Letters from the DR Congo

So I decided I would put the e-mail updates that I wrote from the DR Congo here just in case anyone didn't get too read them. And I thought it would be fun to put them here so I can read them later. I went to the DR Congo last summer '07. This is probably going to be a long blog.

Letter #1: Sent Sat, 6/9/07 3:08pm (DR Congo Time)

Hey Everyone,
How's Life? I hope everyone is well! Well we arrived in the Congo safe and sound. The drive through Rwanda was beautiful! I took lots of pictures don't worry. Today is the first day out of the house so there hasn't been alot going on exept getting some serious Zzzz's. I'll have to update more next thursday! That's when we use the internet. The next e-mail i send will be longer! But for now i've gotta go.
Talk to you soon!
Erin

Letter #2: Sent Thur, 6/14/07 4:48pm (DR Congo Time)

Greetings Everyone, I hope you are well.
Just so everyone knows first off I am so excited to be here and the lack of exclamation marks is simply because I can't find it on this keyboard. lol So I will invent a new exclamation mark for the time being. It will be the number one1 Ok, now that my punctuation is all sorted out I just thought I would also mention that this keyboard is all funky so if something is wrong with the email, blame the keyboard I'm using. lol.
Ok so My last email was super short and i am soooo sorry but i wasn't feeling well and wanted to leave the computer sooo bad. But now everything is fine1 My entire team is well and we get along great1 My team and I reside in Goma, a town that was completely wiped out by the volcano in 2002. The entire town is trying to rebuild itself. There is one good paved road, and by good I mean somewhat smooth with potholes. The other roads are seriously made up of volcanic rock and let's just say I am now used to it's bumpiness. I'm also used to the smell now if you'd like to know. lol
The other day our van driver was sick so we had to take motorcycles. It was so much fun. (There were times when i was like "I wish dad were driving this instead of this guy1" because i did see my life flash before my eyes a few times. No biggy though. lol. And no we were not just on the only paved road. He drove on the volcanic rock as well. That's a little glimpse of what our transportation is like everyday but we mostly ride in a van. Everyday this week we have gone to a school of some sort to lead a bible storywith games, drama, and songs. Most of the children at these schools are orphans. It's so crazy, because when we are driving down the road to get to these schools children follow our car yelling "Muzungu, Muzungu." That means white rich person. We feel like we are in some sort of parade. It's amazing how much the people love us and they don't even know us. It's an amazing experience to see that. After we play with the kids at school we go back to the house to eat lunch and rest a while. After that, I, yes I teach the lovely language of English. Yesterday I taught them to conjugate verbs. It was very exciting. The reason being because while we were flying over Rwanda, Elizabeth had mentioned to each other that it would be cool to teach English. We didn't think we would be doing that at all but surprise1 we do everyday except Thursday and Sunday. It's so much fun but IT IS ALOT of work.
Another thing Elizabeth and I have discovered is the love of Celin Dion. The Congolese seem to love her. We were going to one of the schools and our driver had a Celin Dion tape he had made in his cassette player. Beauty and the Beast started play and we got so excited1 lol. It was great. Anyway, my hour of computer time is almost up so I better go. It's amazing here and I'm lovin' the Congo1 So family and friends, I love you all. I hope you are well. Until next time.
Erin

Letter #3: Sent Thur, 6/21/07 3:29pm (DR Congo Time)

Hey Everyone,
Once again I get a keyboard in which the exclamation mark doesn't work right so you'll have to deal with the number one again1 sorry1 :) We have had a really good week. Our team is still getting along and we work really well together. Life here is really cool and I'm getting used to it. This past week we visited 2 more primary schools. Friday we went to 2 primary schools that were combined (Bora et Nazarèenne primary schools.) There were over 500 kids in all1 That's alot of kids1 As I said in my last email, many of these children are orphans and everytime we go to the schools they tell us that they need sponsers for the kids. There are so many children but it only costs $50 per child per year. On Saturday we went to John Knight Primary School which was probably the poorest school we have been to yet. There were no desks. There were some large rocks and some small planks of wood resting on the rocks. Those were the benches. There was also one small chalk board in the front of the class. That was it. Nothing else. That school was also really low on teachers. They had about 5 teachers for about 7 or 8 grades. Sunday our team split up and went to two different churches. Jonathan and I went to Katoyi Church and Matt and Elizabeth went to Philidelphie church. I gave my testimony and Jonathan preached. It was a very good service afterward they had lunch and I had my 4th soda of the trip. gasp! i know soda! (just so everyone knows i just found the exclamation mark! wahoo!) Actually it was fanta and hopefully i won't have to do that too many more times. lol.
Anyway, Monday we began Friendship evangalislm week and it's been pretty cool. We have been to 2 different colleges to visit students and faculty. We have also been having our English classes everyday which is pretty crazy! It's hard to teach people how to speak English! :) Some things we can't remember so we have to look them up online...lol For the most part the English class is going very well. We are getting used to the students and we now know how much they know and what we need to teach. The class grows everyday. Elizabeth and I are now teaching over 50 students! The guys are our little graders. lol Matt and Jonathan grade the homework and quizzes during class while we teach. We have a pretty good routine going. :) This week has been pretty light compared to last week so we hae been trying to get ahead and some rest. Next week we have to lead some HIV/AIDS workshops along with training leaders of the church. Pray for us!
I thought that I might also mention that sometimes we take public transportation and it costs 100 congolese francs a person. That's $ 0.20 per person! Isn't that insane? We were also driving through a really nice neighborhood next to the lake the other day and they told us that the houses were around $ 300,000. They were nice and we were like wow! that's alot of money. Then I thought about how much an "average" house cost in America (100,000-200,000) and thought, wow that's not alot of money. These houses were near the lake and they were 300,000 dollars. Then I thought about all the multi million dollar houses around the ocean and lakes in America. Let's just say the cost of living here is extremely low compared to America. It makes me extremely grateful for what I have. Anyway gotta go! Hope ya'll have a fabulous week!
Erin

Letter #4: Sent Thur, 6/28/07 3:03pm (DR Congo Time)

Jambo Everyone!
I hope everyone is well. Everything is great here in good 'ol Congo! So much has happened Since last week! By the way this week has gone by sooooo fast! Now I'm here at the internet cafe writing everyone an e-mail! The lights aren't flickering anymore and I do believe that they re-painted the walls here. It looks nice. Anyway, This week was AIDS education week. We went to Bethlehem Church to talk to the people about AIDS and How to Evangalise to people. Let's just say I know alot more about AIDS since we had to do research on it. Interesting stuff. We taught the church how to use the Evangacube and told them about different types of ministry. (Children's, Youth, and Adult) It went really well!
On Sunday Matt preached and Jonathan gave his testimony to the church. It was a good service and they even sang a swahili song that Elizabeth and me learned awhile back! I'll teach you all when I get back! It's cool. There are a few songs that we have been learning. Seriously though everyone in America, my swahili is better than my French and I took French in High School! I find that...hilarious. Anyway we pretty much had 2 rest days because we didn't get to go to two of the churches to talk about AIDS. It was cool though because during that time Elizabeth and I devised this HUGE plan to build an orphanage here in Goma. Preferably somewhat far away from the volcano. But seriously, everyone in America-land we are totally serious. At first we were all excited and we were talking about writing all these people for finacial support, holding benefit concerts, selling t-shirts and braclets because this orphange was gonna be HUGE! It was gonna hold like 500 kids and there was gonna be teachers, doctors, interns, yim teams and tons of other people who would come and help. Then we realized that we couldn't start off with a HUGE orphange. So we have shortened the number of children (for now). Now we have planned for 25 to 50 kids in a large house that we will either build or buy. Everything here is so cheap and we have already got the price for all of the things that we would need to buy. There will also be an established adoption agency which will deal with the adoption process. This is what Elizabeth and I have been thinking about. So if anyone wants to hop on the bandwagon feel free!
We have also continued to have English class which went really well yesterday. It has been slightly frustrating at times though. It's not easy teaching English! It's fun though. Especially when I make them repeat the preposition "behind." lol. Anyway, yesterday when we were walking back from class we noticed a crowd around a house that we were passing. We found out that an 11 year old kid had eaten his lunch, layed down for a nap and didn't wake up. I had an eerie feeling walking by that house because everyone was just peering inside the windows. That image is embedded into my head.
Life here is great but i do miss home and all of you! I can't wait to see you all!
This Saturday is DR Congo's Independence Day so that should be fun! Just thought I'd let you all know so you can celebrate too. lol
And for those of you who want to know I will have more information about helping the orphans here soon. Milly (our site leader) wrote up some information and we should have a copy of it soon. So if you are thinking about helping to fund an orphans schooling I'll have more information later and when I get back to the U.S.
So I hope this e-mail finds you in good spirits and I hope you have an excellent day!
Kwa heri! (that means goodbye in swahili!)
Erin

Letter #5: Sent Thurs, 7/5/07 5:02pm (DR Congo Time)

Jambo,
So this week has been interesting. We taught on AIDS education some more and on how to evangalise to non believers. It went fairly well. This week was sort of like a rest week for us because we had Congo's Independence Day (June 30) and Our Independence Day on July 4th. We didn't really do a whole lot on Congo's Independence Day. We rested a bit. On Sunday Elizabeth preached at Keshero Nazarene Church. She did a relly good job. During worship they sang a song that Elizabeth and I knew! Agnes went with us to the front with a bunch of other women to dance in a circle with whatever we had on our heads! It was so cool. The song is called Tunaenda Kananna. It means ''We are going to Cannan'' The song talks about the children of Israel taking all their belongings to Cannan. It's such a cool song! We also did the children's sunday school as we always do at Himbi church of the Nazarene. This time we talked about Abraham and Isaac.
Monday we went to Celestians school for the graduation/ end of the year ceremony. We handed out rewarded for the top 5 students in each grade. They got a grid paper notebook, a red pen and a blue pen, and a box of matches. Why the matches? We asked Milly and he didn't know either. lol. We got pictures of the orphans that attend Celestian's school and then we made our way back home to plan for English Class. We taught about contractions. They are learning alot! Tuesday we went shopping for food in the market for our 4th of July celebration. The funniest thing happened at the market. Jonathan went to get potatos with Agnes and she asked him how much he needed. He said around 30, thinking he was gonna get 30 potatos. They left to get more food and when they came back for the potatos he had 30 kilos of potatos waiting. LOL! We had about 100 potatos, no lie! It was so funny. Later that day we had English Class and we taught about conjunctions and when to use them. This class went fairly well. :) Wednesday, of course, as you already know, was the 4th of July! (How'd the fiddler's Jamboree go?) We made food all day. At 3pm our 30 plus guests came to eat hamburgers, potato salad, fries, baked beans, sauteed oinons and mushrooms, and deviled eggs(my dish) It was a feast lemme tell you! by the way, the yolk of the eggs was white instead of yellow...interesting. We had to make more food that evening for us because we ran out. lol. I made a huge banner that said Happy 4th of July! In Red White and Blue. While everyone ate their meals, Milly asked us to talk about the USA. So we all told them what we do on Independence Day. I told them about fireworks, the lake, and the food. Later Elizabeth and I sang She's a grand ol' Flag and The Star Spangled Banner. LOL. I sang all the presidents to Yankie Doodle and they were fairly impressed. I got an applause. (Thanks Hailey, I owe you for that one! I told them that you taught me that song!) We also said our pledge of alliegance which was pretty cool. We asked if anyone had any questions after that and we definitely got asked about how marriage works in the US. See, here in the DR Congo, the men give cows for the women. So when we told them about dimond rings and getting on one knee they chuckled. They loved the celebration and so did I! Although I did miss home alot that day because it was Independence Day and I'm usually at the Jamboree with my family.
So I finally got a chance to wrap Gustave on my back. (Gustave is Milly and Agnes's adorable 1 year old...i know what you're thinking..."What have you done with ERIN?!!!" lol but i like him.) I got a picture and everything. We also got sized for dresses yesterday. We are going to a wedding on Saturday and we will all be going in the African garb. The material is so pretty. Each member of our team is also getting our own unique outfit that we pick by the end of the summer. COOL! Things are going well. I miss you all so much and can't wait to see you!
Sunday I'm preaching so pray for me!
Anyway,
Kwa Heri!
Erin

Letter #6: Sent Thurs, 7/12/07 3:24pm (DR Congo Time)

Everyone,
Well it's safe to say that I miss everyone like crazy and I can't wait to see you all! Just so everyone knows we came to a different internet cafe this week and all the keyboards are American made. Now I have to learn how to type all over again! At least I can kinda tell where everything is...and i have exclamation marks that aren't hidden. So anyway on to my e-mail update...
Friday we went to visit an orphanage...well kinda. The organization is called Cernandi and it's not really an orphanage yet. They don't have the funds. They meet regularly with about 40-50 orphans and teach them things about God and how to make a living when they get old enough to work. Most of them are in a somewhat foster care program. So the kids aren't living on the streets or anything. We learned about the organization and also led a bible lesson for the kids.
Saturday was insane. It was a trying and sometimes awkward day but it was fun. I think God was trying to teach me paitence because we found ourselves pretty much waiting to do stuff all day. We had some trouble with the transportation but everything worked out. We went to weddings this day. We went to one wedding ande then to another couples wedding reception. The awkward part was walking up in front of everyone, to the the people we didn't know and saying "congratulations" to them. It was funny...but it was a little awkward. So let me just say that I have been drinking more soda than neccessary. And regretfully I must tell you all that I have drank 2 Fantas ...for pleasure...yes...Erin Perry drank soda of her own free will...pass me another cold one BOB! Anyway...no worries when I come back to the states I will be as good as new...and anti-soda...but for now...the fanta is tasty.
Sunday I preached at this little church made out of tarp and tin. It went really well and I thank all of you for your prayers! The man who did sunday school, his lesson tied in with my sermon so I thought, "That's a God thing." Sunday was also a somewhat frustrating day because we had so much stuff to do and we really didn't know what was happening next. But it all worked out and everything went well. We also had some workshops that we were in charge of this day and I talked about "How to evangalise to non-believers." We were all extremely tired at the end of this day. I had 2 Fantas this day as well...no I haven't exploded yet...
And the rest of this week? Well let's just say there hasn't really been too much happening except English class. It's been nice but sometimes we just wanna get out of the house and can't. We went to some Art shops, which is were all the wooden stuff is made and we have been buying souvenirs and such for really cheap. Let me just say that haggling is fun. We had a huge Quiz/test in English class a few days back and there was 25 questions on it. We have also taught the rest of the conjuctions and a huge list of adjectives that they have a quiz over tomorrow. There are only a few days of English class left and their final test is next Friday. Next week we visit UN agencies and World Vision, Heal Africa and places like that. It should be fun. I also preach again this Sunday and it's at a big church so pray pray pray! It's my last sermon. That's about all that has been going on here in the Congo. There are also many things that God is telling me through this trip. Alot of them are taking me for a spin cause I'm in the dark again. I never knew that God would tell me some of the things he is but i'll let you all know about that when I get back! Next week will be the last week for emailing because after that we leave the Congo. Not this thursday but the next thursday. The 26th. So i guess i'll update more next time. As for now, i'm just chillin' in the Congo. I love you all! I can't wait to see you!!!! :)
Erin

Letter #7: Sent Sat, 7/21/07 10:19am (DR Congo Time)

Jambo everyone,
Sorry this email is getting out late my internet connection didn't work on thursday. I got a little frustrated so I just gave up. So better late than never is what i always say. Ok Ok so i don't always say that...whatever...lol
So this week has been a pretty good week! We started off the week on the 16th which was Monday with going to orphanages. Some were underfunded but there was a Catholic orphange that was extremely nice. When we went to the Catholic orphanage we got really close to The Bush. That's were all the animals and Rebel groups are! Jonathan and I were going to run into the Bush to capture some gorillas but our site coordinator wouldn't let us! lol. Anyway, this week for English class we went over conversations so it was alot of fun. The class had to act out selling things, welcoming people their house, and giving directions. It was really funny at times because they really got into it. They would say, ''and this is my wife/sister/aunt/or cousin Erin. It was great! Tuesday we went to alot of different organizations like World Relief, Heal Africa, World Vision, and OCHA. They were really interesting and we got to talk to people who spoke English! We didn't even need a translator. It rocked.
On Tuesday we went to Bethel Church WAY out away from EVERYTHING! It was so little and we walked really far to get there! It was sooooo worth it though because it was one of my favorite churches that we have visited. When we left they gave us a chicken, which is an honor here and they gave us Fantas. Because it took us so long to get to the church we were really late and didn't get to go door to door to evangalise. That's ok because when we left the children surrounde us and walked us back to the main road which took about 20 minutes. The entire time we sang songs in swahili with the kids holding our hands. The people who lived nearby definitely heard us so we were evangalising...just through song. lol It was amazing. Thursday of course was our rest day and we went to the internet were I got frustrated. I decided to give up and go outside and sit until the rest of my team got finished with their time. I sat outside and I it was one of the best times ever. These really dirty children came up to me begging for money as usual and I just sat and tried to talk to them. Celestian, one of the men here, helped translate what they were saying. The little girl, Mbiliabele (whose overly large, floral print, dress draped across her small body), told Celestian that she wanted to rob my shoes and run. She had holes all in her dress and I could see the plastic bag she was using for her underwear through the holes. She was around 9 years old, had no shoes and she was filthy. I could put two and two together but Celestian confirmed that she was a street kid. There were two other kids too. Two boys, Billaden and Ibra. They were about 7 and 12. I found out so much about them. Like how they didn't want to live in an orphanage because it's easier to just steal and beg for the things they need. It was an amazing experince and I'm glad that my internet didn't work that day. I wasn't frustrated after that.
The next day we had door to door evangalism and 4 people got saved. We stayed at one house for a while just telling them about Jesus and giving them bible verses that would help them. Jonathan gave his testimony and it really encouraged them. It was a good day. The English examination was this day and it also went really well. We graded the tests last night and there were alot of good grades.
So now we have reached today. We are at the internet cafe. And we will be going to visit arts shops and giving the final test scores today. Wednesday we leave for Rwanda. So i'll be home in about 5 days! I love you all!
Erin