here.