more journals written from the DR Congo ...
We went to a wedding today…all day! Gosh, it was amazing, but the longest wedding service I have ever been to! The service started at 10, and finished at 5.30pm. It was such a beautiful day. The bride looked so beautiful, as did her little bridesmaids. The little church was beautifully and creatively decorated with toilet paper. The bride didn’t smile all day.. a cultural thing.

I know women all over Africa carry heavy things on their backs, but I have never seen anything like it here before. The women carry great big bags of coal that rise up metres up over their heads. They are almost bent double. My friend gave one of the women a dollar and she was so happy that she threw her bag onto the floor and did a dance on the street with such a joyous smile! It looked like she had won the lottery. It was such a blessing.

So we set off through the heart of the jungle to go our destination village. I cannot explain the state of the roads.. I will try to attach photos. You can hardly describe them as roads.. simply trenches. The trenches often were as deep as my waist. We got stuck so many times. We would manage to get the truck free out of one rutt, and then 10metres down, we would get stuck again. There was so much digging, pushing and shovelling (and taking of photos..) When you rent a car in the Congo, don’t expect to actually use it.. We walked most of the way through the jungle, with a wet baby tied onto my back! haha. One car got stuck so bad there was nothing we could do – we just had to leave it! And came back the next day, to tow it. This was just a time when you really need the joy of the Lord, or otherwise you would just die! It was hilarious. I laughed so hard! The actual mission when we got there was so worth it. The people had been waiting in their church for us for 2 days. We fed the whole village with beans and rice and carried out a couple services there. Many people got healed – I prayed for a deaf man who immediately got healed! The next day,all the women came to me with all their babies, and they wanted me to pray for them. I had the amazing priviledge of praying for so many little babes… some of them so malnourished and sick, breaking off witchcraft curses and fetishes that many of them had.

Congo is beyond anything I have ever seen or experienced before. Please continue to pray for this country, that is in such a desperate state still, with so much corruption, and still has so much remnants of the war left. There are UN people everywhere, army men with ak-47 guns everywhere. We actually got threatened once. We were coming out of the jungle, and a load of army men asked us for money, after saying no, the guy thumped the man sitting right opposite me, and automatically lifted his gun up. Praise God we were all fine.

I look forward to chatting more to you all now I am back, and catching up with all that God has been doing in your lives too. Please pray for me as I decide what I need to do next. I have a lot of decisions to make. Thank you so much for all your continued support, love and prayers. I am overwhelmed by the love I have received from you all. I am so blessed to have such amazing friends! I love you xx