Have You Heard?

Don’t let the name fool you, this is a blog post filled with updates and travel plans!

Medical care is possible here up to a certain point.  Some basic emergencies can be handled, there are many volunteer and missionary doctors who are quite capable of providing advice, and the hospitals here in Kinshasa have back-up generators! While all of this is great, there are some exceptions and certain situations that are not preferable when it comes to medical care here. Birthing is one of those exceptions.

MAF has a list of things a medical facility must be able to provide in order for it to be considered safe for a mother to give birth. I really appreciate the detail in this list and the time MAF took to realize what is important for a mother’s (and soon-to-be baby’s) health! Unfortunately, the local hospitals here do not meet the standards for giving birth. Our next option for giving birth would be to travel to a closer country with more modern care (South Africa, Kenya, etc.). But with the prior problems I experienced in my previous pregnancy (tachycardia and gestational diabetes), we felt it would be best to give birth with doctors who are already familiar with my situation. After discussing our concerns with MAF, they agreed it would be better to give birth in the US where the medical care would not be a concern.

All that information shared was to lead you up to the news that sister-to-be and I will be departing from Kinshasa on September 22^nd for East Tennessee. The week I am traveling is the doctor’s closest guess to my 34^th week of pregnancy (plus or minus two weeks). Kevin will remain in Kinshasa until my 38^th week and then will travel the great big ocean alone to be with us. We will give birth in TN and will remain until the baby receives his/her passport and VISA before embarking across the ocean to return home to Kinshasa.

While Kevin and I will try to make plans to visit as many of you as possible (our friends, family, ministry partners, etc.), we would like everyone to be understanding when it comes to our time constraints, our active toddler, and her soon-to-be sibling. I personally will be in East Tennessee staying with Kevin’s parents until giving birth. Afterwards, with Kevin’s assistance, we hope to travel to West Tennessee to visit family and friends and possibly visit some relatives in North Carolina. In the meantime, little girl and I are open to play dates, park visits, and tea time! We are looking forward to seeing everyone and talking about our time in Africa.

Glimmers

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing. Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." Phillipians 4:8 (NLT)

In our culture, customer service is a big deal. But for those in customer service jobs, sometimes it seems you can have a perfect record and have that reputation broken by one complaint. One customer who was not happy goes on your permanent record and you job goes into jeopardy. Soon, every performance review goes back to this one mistake, even if it was years ago. When applying for another job, your one mistake can be mentioned and shared.

I often hear of so many businesses being discredited after one mistake. After 3 years of service, your cable bill was too high this month, you complain to your friends and now everyone knows. You didn't like your hair cut from your normal hair dresser and now you are in the process of getting her fired because she wouldn't give you a refund. Believe me when I say the negative always trumps the positive when it comes to customer service.

In a country with so many issues (poverty, disease, corruption etc.), it is very easy to look in and see all the bad. But if we only focused on the bad things as Christians, we would spend all our time talking about when Jesus lost his temper in the temple or how this person did this sin and this person is sinning right now. If I sat here, in Congo, and focused on only the bad, I would easily burnout. I could become depressed about the man with a permanent limp from polio, the children forced to beg on the street because their parents can’t feed them, or the way the “roulage” hassle me for money because they didn't get paid this month.

No. I can’t and I won’t. We recently had a meeting for our entire program to discuss our ministry plan; in other words, why we are here and what are we trying to accomplish. The word of the day was “glimmer.” We are not medical missionaries and cannot heal the broken man, but we fly in medical missionaries. We are not nutritionists who teach parents how to correctly feed their family with their meager income, but we fly in nutritionists. We don’t go around handing out money to every poor person we see because that often exacerbates the problem, but we share the gospel to feed their hearts. Even though we accomplish these deeds, we don’t always see the rewards or the benefits that occur. But occasionally, God will give us a glimmer of hope. We will meet a person who benefited from one of the medical missionaries and is alive today to share their story. We will visit a small village and see the children with full bellies. We will meet someone of authority who is attending church and is eager to learn about God and how to change the hearts of his coworkers. Much like a match struck in a dark room, God’s light will always shine through the darkness.

Will I chose today to look at the light and be content or will I chose to focus on what little I can see in the dark and be unhappy?

Vanga Vision Trip

Since I am not a pilot, I don't get to see all the neat things Kevin does. But MAF understands this and wants very much for the spouses to see the places their spouses fly into all the time. This is why they recommend a once a year "vision trip" so we can see MAF's vision for our home country for ourselves.

We chose to go to an old MAF base in Vanga, which is a little village of about 2,000 people. The slow pace of life was what I needed to see and felt at home. We visited the Vanga hospital, went down to the river, and made lots of new friends. I will do a blog post on the hospital another time, but for now, I wanted to show you some of my favorite trip photos.

Instant Gratification

Right before Kevin left for the United States, I began reading a Christian fiction book set in the late 19^th century. A lot of the plot was centered on communication, by letters. It would talk about the long letters written by the characters and then waiting on pins and needles for the reply which would come weeks later.

As Kevin was boarding his flight Friday evening, I sent him a tender note using my phone, to wish him well. I was sitting in bed and then rolled over (that takes some doing being pregnant and all) and I dropped the phone off of the side of the bed. This minor 24” drop should be nothing to an iPhone in a shockproof case, but that proved to not be the case. My screen went out. My heart sank as I heard the little ding of reply from my hubby. I panicked! I went to the computer and searched ways to repair the phone to no avail. I looked for ways to retrieve my messages online, but it was no use.

Waiting two whole days for a reply from Kevin felt like an eternity to me! I am so used to instant everything, instant responses, instant information, instant messages! What can I say - my culture has trained me to live a life of “ease.” In America, if I don’t want to cook, I just pull in a drive-thru.  If I am feeling ill and don’t feel like making an appointment with my regular doctor, I can go to a pharmacy that now offers walk-in options with a physician’s assistant. If I am bored and don’t want to drive to a Redbox machine to rent a movie, I can hit the internet. The world around me is adapting to speed and I have yet to adjust my mind around half the options now offered!

This "blessing in disguise" moment has made me realize that I sometimes apply my need for speed to my prayers with God. How often have we prostrated ourselves humbly for a prayer request with an internal expectation of instant gratification? How often do we find ourselves disappointed with God’s timing? Sure we know to trust in His timing since the Bible is filled with verses about it, but honestly, deep down our culture is telling us we shouldn't have to wait. We are becoming disenchanted with our lack of patience and God gave me a recent reminder to step back and trust His timing!

Has God given you any recent reminders to trust His timing?

Guest Blog by Papa Spann

In a little under a month from now, Kevin's parents (Mimi and Papa Spann) will be making the long trek to Africa to visit us! We are so excited to have them come to our "neck of the woods" and experience what life is like for us in Africa. That being said, wouldn't it be nice to hear an "outsider's" perspective on their first time visiting another continent/culture/third world country? So we asked the parents to write a few posts about their thoughts, their experiences, and overall opinions on stepping outside of their comfort zone. 

Here is the first in our guest blog series...

“I’m just fine right here Mrs. Flood”

The above quote was made by Kevin when his kindergarten teacher was moving all of his classmates to different tables.  Kevin was comfortable where he was and wasn't interested in change.  Since you are reading this on Kevin and Tasha’s blog you probably have a sense for how much change has occurred in their lives in the past five years or so.  Apparently he has learned to at least adapt to change.

In about a month, Debby and I will be getting on a plane to visit Kevin, Tasha, and our granddaughter.  We already know about many of the differences between our lives here and what life is like in Kinshasa.  Unpredictable electrical power (ours was just off for 2 days), water that must be purified before drinking, and the constant crush of life in a different culture are all things we are aware of and are somewhat prepared for.  But, it’s not the change in the daily routine that concerns me.  Up to this point in my life the realities and  struggles of people living in third world countries have come from news clips on TV that  get quickly pushed out of my mind at the end of the six o’clock news.  How will I react to what I am about to encounter?  I have never seen the level of need that exists there.  How will my heart react to what my eyes see?  Could it be that my heart is saying, “I’m just fine right here....God”?

An African Parasite

So I (Tasha) caught a parasite in Africa. The doctor said symptoms typically last 9 months and then sporadically takes care of itself! The doctor said I might actually even come to enjoy having a parasite...we will see...

A Memorable Flight

Sorry for the long delay in posting - there has been quite a lot going on and not much time to write about it. We just got back from a much needed vacation less than a week ago and I have already flown over 10 hours.

Many of my flights are memorable, but the one I took yesterday was even more special. I received my first field PFR (proficiency flight review) since arriving here. We take pride in our safety and professionalism, so every 6 months an instructor pilot joins us to watch us during an operational flight. Once our passengers deplane, we go and do some maneuvers (or manoeuvers, depending on what continent you are in) and simulated emergencies. Here is what my flight path was during some of that review.

It was fun getting to wring the airplane out but that wasn't the best part. About 5 months ago one of our pilots was flying near Kikongo, in the Bandudu province of DRC, and received a call for an emergency medical evacuation. The call came from a missionary at the pastoral training school who had a staff member complaining of a bad headache that had lasted for a week, then became less and less responsive and the local doctors didn't have the equipment needed to help him.

Our pilot was able to pick him up and fly them back to Kinshasa where there are better facilities available. We hadn't heard any follow-up from them until last week when they booked their flight to go back home. The morning of the flight came and as I was preparing the airplane ,I had a short opportunity to talk with my passenger and his wife before we took off. But upon landing, I quickly realized how special this man was to the people of Kikongo. As I taxied up to the parking area, even with the engine running (keep in mind it's an un-muffled turbo-diesel engine, spinning a large propeller... PLUS wearing our helmet with noise cancelling headphones...), I could still hear people singing, beating drums and chanting. 

There is a very eerie death wail that people do here when they mourn the loss of a family member or friend. It is quite loud, and the word "sorrowful" just doesn't do it justice. I have heard that quite a lot with the flights we do taking the deceased and their family members interior. 

But this was the first time I had heard the rejoicing wail. It was beautiful! There were a few men that held back the crowd until I could stop the engine. As soon as I shut down the villagers surrounded the airplane, still wailing, jumping, singing, and playing the drums - nearly yanking the husband and his wife from the airplane and engulfing them. As I unloaded the cargo and prepared for the next leg, the group continued to celebrate. Finally, the man said a few words and someone prayed, and the singing started again as they walked off to the school where the ministers-in-training were taking their end-of-year tests. If a group of 100 can make that kind of sound, I can't wait to hear what a multitude of angels sound like when we join our Lord!