Congo Trip, part two -- Kikwit

So, after spending two days and three nights in Kinshasa, we traveled to Kikwit to visit Edgard and BTEDE.

Now, last time I went to DR Congo, we flew to Kikwit. But now, with the highway paved between Kinshasa and Kikwit, not as many people fly there anymore and therefore, there are less flights. So, to travel on a Saturday, we rented a bus.

The distance from Kinshasa to Kikwit: 525 km.

The time it took us to get there: 12 hours.

We blew a tire on the way.... thankfully we were travelling uphill at the time, and had just arrived at a village. Here are some photos I took there:

These two women were visiting and laughing-- it totally made me smile!

We arrived in Kikwit after dark and settled in at the Catholic House hostel.

The next morning, Edgard came to pick us up for church. Well, we actually attended two services. The first one was at Edgard's church...

I love that they have three choirs!

One:

Two:

And three:

This last one is Edgard's choir. He's the second one on the right.

After introducing ourselves to the congregation (& getting a great reaction when I greeted them with "Mboté!"), we left to go to Papa Boma's church, where Konrad would be preaching. We drove part of the way there...

And journeyed the rest of the way on foot, uphill.

Here's a couple of photos of Papa Boma's church. Konrad said that last year, there were no walls.

And inside, we sat at the front on plastic lawn chairs. The women's choir was preforming...

And then the congregation sang, accompanied by these drummers:

At one point, people came forward to give money to buy bricks for the walls. When they did, these boys banged on their drums in celebration of their generosity. It made me wonder if people back home would give more if there was a little more celebration involved. ;)

Then, Konrad got up to preach. He spoke on Matthew 11:1-6 and I thought it was very good. Of course, he had to pause a lot for Delbert to interpret for him. But it was personal and relatable. He made sense of what Jesus said in verse 6: "blessed are those who do not fall away on account of me." This verse hadn't made sense to me before, but now I understood it.... blessed are we who still follow Jesus, even when _____________________ (we get sick, our prayers aren't answered, things get hard, He doesn't make sense to us, etc.) We're blessed when we trust Him regardless.

After lunch at Papa Boma's (we were offered rice, chicken and fried caterpillars, but I just had bananas and peanuts), the walk back down almost seems longer, but I think we ended up taking a different route. There were some pretty nice views though...

After we got back in the truck and made it back to the Catholic House, we packed up to go to the Health Zone of Mungindu, which I'll share about in its own post, most likely tomorrow.

Thanks for looking!

Congo Trip, part one -- Kinshasa

Well, I'm back from the Congo!

We made it back on Saturday afternoon, thanks to a wonderful woman at the Montreal airport who managed to get us on a direct flight home to Winnipeg (as opposed to having to fly through Toronto first!) I started to feel ill on the flight from Brussels to Montreal and worse still on the way to Winnipeg. I'm feeling better now, though. My nausea has disappeared and my appetite has returned, somewhat. Well, this afternoon, anyway.

Everyone has asked: "How was your trip?" And I have to respond truthfully that it was great! There were some challenging moments for sure, but all in all, it was very good.

I was trying to decide how to share my experience here on my blog... Last trip, I broke it up into days, but this time, I took fewer photos and went days without taking any! (I know, you're shocked! But in fairness, it's very difficult to take photos in the Congo.... especially in Kinshasa. So you have to take them on the sly. And I guess because it wasn't a brand new experience for me, I didn't feel the need to capture everything on film.)

So, I decided to break the trip into the cities/areas we visited, if that's alright with you. ;)

I'm started with Kinshasa, the capital city of DR Congo, home to 11 million people. That's right, over a third of the population of Canada lives in Kinshasa. There are people everywhere. For Mordenites, who don't can't grasp this concept, think Corn & Apple Festival 365 days a year.

We flew into Kinshasa on Wednesday evening, where we were reminded of how crazy the driving is there! Constant horn honking, swerving, changing lanes, etc. We rode in two cabs back to MPH, our hostel, and it felt as if our cab drivers were racing each other!

The next morning, Herve, Edgard Kimbau's son (Edgard is the director of the organization we support in Kikwit) came to the hostel and we enlisted his help in going with us into Kitambo (the neighbourhood where we stay) to change money, buy phone cards and visit the MB office.

Then, it was back to MPH to relax a little:

On Friday morning, we went to visit the widow of Jean Baptiste, a Congolese pastor who'd recently passed away. Three days after his death, she gave birth to a son, who she named after her late husband, calling him JB for short. She has six children now...

Here, Konrad is giving her a blanket made by a woman from our church:

We'd hoped to visit the clinic and the orphanage that afternoon, but it had rained and prevented us from doing so. The next morning, we left for Kikwit, but I did manage to snap this photo on our way out of town..... I love that they have Dora and Mickey Mouse on the side of their building. The sign says: "Good Kids School." :)

When we returned from Kikwit, Konrad and I, along with Murray Nickel and a team of nurses from B.C. went to visit the Bomoyi Ya Sika orphanage. The nurses had brought toys and a basketball hoop, along with two balls, which the kids loved!

Upon seeing a need for mattresses, the nurses pooled some of their money to buy 5 mattresses for the orphanage! Their generosity was inspiring!

On our second stay in Kinshasa, we also visited the Bon Berger clinic, the artist's market and met with members and former members of an organization on behalf of BTEDE. I also assisted two of our team members with going to a Toyota Dealership to buy parts for Edgard's truck and we spent some time in downtown Kinshasa looking for scribblers and pens to take back to the orphanage.

Here are a few more shots taken in Kinshasa...

These two were taken on our third visit to the artists' market:

These two photos were taken as we drove by, on the fly:

And these were taken on our walk back to Bon Berger and the orphanage:

And this is back at the orphanage. I'm holding Ritse.

One of the men that I traveled to Congo with in 2010 asked me on Sunday at church: "So, have they cleaned it up?" Meaning, is there less garbage around everywhere. Unfortunately, they hadn't, but I didn't seem to notice it that much this trip. I think this trip, I was more captivated by the people, rather than the surroundings. When things would happen, I'd feel a kind of affection for the people there, because they do live in very hard circumstances, something I'll never likely experience personally.

Thanks for looking!

Copy Cat

I admit it. I am often inspired by others' projects online and will take ideas I spy there and use them on my work. Sometimes it's unconscious, but other times, quite deliberate.

Case in point, when I saw the way Melissa Phillips stitched her leaves together on the second card in her post here, I knew I wanted to do the same thing on a card (& I'm sure I'll also be doing this on a layout in the future, too!)

We were challenged a couple of weeks ago in church to show love to our town, oops, I mean city. We became a city a couple of months ago. So, anyway, I decided to show my appreciation to our local library, as we love going there so much! I baked some pumpkin chocolate chip muffins and dropped them off with this card:

I used PTI cardstock (vintage cream, kraft), stamps (counting my blessings) and dies (leave prints, counting my blessings). The patterned paper is all Crate, except for the cream coloured ones. Those are both Authentique.

Thanks for looking!

PWP Challenge #15

I'm just popping in this morning to post November's Pages with Papertrey challenge, which is one of my favourite ways to use my dies, by using the negative part of the diecut on your layout.

Here's the layout I created for this challenge:

I used Papertrey Ink cardstock (sweet blush, aqua mist), stamps (strawberry sentiments, delightful doilies) and dies (script alphabet, beautiful butterflies). I also used My Mind's Eye patterned paper, diecuts and brads, as well as Teresa Collins patterned paper (the white & yellow polka dotted one along the side). The "@" diecut is from a Provocraft set of alphabet dies called Harmony.

Here's a close-up of my technique for the challenge, as well as my journaling:

So, if you create a layout for this month's challenge, please leave a comment here with the link or here on the PTI forum, because I'd love to see what you make!

Thanks for looking!

Some treats while I'm gone, part 3

Here are the last three treat bags that I made for my family to open while I am away in DR Congo.

I sewed the top half of a bag along the bottom, after cutting it with pinking shears. The tag is made from a PTI fillable frames die (#9), some baker's twine, a button and a Close to My Heart stamp.

Here, I cut off the top of the bag with pinking shearts on both endes, stitched along the bottom, filled it with candy and then stitched along the top, including the tag. I used PTI's mat stack 1 die and a CTMH stamp.

And, lastly....

Today's the day I come home (so on the note, I remind them to pick me up at the airport!) The bag is made the same way as the previous day's, but I sewed the tag along the side instead. The tag is a PTI half and half die and the stamp is CMTH.

Thanks for looking!

Some treats while I'm gone, part 2

As I explained on my part 1 post, I made some treat bags for my family to open while I'm away in DR Congo.

This is a box of Jelly Belly jelly beans for my family to enjoy. I wrapped the box in a cut up lunch bag, tied it with baker's twine and added a button for fun. The tag is made from PTI's happy day die and I used a stamp from PTI's Road Trip set.

For this bag, I cut the bag in half and used the bottom section to make a very short bag. I cut along the top with pinking shears, folded it over and sewed the tag (made from a PTI Half and Half die) in place. The stamp I used here is from Close to My Heart (CTMH).

Again, I trimmed down a paper bag for this treat bag, but used a larger border punch along the top. I threaded the ribbon through the holes and tied it in place. The tag is a PTI tag sale #3 die and the stamp is from PTI's Movers and Shakers set.

And for Halloween, knowing they'd be getting an ample amount of candy that day, I bagged up some Kool-aid jammers for their lunches. I used the same punch as the previous day's bag, but folded it over. The tag is PTI's tag sale #5 and the stamp is CTMH.

Thanks for looking!

PTI October Blog Hop

Once again, it's time for the PTI Blog Hop. Even though I've been quite busy (& am currently in Kinshasa, DR Congo), I was determined to still participate. This month's challenge was to create a Christmas card using a non-traditional colour combination. Nichole was kind enough to post six colour combinations on her blog (accompanied by a photo for inspiration). They were such great photos and colour combinations, that I was hoping to create a card for each one, but, unfortunately, I ran out of time. However, I did manage to make two of them.

Here's the first colour combination:

And the card I made, using the stripes in the scarf as inspiration:

I used PTI cardstock (soft stone, aqua mist, ocean tides), stamps (nativitiy silhouette additions) and buttons. The twine is Lawn Fawn.

And here's the second colour combination that I used:

And, my card:

I used PTI cardstock (vintage cream, berry sorbet, harvest gold, melon berry, spring moss), stamps (wreath for all seaons), buttons, twine and dies (delightful doilies, double-ended banner).

Thanks for looking!