wes and cathy's big adventure
after going to jamaica to help repair hurricane-damaged roofs in june of 2005,
we put in applications for international work and were assigned to the DRC.
it used to be called zaire.
this is a view of bethel
walking on the sidewalk is a little lizard (about 20 cm) they are ubiquitous.
we have a room in the Congo Bethel, where the family is about 300 people.
meals and accommodations are provided for us.
here are a few pictures of what we are going to be working on.
these are not actually airplane hangars but abandoned factory buildings
being converted to seat a total of some 15,000 people.
the stage will be in the open area between the two hangers.
there will be a separate restroom building with about 150 toilets.
here's what the hangar looks like now
this will be the asembly hall overseer's home and office
this is the priority now. we have until the middle of january to finish it.
i am installing pipes now. 1/2" and 3/4" galvanized water pipes.
this building is very solid concrete; this whole site was actually a concrete
products factory in the 1970's.
cathy landed a job in the sewing room; she's doing alterations and repairs.
bethel is all french-speaking here. for example, the daily text and comments are in french.
when they really want us all to know something, (not all the volunteers are francophones)
they announce it also in english. other than that, we do our best to follow along.
we are going to an english-speaking congregation, and the accents there are great.
many of the international workers are from europe; danes, germans, dutch, spanish and french.
quite a few of them are in the english congregation.
we met the johnsons; sebastian and gisela, who were featured in the 2004 yearbook.
they are in the room next to ours.
everyone is very kind to us and we are comfortable.
although the DRC is in chaos governmentally, we are very well taken care of.
more on that later.
come back again and we'll have more about it.
write us: bigwes@midcoast.com