Water Wars, Mouse Wars, and More

     While I was away our neighbors engaged us in some mild water wars.  I’ve already mentioned that our backyard is like the watering hole for most of the community.  What we’ve discovered since, is that our next door neighbors (the house full of ladies) have a well in their front yard.  We discovered even later that there is a community spicket about a stone’s throw from our property.  But for whatever reasons, most people like coming into our backyard.  Maybe it’s because they feel they have some sort of privacy (never mind the white folk looking on from their porch) to do laundry or even bathe themselves.  We also discovered the reason why we hadn’t up till now had to pay a water bill.  Apparently the water guy is friends with Ali (the man we share a property with) and regularly accepts bribes from people to set up water without giving anyone a bill.  Right before Christmas he started coming to us, asking for “payment,” which we promptly refused to pay without seeing proper documentation from the water company.  We knew right then that if the company ever came and set up a water meter, we would be in trouble because of the amount of free water we give out.  Thankfully we were able to come to an agreement, thanks to Cees speaking directly to the company, and are only being charged a flat rate per month.  No meter necessary.

    So all this time we’ve been feeling pretty good about ourselves, thinking we’re providing a service to our community, being nice to allow them to come into our backyard and fulfill their water needs for free.  All of this is in spite of the fact that our water pressure drops significantly when the spicket is on outside, and we are constantly walking out to turn off the spicket which is left on about all the time. Thus we were quite baffled one day when our water didn’t come on all day.  There have been strikes from the water company before, but to our knowledge there wasn’t any conflict going at this time.  This same day our gardener went over to borrow water from the neighbor’s well, which we have had to do on occasion, and was refused.  The lady simply picked up the bucket and the rope and took it inside.  This prompted some questions on our part, and we finally discovered that the faucet handle on the spicket outside our property was broken.  We didn’t quite understand what this had to do with us, but the ladies next door clearly felt like we were responsible and needed to pay for it to be fixed.  After a few rounds of negotiations we finally managed to convince them that the community should be responsible to pay for the repairs as they were the ones who regularly used it, and seeing as we regularly allowed everyone to use our spicket without cost. 

      Mind you all of this happened while I was away.  Now imagine being in Jen’s shoes, not able to speak the language, with our neighbors declaring a silent war against her, trying to pressure us into fixing a faucet we don’t even know is broken.  Thankfully between Diana, Andres, and our helpers, the situation was resolved somewhat peacefully.  This incident, however, is somewhat typical of our relationship with this community.  We might feel like everything is going well, we go out of our way to be kind and bless our neighbors, and then suddenly we find out there is some kind of underlying tension we didn’t even know about.  It’s been an ongoing struggle.  We feel pretty safe here and no one has tried to harm us or our home, but we sometimes feel like we’re walking on pins and needles, trying to understand the people around us, and never really succeeding.

     The second war we’ve been waging is against mice.  Since we first started the year, we’ve known there are mice in the school building.  We’ve never seen them, but we can hear their squeaks and we see their poops.  They live in the rafters in the ceiling.  A few months ago they started invading our house.  First they chewed through some of our screens.  Then they found a hole where wires are passed to the exterior.  After we plugged up those entrances, they started chewing a hole in the corner of our door.  On multiple occasions they succeeded in raiding our food pantry and getting out unseen.  In fact, the only clear viewing of the mice we’ve had is when one of them turned up dead in a bucket of water we had left out by accident.

     Finally, after trying unsuccessfully to stop them, I bought some traps.  Mice in Guinea are familiar with traps.  Apparently they go to a school where they train their little mouselings to avoid traps, and there’s even an elite squad of them that know how to steal bread right out of a trap without setting it off.  So I moved on to a mild form of poison Andres gave us.  Really it’s some form of medication for humans.  The idea, as Andres explained, is that you sprinkle the powder on some bread, and when the mice eat it, they then develop ulcers and slowly bleed to death.  Apparently this is considered more humane than proper rat poison.  Well, our mice are familiar with this powder too.  They don’t touch it.  I sprinkled it on bread, I sprinkled it on cheese, nothing worked.  What kind of a mouse refuses to eat cheese?  The ones in Guinea do.

     I had had enough.  The mice were now chewing holes in the rug I had strategically placed next to the hole in the door.  Every morning there would be new piles of rubber and fiber on the floor.  I think they were actually enjoying it more than the bread from the traps.  I sent Calissa to buy some real poison.  This stuff is so toxic, it comes packaged in three different baggies, one inside the other.  The warning on the label reads:  “bury any dead mice, left-over bait, and/or receptacles used to mix and administer the bait.”  No you know when you have to bury the stuff that it’s lethal.  Sure enough, the day after I put it out we had a dead mouse in our backyard.  The second day we had a dead bird.  The third day we had dead lizards.  The fourth day we didn’t see anything dead, but we started smelling something coming from the rafters in the school.  Sure enough, another victim.  I was starting to feel pretty good about the poison when I noticed goats in the yard, as is pretty common.  I panicked.  The last thing we needed was to be held responsible for singlehandedly killing off the neighbors livestock.  To my knowledge none of them have died.  Still, I’ve made extra sure that none of the poison is out in the open and that we close off our gates as best we can. 

     Well, the title says there’s more.  There are plenty of other things to mention, like the bible study Cees and Andres are starting with a core group of young men in Correrah, or the fact that I’ll be preaching at Boke church on Palm Sunday, or the fact that we’re now counting down the days we have left in Guinea (less than 90), looking forward to returning to the states and Panama, but talking about war has worn me out.  As you can see, never a dull moment in Guinea.  Thank you for your continued prayers and support.  Thank you for your love!  And thanks for reading the blog.  I appreciate everyone’s feedback and compliments.  It’s always nice for a writer to know he has at least a handful of readers.  Peace in Jesus!

     Last week I was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.  Traveling by way of Ivory Coast and Togo, I passed through some of the smallest airports you have ever seen (a lot like David, Panama).  It took me the whole day to get there, starting at 2 a.m. from home to make the drive to the airport.  The main purpose of my going to Ethiopia was to be with my dad.  My father is the founder and president of a ministry called Breakthrough Partners.  Their main purpose is to “build leaders to rebuild communities.”  He and his associates work alongside local leaders in African nations, people whom God is using to be catalysts in their nations for the benefit of their communities.  He’s been doing this almost ten years now, and felt like it was time to bring together some of the top leaders from the various nations he works with.  It was truly amazing to meet some of these bright and passionate Christians and hear about their work.  To give you an idea of what they do, allow me to introduce you to a few of them.

     First I met Christophe and Sylvestre from Rwanda.  I had read about these young men in a book describing their work.  Christophe is the founder of CARSA, a ministry dedicated to reconciling victims and perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide that happened years back.  Christophe and Sylvestre were also victims and witnesses of these atrocious crimes, but have decided to forgive and help bring about forgiveness and reconciliation within their country.  One of the projects they have is to help perpetrators purchase a cow and offer it as a sign of repentance to their victims.  Together they then raise the cow, using the milk and offspring to also provide an income for their families.  Though the work is often long and painful, they are seeing enemies now living in complete peace and harmony together.  They are hopeful that the future of Rwanda will be bright.

     Charles, Aaron, and Thomas were three pastors I met from South Africa.  These men were some of the individuals who brought great depth and wisdom to our meetings.  All three of them have worked together to form a working network amongst the pastors of Cape Town, South Africa.  They have around 400 pastors that meet regularly to pray, strategize and fellowship together.  They told us, Thursdays are the pastor’s Sundays.  That is the day they worship together and listen to a message in order for their own spirits to be fed and encouraged in the Lord.  They have also worked together to create a feeding center, providing meals for over 2,000 homeless children every day of the week.  Other projects include taking care of orphans, widows, etc…  They told us they had decided that the problems of their community were their responsibility.  They weren’t going to wait around for the government to take care of them, they needed to do it.  And today the government subsidizes and helps them care for the poor and helpless in Cape Town.

     Kofi is a pastor in French-speaking Ivory Coast.  Along with his team members, Bernice and Monique, Kofi trains and supports communities in the areas of micro-financing, micro-enterprises, and community cooperatives.  One of the projects they told us about was a community who had decided to build a fish farm with rabbit huts over them.  We marveled at the ingenuity and success of such a project, enabling the community to also be able to build storage facilities for their crops in order to sell them at the markets later on.  A community that was once very poor is now generating revenue that is increasing their production, feeding their people, and enabling them to be self sustained and independent from any outside aid.  And all of this was due to some basic teaching in savings and Christian business practices.

     The chief goal of each of these individuals and groups (and there were many more present) is to bring fullness of life through Jesus Christ.  They are ministering holistically within communities and nations in order to bring about greater spiritual vitality in broken and often dire circumstances.  One of the main teachings we heard was that when God’s people come together, God’s blessing abounds.  We also discussed at length that God longs to bless all of Africa and has already given her the means to be healthy and strong.  The Africans themselves affirmed to us this week, “we no longer need outside aide and help, God has already given us all we need.”  One of my father’s main goals is to show these African leaders that God has already equipped them with the dreams, visions, and tools to be independent.  They no longer need to be a missions field, but a missions force.  The leaders themselves echoed this sentiment and took up the call to work together for the transformation of Africa.  As I sat there listening (actually I was very busy translating most of these meetings) I wondered whether or not there is still room for the white missionary in Africa.  One of the conclusions we (the Americans in the room) came up with is that we need to continue to be involved, not just for the sake of Africa, but because we have so much to learn from the Africans themselves.  We truly felt blessed to be a part of them this past week.

     I believe God is moving on a global level to bring His body, His bride, His church together.  He is tearing down walls of separation. He is removing blinders and obstacles.  He is calling us to walk together in relationship, and to work together for the good of the Kingdom.  It is no longer sufficient to be in ministry.  We need to be in ministry together.  It is time for us to lay down our labels and titles, to put aside our differences, and to be reconciled and truly seek to love one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.  Jesus said, “the world will know your are my disciples by your love for one another.”

     Lord, I pray for Africa.  I pray that you would continue to do a great work, enabling the churches and ministries and leaders to work together in building your kingdom and rebuilding their nations.  May you pour out your blessing on them that the world may see their unity and the strength and power of the gospel.  May you continue to unite our hearts as brothers and sisters in Christ, all across the globe, leading us in loving each other and carrying out your purposes on this earth.  Amen!