S.E. Asia and Africa: Back to Bangui

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As expected, yesterday was a long travel day back to Bangui. We left Berberti around 5:45 am and we arrived in Bangui around 8:30-9 pm. This time we took the southern route which follows the fourth parallel Road across the southern part of the central African republic. This road goes down through the rain forest and provides wonderful scenery with the canopy trees over the road. The entire road is a one lane dirt road that most the time is all sand. The roads have not been worked on much so they are very bumpy and the drivers are constantly swerving to miss holes.

Thankfully we did not have any car problems other than having to stop and resecure the luggage carrier that broke the mounting bracket that secures it to the roof of the truck. I was happy that I had left some suitcase straps in my backpack that we had used on the way over to secure our heavy bags. We used these to secure the luggage rack and were able to continue our journey. Things were going well and I thought we were making good progress but then we entered the town of Boda.

Once we arrived we quickly realized that there was a big truck stuck in the middle of the one lane bridge, it had fallen through part of the bridge over a small river. There was no other way to cross the river and to go a different way would take hours to go around. But we had the best solution, his name is Marcellin. He assessed the situation and decided that he could engineer a way to lift the truck back up onto the bridge and get it off the bridge. You would think this idea would be well received by the community, but in this case it was not. Typical of African culture there was a man who did not want the truck to be removed until the trucking company owner came to the town to pay to rebuild the bridge. We learned later that the truck had been stuck for over a day and a half already. Marcellin insisted to this man that he could remove the truck from the bridge then the bridge could be repaired. At this point there was a confrontation, the man causing the problems grabbed a bar being used to jack up the truck and started swinging it at the people watching this whole situation. Then he started yelling at Marcellin and asked him why he was not afraid of him, and Marcellin challenged him back, why are you not afraid of me? It turned out that this man was a chief of the former militia group called anti-balata and the people were afraid of him because he was a warrior. Marcellin told him he would follow his ideas if they were right, but if they were wrong he would not follow him. Thankfully this confrontation only lasted a few minutes, then Marcellin and some others guys continued to work on jacking the truck up so they could move it off the bridge. This process took a while as you might guess, but it was really cool to see Marcellin's problem solving skills take over, he took charge of the scene and started organizing people around him. He even purchased big wooden boards off of a truck waiting to cross the bridge so that they could be put underneath the truck to cover the hole in the bridge. About three hours, the truck was able to be backed off the bridge much to the cheers of all the people watching. Then we quickly drove our trucks across the bridge first to make sure we got a crossed since Marcellin had "come to the rescue". Oh, how would you feel to be the first ones to drive across a bridge that had just broken? Well we got to do that, the guys actually drove the trucks across with Bruce riding with Marcellin, but then the rest of us walked across the bridge just to be safe which actually was not easy either because you had lots of boards across the bridge that were not secured down, and people were wanting to start going across the bridge too. Well, after this three hour delay we were back on the road.

The rest of the trip went pretty well getting us back into the capital city just before the city curfew. It was a great feeling to finally get back, we all felt worn out like we have been working the entire time which, in a way, we have been, we were constantly holding on as we bounced around the roads. It was a great feeling to lie in bed and to be still, but one funny thing happened, imagine being in a vehicle for all of those hours listening to the same music over and over, imagine it is in a different language, this music was stuck in my head while I was trying to go to sleep, but I figured Marcellin had earned the right to listen to whatever he wanted to because he had gotten us back.
Today, Friday, we helped Rick get packed up and headed off to check in his bags so that he could leave around 5:30 PM local time to head home. I am so thankful for Rick's contribution to our team and I ask you to pray as he travels home, and that he may have a great reunion time with his family on Saturday.
The rest of us went to the water for good office to check on the progress while we were gone. The guys did a great job and had a fresh coat of paint on the exterior and interior of the office. Walter continued his work on the electrical system making connections to be able to switch between solar power and electrical power. If you know Walter, he is an expert, and is very thorough, and knows how to connect complex wiring situations. While Walter worked on that, I sorted more tools so that they could be left here for the team here in Bangui .

Before Rick left, we took time as a team to tour a couple of the other properties of water for good. We actually got to meet Marcellin's mom and other family members. This was a fun experience, but I realized that I forgot to take pictures so I will see if I can stop again. Then, we visited a place called PK – 22. I admit this was a little difficult because over the years my teams and I have spent a lot of time at this property fixing it up to be another base camp for Water for good. We had built a large barn and had assembled shipping containers and made them into a working mechanic shop. But as with so many things here in the central African republic, this property was looted and destroyed by the Seleka rebels. Water for good removed as many things as they could just in case but they could not move everything. There were carcasses of machines sitting around that had been stripped of all of their valuable parts. Everything else was completely gone every shred of the building and containers was completely gone. While this was a discouraging visit, I am thankful to God for the resolve that he put into my heart that this would not keep me from continuing to help the people of the Central African Republic. My job is to serve Jesus, Jesus's job is to do the rest, my job is to be faithful to what Jesus wants me to do. I also reflected on several conversations I have had since I have been here with Marcellin. He has had many things destroyed by the Seleka rebels, and been threatened with a gun if he did not give them money,but his attitude has been to persevere and not let them stop him from living the life that he believes God has for him. He even said one time, they took all of my cows but I will go buy new ones. Well, I pray that if it is God's will we will be able to come back at some point and build another building to replace the one that was destroyed it will be in a different location but the results will be the same, we will persevere with our partners here to further the work that God has given them, and us.