Something to pray for

We delivered a suitcase of children's clothing/shoes and money to a widow who has 12 children. Her husband was a pastor and dear friend to many on the New City Team. He was a big part of the partnership and ministry here in Congo - He died recently from a complicated illness. Most of his children are under the age of 16 years of age -- youngest being twins age 3. When we left their home after giving them clothing and shoes, we could hear the children jumping around and joyfully shouting in excitement. Their needs are very apparent. The medical team did some assessments and set up a clinic evaluation appointment for one of her children who was very sick.

Praise the Lord -- They will need much prayer and support in the future.

What a joy!

Our group split today to visit different churches. One of our New City Fellowship pastors Tony Myles was invited to preach in one of these churches. The congregation had 2000 members at 3 services. He was a bit nervous but did an amazing job. Our Congolese friend Noel translated the sermon into French. The language is being resurrected from my brain and team members are starting to turn to me for translation now. Kind of scary! We were hosted by a woman and her friends for lunch in their backyard garden. We are being treated like kings so far. What an amazing buffet of traditional food. So far no grasshoppers on the menu. Their hospitality was a gift. I learned that they had no electricity for their preparations! Hard to imagine with the quantity of food and the size of our group. We gabbed for hours before realizing that we ran out of time to see the Bonobos. Boo! We spent the evening at Pastor Leon’s home. What a joyous time getting to know his relatives and grandchildren. It has been a high light of our trip so far to be inside a Congolese home, playing with children, learning to eat fufu at a table with Congolese women and sharing photos of my life with each of them. The grandchildren know all of your names kids! They especially enjoyed a video clip on my camera of our visit to the Scripps Aquarium in California from January. It featured a diver feeding a variety of fish in a huge tank! They screamed “Grand Poisson, Grand Poisson!” “Big Fish, Big Fish!”

Sunday Lunch

Dinner on the river

We drove for miles out of the city along a long country rode to a fishing village named Kibuku. Along the way we passed hundreds of folks selling their goods and traveling by foot to who-knows-where. We passed a refugee camp set up for Eastern Congolese who survived the war. What a sad site. The village at the end of the road was quite a place. I wanted to take hundreds of photos but after the event with the soldier we were a bit afraid. I personally don’t want to know what the inside of a Congolese jail looks like. We walked along the river, saw children swimming in the nude, long hand carved wooden canoes, families cooking over charcoal fires, fishermen pulling in HUGE ugly fish (sturgeon?catfish?) and barges being loaded with enormous bags of garlic, onions and other goods. We ate an amazing dinner of spiced fish, Kwanga (steamed fufu in banana leaves), and fried plantains. After relaxing and watching the border patrol officers paddle away in their canoe we pulled out our cameras to take a few shots. Enjoy!

June 5 What a day!

Every seat on the plane filled with folks from Rome on our stop to refuel. Not too far past the end of “the boot” a man sitting beside us stood up, and then collapsed in the aisle. We quickly helped to find a doctor and an Italian translator while the Ethiopian crew stood by completely unresponsive. The entire time I was thinking…When is the right time to tell the pilot? How are we going to land on the water…or do we wait until we get to land ( northern Egypt in Africa) and hope he makes it? Fortunately a blood pressure cuff was located and the gentleman was cared for well. A sudden drop in blood pressure mixed with forgotten medication and no food was his diagnosis. Flying across the African continent was beautiful, especially across Congo. The Congo River winds distinctly through dense jungle for most of the way. Occasionally I would catch the glimpse of a few tin roofs…a small village I suppose. We arrive safely in Kinshasa and were greeted immediately. We were ushered through the diplomat line and never once had to touch any luggage. The local Congolese Christians took care of everything! All of our bags arrived and we met up with the Pastor Leon Mukendi, most of his sons, Dr Tim and Kathy Rice, Charlie and Pierre Svoboda. Someone suggested that we take a photo of the group while we were waiting for the luggage to get loaded. After a brief moment two Congolese soldiers approached us the group and wanted to arrest the Pastor and confiscate the camera. Apparently it is illegal to take photos in Congo. Fortunately he was used to the “system” and was able to convince the soldiers that they could not arrest American citizens, paid them ½ of the bribe they were asking from Daddy’s wallet and we were on our way! 22 hours of flying from Dulles to Kinshasa.

June 4 En Route

We departed on time today, Yippee! International flights require that you arrive 2 hours early. What fun! We enjoyed several interesting conversations while we waited to board. Our first was with a French-speaking nun and her English-speaking companion heading to Burundi to serve in a women’s clinic. We have an open invitation to visit them in the future! “Please come, and bring your friends!” We met a couple returning to continue their work in southern Sudan to help the Sudanese with agriculture, education and other health related self-help initiatives. They were intrigues with our mission and we shared resources as well. We are now seated next to a Kenyan woman studying economics at George Mason University so that she can return to her community in Nairobi upon graduation and initiate change. Right now we are 2191 miles from Rome, which appears to be about half-way over the Atlantic Ocean. We have been flying for 5 hours so far. We stop in Rome to refuel, then head out on a 5 hour flight to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. From there we will take 2 more flights (another 4 hours) stopping in Brazzaville before crossing the Congo River and arriving in Kinshasa! Ethiopian airlines has been great so far. A 3 year old Ethiopian boy is sitting in front of us and we are playing games with him through the crack in the seats. What a cute laugh and beautifully perfect smile. I am starting to realize how white I really am! KR

June 3 And they're off....

After many last minute errands, hugs and kisses we left for the airport. We are carrying 8 bags (280lbs), completely stuffed with medical supplies for the clinic in Kinshasa, clothes and shoes for orphans, and gifts for local family members from the Congolese living in Saint Louis. Our trip is going well but will take longer than the expected 23 hours. Our quick 2 hour direct flight from St Louis to Dulles ended up being 7 hours. New regulations do not allow a plane to sit on the tarmac for over 90 minutes so when the 90 minutes passed we had to return to the gate and start all over. Skip sat next to the official photographer from Camp Woodward….Stephen’s dream skateboarding camp in Woodward, Pennsylvania. He also happened to be the brother of Sayer’s teacher next year. Keary sat next to the president of a non-profit group that serves several villages in Myanamar. We enjoyed sharing stories about serving Burmese people and he passed along many useful contacts/organizations that could be of benefit to our service to orphans in the future. We had a late arrival into IAD but were happy to have some good rest before our morning departure. We were shuttled to the hotel by Carlos, from Lima Peru. We enjoyed exchanging stories with him about our time there and his recommendation of a Peruvian restaurant for dinner (at 9pm) that served amazing “pollo a la brasa.” in Leesburg.

packed, repacked and packing again

Tonight we opened our bags, reshuffled items, weighed and repacked. New donations and items for the Congolese keep arriving. God is a mighty provider. We are picking up Grandma Tractor (Skip's mom) at the airport tomorrow at 1:00. Orientation to St. Louis will begin and we head out on Thursday. Some of our team members have arrived in Congo already and are preparing for our work. Please visit www.ncfbridge.org to check our team blog!

14 days until we leave for Congo - Beginning to Pack Bags

We covet your prayers. We are packing this Saturday for our trip to Congo. The team is taking 36 bags of items. We leave on June 3rd. We will try to post updates on our Blog --http://ritchies4orphans.blogspot.com. We are focusing on orphans and the rest of team is working with the pastors, health clinic providers and persons involved with economic development to fund orphan and mercy needs.

Keary and I are also planning to deliver photos and visit the MTW work in Ethiopia on our way back to the U.S. See this MTW AIDS Care and Treatment Ministry. This work provides medical care and counseling. Covenant has been working with ACT as well. --- http://www.mtwact.org

Thank God for Congolese Friends

We are looking forward to Friday. We are meeting with our dear Congolese friends. They are translating some things for us into Lingala and we will share a meal together. When the time comes I am apparently going to be able to read it! We'll see! They are going to give us some Congolese culture lessons as well. Skip and I are a bit overwhelmed by the idea that we will ever be able to understand the culture we are headed into and know how to effectively connect with these precious children we are headed to serve. Pray that we would be great listeners on Friday (we love to talk!) and truly hear about how to connect to our friends in Congo... folks we have never met but none-the-less are are so anxiously awaiting for our arrival!