Twelve Days Out of a Suitcase-Part 1

I've spent more than 12 days living out of a suitcase a few times in my life, but doing it in Africa is a bit more challenging. It will take multiple chapters to tell about this journey.

A four-hour plane trip becomes and 8 hour trip. Maneuvering through customs in three countries can take three or four stops at each passport control. Before boarding a plane they can check your luggage several times and stamp your passport, ticket, etc. more times than that. Since we can't mail things to the outlying cities, this travel is all done hauling six heavy suitcases full of every conceivable mission supply through five different airports.

It all begins in Kinshasa "at the beach." This is not what you picture when you hear the word "beach." It's a crazy place with hundreds of people coming on and off barges carrying enormous loads on their backs and heads. There are people selling and buying all kinds of things and loading them on huge trucks. There are people changing money, street vendors with food, water and many other things for sale, shoe shine boys, car washers, etc. There are police, army troops carrying AK47's and passengers wandering around in the mix. You can even get your hair cut at "the beach."

After working your way through the "formalities" you head into the barred dock area, do more "formalities," wait your turn to go through the gates and hope to get your passport back. After all of that's done, you finally go down the ramp to the boats.

One interesting thing about the boats is that they only carry passengers one-way. The DR Congo and the Republic of Congo couldn't agree on how to work together to take each others passengers, so they only take passengers from their own country. They cross back with an empty boat. Then they pick up another load of people and cargo in their country and continue this cycle all day.

Cargo and passenger barges that cross the Congo river

We've never taken the big barges, and I hope never to do so. Sometimes we can get on a nicer flat boat and sometimes it's a little old speed boat crammed with 12 people and all their luggage. This time they couldn't fit two of our big bags on to the boat, so they told us that they would just send them on the next boat. I was pretty worried about seeing them again as we drove away from the dock, but the men promised us that they would be just fine. They actually arrived on the very next empty boat.

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Speedboats carry about 12 passengers and their luggage. Our bags didn't fit.

The boats are all old and battered and a little scary, but we're always glad that at least we don't ride on barges or in dugouts.

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Barges that move passengers far upriver

Dugout canoes that carry passengers and cargo

Because of all the "formalities" and processes required for the actual five minute trip across the Congo River the trip turns out to be a pretty exhausting three-hour journey.

After arriving in Brazzaville we went straight to the airport to catch a plane to Pointe Noire.

In Brazzaville the traffic is mostly green taxis and the traffic jams are pretty intense. They earn their money by moving a certain number of passengers. They have to give the taxi owners enough money for that certain amount of rides. Any money beyond that amount is what they get to keep. So they're in a big hurry to take as many fares as they can and are crazy drivers.

Taxi drivers causing traffic jams in Brazzaville and the new Brazzaville airport

Next we negotiate the new Brazzaville airport with the help of the CES director, Gaetan, a CES employee. Thankfully, he took care of all the "formalities" while we just waited in an isolated corner of the airport. He got things all done quite quickly and we made it on time for our trip to Pointe Noire.

In Pointe Noire we were greeted at by the Gates. They were our wonderful hosts for our three-day stay. They live in a very nice house that they found after much searching. The city is on the ocean and they walk every day on the beach which is not far from their home. They've gathered some amazing sea shells. I can picture them being made into wonderful little patio water falls.

The home of our missionary couple and their amazing shell collection

It appears that the standard of living is a little better in Pointe Noire than in the DR Congo. There are more paved streets and bigger and better structures. There's even a very large, ornate hotel in downtown Pointe Noire.

Street scenes in Pointe Noire, Republic of Congo

The fancy downtown hotel owned by the family of the Congolese President

Having said that things seem a little better in Pointe Noire, this is still Africa and there are lots of things in Pointe Noire to prove that's true. But even in the tiny shops there seems to have more variety, a bigger quantity and better quality of items in them.

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Furniture and Book stores

Shoe store and "the suburbs"

We held our zone conference and dinner in the Gates' home just a couple of hours after our arrival. It's so great to be with these wonderful, obedient, faithful, hardworking missionaries.

Pointe Noire Zone

There are five Americans (Thompson, Nash, Garner, Larsen and Hancock) and three Africans and our senior couple in this zone. Elder Mathieu is from Kenya. Elder Rokatosan is from Madagascar. Elder Buzangu is from Lubumbashi. We knew Buzangu in Likasi when we served on our first mission . He's a great guy, with a smile as big as Africa itself. They're all doing a tremendous job and are very happy in their work in Pointe Noire. And a little crazy too!

After the conference we spent some time doing training with the new program for teaching new missionaries. Then Brent went out and spent a couple of hours teaching with Elders Buzangu and Hancock. He took Elder Gates' truck and drove where the two elders directed him, which was through deep sand and straight up a hill covered with garbage. Thank heavens for four-wheel drive! Meeting with missionaries in zone conference is such an uplifting and also a fun experience. They're just awesome!

The next order of business in Pointe Noire took up most of the day on Saturday and Sunday. A new branch was created by dividing the two existing branches. This required that every branch have changes. Brent interviewed all day on Saturday. It was a full day! All the branches met together in a large rented hall on Sunday. There were 402 members in attendance. There were complicated boundary changes and many new callings.

Creation of Mpaka Branch

After the meeting, while their wives looked on, Brent set apart three branch presidencies and three elders quorum presidencies (18 men in all) who had received new callings.

Our last project was to look at some renovations that are being done on a building. We had hoped to have it ready for the branch division, but it's not quite there yet. Construction is pretty interesting here in Africa. It's all done with bricks and plaster and the supports make me just a bit terrified.

Remodeling the New Chapel

But they build multiple-story buildings this way and it seems to work. It's better than the tin we saw in the townships of South Africa. Everybody longs for a church built chapel, but they are content with someplace to meet that is close and big enough for a congregation to fit in one room. This place is well located. You can look out the windows and see the whole, huge neighborhood below.

It's going to be a good meeting place when it's finished. The parts that are done look very good.

It's quite amazing how they can change a really rough piece of brick wall with plaster and a little paint. Hopefully it can be maintained this way and kept until the church is ready to buy land and build buildings. Renting, remodeling, repairing and moving are not good processes to face here.

After a great four days in Pointe Noire we said goodbye to our dear friends, the Gates and our wonderful missionaries and we were off to the airport for a flight to Douala, Cameroon and a few hours of layover before our 11:00 pm flight to Yaounde. What a whirlwind stop in Pointe Noire!