First Annual Client Assembly and Orphanage updates

Well, we did it!! HOPE Congo had it's first Annual Client Assembly this past Friday. This was the first time all the HOPE Clients have had the opportunity to gather and meet one another. HOPE Congo has received many requests from clients for a gathering like this. It took several months to plan and a lot of work! HOPE has around 4,000 clients currently and all were invited. We did not know how many were actually going to come....which was the stressful part. We had to plan for 4,000, but didn't even know if 500 would come. We rented out a large church that could hold 2,000 and then rented plastic chairs and a large screen for outside in case of overflow. In all we had around 2,000 clients attend on Friday! We were so happy that so many decided to come as coming to the assembly would be time away from their business and a loss of income. Precy, our Spiritual Integration Officer, planned the event and did a great job! The choir from the church led worship and Precy preached. The Regional Director, Rodger Morgan, was here and gave a talk about the vision of HOPE and what the future holds. At the end we gave out awards for different accomplishments like most savings, longest active client, etc. The clients were hilarious. Many of them danced their way to the stage to received their award. Then we gave out sandwiches and juice bottles at the end. They seemed to really enjoy the assembly. All in all it was a good and tiring day! Here are some pictures from the Assembly.

The stage and choir at the church.

Nate and Clement, the HOPE accountant.

Precy, the Spiritual Integration Officer

A church full of HOPE Clients. (The roof is currently being repaired. It was damaged during the explosions in March.)

Sarah and I (Allie) took a group of young girls from an orphanage to lunch at La Mandarine, a restaurant near our house. They were so excited to go as we have been mainly working with the older girls in the orphanage. They either got pizza or a hamburger and little to go cakes at the end. We brought them back to my apartment and ate our cake and hung out. We asked them all kinds of questions and were just overwhelmed by how previous these little girls are! We hope to do a small bible study with this age as well in the coming months. They are 9-12 years old and are quickly growing up! I remember this was the age I started having a lot of questions about my body, growing up, and boys. It breaks my hear to think they don't have mama's to talk with them about these things, to show them how to do their hair, paint their nails, and do fun girly stuff with them. Sarah and I hope to be surrogate big sisters to them throughout the next year. Please be praying for the continued health and development of these beautiful girls!

Dorcas, me, and Grace

Swinging at SIL (my compound)

Sweet little girls.

Hanging out at my place and eating cake.

This past Saturday was the last Saturday of our 8 week mentor program with the teenage girls at the orphanage. If you haven't read my previous blog, each Saturday we have 8 girls over to our houses to have a bible study, eat snacks, and do a fun activity. We hoped to create friendships with these girls and create an atmosphere where they felt safe to talk about their lives. Over the past 2 months they have certainly opened up to us and are now very comfortable to ask us anything (sometime a little too comfortable haha). They start school today and we decided during the school year we would get together just 1 Saturday a month. They were sad, but understand. We told them we would still get together at different times as well. Sarah ordered the Twilight movies recently and was able to get the French version! We are going to have a Twilight girls night soon! :) Here are some recent pictures from one of our Saturdays. 

Working with Sarah at the orphanage has been such a blessing to me. It has definitely kindled the desire of adoption in my heart. I am eternally grateful God decided to adopt me as his own, and I can't wait to do what I have learned from my heavenly father one day. Please pray that God will use me in any way to love these girls and attract them not to myself but to Him. I pray that these girls will find true joy in the Lord because as we missionaries come and go from their lives often, he will never leave them. 

Sarah and the girls

Yvette, she is our Diva for sure. Yvette is a Rwandan genocide refugee.

Golf and Fantasy Football

A couple weekends ago, I (Nate) was able to go golfing for the second time in Africa. There is one course in Brazzaville, and I liked it so much the first time that I had to go back. Sure, the fairways and greens leave something to be desired; but what the course lacks in upkeep, it makes up for it with customer service. It is mandatory at this course to use a caddy. I was hesitant at first, but it was awesome. The guys were super nice and eager to give advice. Granted, I couldn't understand half of what they said, but it was still appreciated. We also had another guy that carried the flag for each hole. He was also in charge of finding any errantly hit golf balls. As my partners and I are far from professionals, he had his work cut out for him. It is amazing how much more enjoyable golf is when you don't have to go searching for your own ball. The best part about having these caddies is that you will NEVER have a bad lie. Hit your ball right next to a tree, and it miraculously moves 4 feet to the left. If your ball lands in a divot, there is no need to worry. Your trusty caddy will pick it up, fluff up some near by grass, and place the ball neatly on top. It was wonderful. It is definitely not cheating when  your caddy does with without even being asked. The scores were not great, but it was a great time with friends!

Last Sunday was my first fantasy football draft while in Africa. It was a live online draft, so a good internet connection was key. The week leading up to the draft, I tested the draft application every day to make sure it would work. I had no problems until the day before the draft. I was hoping it would turn out to be just a one day thing, but on the day of the draft it still would not work. Luckily, I tested it a few hours before the actual draft. Allie and I walked to nearby restaurant to see if the internet there would support it...the restaurant turns out to be closed on Sundays. With precious time ticking away, we decided to split up. I drove the both of us to another restaurant to drop Allie off before proceeding to the HOPE office to try the internet there. Right before we got to the restaurant I got pulled over by a cop!! He literally told me he had no reason to pull me over other than it seemed suspicious for someone to be driving around on a Sunday...hmmm sounds a little fishy. I showed him my international driver's permit and the registration for the truck, and he said everything looked good. Before I left though, he asked me if I could by him some "juice." I had been informed by others that this was there clever way of asking for a bribe without actually coming out and asking for cash. I explained to him that I did not have any money to give him, and to my surprise he actually let me go. I told him, "next time" which seemed to satisfy him, so I was on my way. Once at the office I realized I had left my office key at the apartment. I got back in the truck to go home, but then the truck wouldn't start. The engine was overheated, so I had to wait for it to cool down. During this time Allie realized that the internet was also too slow at this other restaurant. I was quickly running out of options. By the time I could get the truck started it was nearly time for our Sunday night devotional time, which I was leading this week. There was no more time to find internet. Luckily, I was able to convince Brandon Puckett to draft for me. Every five minutes or so I would call him on the telephone and ask for an update. He would give me the list of available players, and I would tell him who I wanted to pick. It proceeded like that for the next hour or so until the draft was over. The things I will do to play fantasy football!! I have another draft in a couple of days, so be praying for good internet. Otherwise, one of you might have to draft for me!

Things are going well for Allie and I. Yesterday, was a little rough for me, seeing all the posts about college football. Not being able to watch sports has been really tough. Believe it or not, we actually got to experience a little bit of football culture yesterday. A marching band was playing (very loudly) not too far from us. What was the occasion? A funeral of course. Some minister recently passed away, so this was the 4th night of loud partying to celebrate his life. We have been fortunate that they call it quits around midnight. One of the missionaries said this might go on for weeks, and sometimes they have the parties well into the AM. We are hoping they keep it to midnight for now.

We are both looking forward to being back in the US in October. I have already warned Allie that every Saturday and Sunday will be strictly a football watching day. Go Gators!

HOPE Congo: A Family at Heart

HOPE Congo had its annual spiritual retreat June 27-29 at Vuela, a Catholic retreat Center just outside of Brazzaville. It was a great place to get away from the city noise and see tress, flowers, and grass. All 37 of us piled into a bus and the HOPE truck and arrived at Vuela Friday morning. The office was split into 3 teams: the green, red, and yellow teams. Each morning we had a time of praise and worship led by one of the teams and 3 office staff spoke throughout the weekend. This weekend was a great time for Nate and I to spend quality time with the staff.

The theme for the weekend was “Rooted in Christ, Growing in Faith.” Manny began the weekend by speaking about the importance of digging our roots deep into Christ by reading the word, praying, studying, meditating, and memorizing the Word. He read a verse Psalms explaining how we must remain rooted in Christ for sustainment like the tree remains rooted by the river for water.

Loveline, the loan supervisor, spoke next about even as we root ourselves in Christ this doesn’t mean the storms of life will not come. Loveline lost her husband a few years ago. As well as dealing with this loss, she was also pressured by her family to do certain customary acts followed in her culture. She explained how she felt God would not be pleased if she did these things instead of trusting and leaning on him. She was ostracized from her family because she did not do these traditional acts. She explained how her faith in Christ grew as He sustained her though this dark time her life. Clement, the HOPE accountant, spoke the last day on Joshua 1:7-9 encouraging everyone to be in the Word daily. He encouraged everyone to be confident in our faith, and to trust God as he works in our lives.

We also enjoyed fun games with some intense competition between the teams. Each team made a chant to yell throughout the weekend, and wore the same color t-shirts each day.

I have been personally blessed by this weekend. The time of fellowship and great insights from colleagues made me so grateful to be in Brazzaville and a part of the HOPE Congo team. I have been living in Brazzaville for almost 9 months now and am feeling like I have some true friends in Christ. The HOPE Congo staff are such an encouragement to Nate and I. They always greet us each morning with a contagious joy. Their passion for the mission of HOPE and God’s call on their lives is inspiring. The most meaningful time for me was the last day’s worship time. The staff were asked to give a testimony about how God had touched their lives through this weekend or through HOPE. I was tearing up through each testimony that was given.

Here are summaries of a few of the testimonies:

Alix’s father died when she was young, and her mother died a few years later. Her extended family raised her. As an adult she began to really feel the loneliness of not having her parents. She felt everyone had a place to call home, except her. She started working with HOPE Congo in April 2011. The HOPE staff have become like family. She now feels like she has a place where she belongs.

Espoir’s parents died when he was very young. He was raised by his aunt, but was often treated like an orphan. His childhood was a difficult one. He was given old clothes, did not have a blanket to sleep with, and was not able to eat at every meal. He was able to obtain an internship at a local business. One day Espoir was praying at this office. His boss decided Espoir couldn’t pray at work because it wasn’t productive. Espoir was very upset and felt this was not a place he wanted to work long term. He began looking for another place to work.  Espoir started working with HOPE Congo in February 2012. He is thrilled to have a place where he can both do meaningful work and worship God.

Martine’s mother is Russian and her father is Congolese. Her parents divorced when she was young. Her mother moved back to Russia, but Martine stayed with her father in Congo. She has not seen her mother in almost 10 years. Martine is new to the HOPE family starting in May 2012. Before she began with HOPE she felt lost and had no direction in her life. A close friend who was also a loan officer at HOPE told her to apply for an open position with HOPE. Martine applied and was hired! Her first day at HOPE she woke up very sick, but was worried that if she didn’t come the first day it would give a bad impression. She decided to come to the office, but felt very ill and discouraged. She joined the morning devotions, and prayed that God would heal her because she needed to be 100% on her first day. After the prayer time she felt much better and knew it was God telling her this is where she is supposed to be. She already feels close to the HOPE staff and calls them her family.

Darcelia’s parents divorced when she was young. After the divorce she lived with her father. Even though her mother still lives in Brazzaville Darcelia has not see her in years. Her mother refuses to see her. Darcelia explained, “It was very difficult growing up without a mother’s love.” She said, “She wishes she was an orphan instead of having a mother who doesn’t want to see her.” When she started working with HOPE in February 2012 she found love, acceptance, and a family at HOPE. When Darcelia was finished with her testimony, Loveline, the loan officer supervisor, stood up, embraced her, and said she would be her mother. Loveline expressed her love for Darcelia, as Darcelia cried in her arms. It was a beautiful expression of God’s redemptive love.

Meeting at the office, ready to leave!

Some members of the GREEN team

Loading the bus

The girls of the RED team

The GREEN team

The RED team

Us and the Sparlings

Sitting around about to play a game

The YELLOW team. That is Alix in the front. She is a nut!

The Finance Team. Nate spends a lot of time with these guys.

The trees and flowers around the center were a nice change from the city. 

Goodbye Manny!

HOPE Congo said goodbye to our Managing Director, Manny Palis, last week. It was a sad goodbye as he was a loved and respected leader. Manny was a servant leader to the core. He was always quick to listen first and then give direction. He was definitely a father figure and spiritual role model for many in the office, especially Nate and I. He and Marie helped us so much when we first arrived. They helped us settle in quickly and made us feel right at home. The staff held a "Going Away Party" for Manny last Monday evening. Goodbyes are very important  in the Congolese culture. It is Congolese tradition to have meal and offer presents to the person leaving. We ate chicken, manioc (common Congolese food that is white and cornmeal like), and saka saka (it looks like stewed Spinach, but is actually made from the Casava plant). The women held gifts and danced around with them, and then presented them to Manny. It was a good last meal with Manny. We all wished him well as he returned to the Philippines to be reunited with his family.

New Friends and Good Times

I, Allie, have been able to help out with several ministries lately. Barb, a missionary who lives near us, has allowed me to tag along and become apart of what she and her team are doing here in Brazzaville. She has been a missionary in Africa for over 30 years! She is an amazing woman.  Barb coordinates a women's prison ministry and an orphanage ministry. I have been to the prison once with her. They go each Friday afternoon and do a devotional with the women. I usually have an ESL class during this time :( They also bring food, clothes, and laundry detergent to give out. The prison is what you would think of when you imagine a prison in a developing country. All the woman are in one area. They have a common outside area where they cook their food over a fire. They rarely have electricity or running water. There are 2 large rooms indoors where they sleep on the floor with a cot. There is one bathroom for around 30 women to share. The prison only feeds them once a day so many of the inmates family members bring them food each day. Also, it was crazy to see babies in the prison with their mothers! Barb said they allow the women to bring babies with them if they have no one safe to live with at home. I really enjoyed the one day I got to go. The woman were very welcoming and open to us. We all gathered in a circle in the common area, sang, and had a bible study. They don't have Bibles so we took pieces of paper with the Bible verse printed on it. Afterwards I started to crumbled mine up and put it in my purse, but all the women were like NO! I was told that the women keep all the pieces of paper and use it as toilet paper that week or sell it to other inmates for needed objects.

I regularly visit 2 orphanages every other Saturday morning. Barb has a team of Congolese young adults who lead the devotional at the orphanages. I go and help out with the devotional and activity. I will take pictures of these orphanages soon and post them for you to see!

Barb, Sarah, and I began a "mentor program" with some pre-teen and teenage girls from one of the orphanages we work in this past Saturday. We plan on doing this every Saturday afternoon for the next 8 weeks. We are hoping to be able to get to know these girls better and be someone they can trust and come to if they have problems. Sarah and her husband Jon moved here at the beginning of June to work with HOPE. They live near us and we have enjoyed having another young couple to hang out with. We eat many meals together and play cards. Barb, Sarah, and I bring the girls to Barb's apartment because we want a nice quiet place to visit with them. The orphanage is never really quiet or calm. haha  This past Saturday was our first day and it went great! The first day is always a little awkward, but by the end they were talking and asking us questions. The girls only speak French so it gives us a lot of French practice! I led the first part of the Bible study, but then Barb took over at the end and wrapped it all up. I know I was butchering the conjugations, but they seemed to understand what I was saying...or they were just being nice! ha I had written out a lot of what I wanted to see before hand so I had a good guide to lead me along. After the Bible study we painted their nails and ate popcorn. They loved their nails painted. We had 6 or 7 colors and they were putting a different color on every finger.

I am really enjoying getting to be apart of these ministries. Please join me in praying for these girls we are working with. Many of them must leave the orphanage in a few years and dont really have anywhere to go. Pray that God will lead and prepare them for the future. Also, Barb said many girls around their age end up getting pregnant and being kicked out of the orphanage. These girls are deprived of love, attention, and parents to guide them. There are 2 women that care for 25 kids at the orphanage, and the older girls must help out with the smaller kids. They are so easily duped by men who show them a little attention. We are praying these girls will really know how much they are loved by God. How important each of their lives are to God even when they feel invisible or like they dont matter. May God use Barb, Sarah, and I to saturate these girls in His love, wisdom, and peace.
Here are a few pictures from Saturday! And I had to add one of Perin. He is the son of a Wycliffe missionary couple that lives on the compound with us. He has stolen my heart :)

Yvette, Amour, and Valentine

Julie and Immaculee

Barb and Me

Sarah and Sipha

Me and favorite little boy, Perin. 

Aimee, Sifa, and Grace

Back in Brazzaville!

Hey everyone, Yes, we realize it has been since March since we have posted! Yikes We are failures at blogging, but are going to try to do better! Well since March a lot has happened. In April, we had the youth from the Nazarene church over to eat and play games at our place. We had around 20 people in our tiny one bedroom apartment, but they didn't seem to mind. We made Mexican food for them. Nate had to demonstrate how to eat a taco once we realized they were eating the taco with a fork! haha They really liked the tacos and guacamole. The youth pastor gave a short devotional and then we went outside to play a few games with them. Nate and I had to brainstorm about our old youth group days to think of some games. The kids loved it.
Allie has begun working on the Kiva stuff at the HOPE office. Kiva is a partner organization with HOPE that fundraises for microfinance institutions around the world. Allie and an intern, Merveille, interview groups of clients and post their loans to the Kiva website for people around the world to donate the money for the loan. It is a great partnership that helps provide more funding for HOPE Congo to give more loans. Kiva audited HOPE Congo at the end of April. Allie was very busy in April readying the office for the office. HOPE Congo failed the audit a few months back and really needed to pass this audit to be eligible to receive more funding from Kiva. HOPE Congo ended up passing the audit! Before we were able to receive $25,000 a month from Kiva, now we can receive $80,000 a month! This was truly a blessing from God.
In May we got to visit the US! HOPE had their annual Leadership Summit in Lancaster, PA. It was great to spend time with HOPE staff from the corporate office as well as from all over the world. This week was very encouraging and refreshing for us. It reinforced God's call and reenergized us to go back Brazzaville. Since we were already back we took 2 and half weeks of vacation. We spent a few days in Greenwood to visit Allie's grandma and to go to doctor/dentist appointments. We then went on a week long Disney cruise with Nate's family. Needless to say, It was MAGICAL! We had 4 stops. The first was GrandCayman where we swam with the sting rays. Next was Cozumel where Jim, Nate, and Allie scuba dived and Patty, Johnna, and Jamie horsebacked. Then Costa Maya where we were supposed to visit the Mayan ruins, but it ended up pouring rain. We saw one ruin right before the rain started, but it was all good when Disney got our tour totally refunded! Finally the last day we visited Disney's private island called Castaway Cay. There we just laid on the beach and ate an amazing barbecue dinner by the beach. After that week we then went and spent a week with Allie's family in St. Augustine. The Pineda's were able to come a few days. We really loved getting to see them and the kids! Our baby, Miley, also came and spent the week with us! She loved the beach and sat out with us all day under the umbrella. The week in St. Augustine we got a lot of lovely beach time. The family went into St. Augustine for dinner and walked around the scenic downtown one evening. We also celebrated our 2nd anniversary that week! The 2 weeks of vacation were full of family, AC, good food, and great memories. We were very said to say goodbye at the end of it all.
We had a bit of an adventure getting back to Brazzaville. We were flying out of Charlotte to DC to  connect with our international flight. Well we ended up missing our flight in Charlotte and had to reschedule our international flight for the next day! We were so stressed, but thankfully it was all worked out. We ended up spending the night in DC and leaving the next morning. We also were missing 2 of the 4 suitcases we checked when we arrived in Brazzaville. They were found and arrived the next day. When we returned home the Sparlings had a warm dinner prepared for us that night. We were warmly welcomed by everyone and have enjoyed catching up with all of our friends. The weather here is awesome! These are the winter months right now and it is always in the 70s or 80s. It really cools down at night. We actually use our covers! Thank you all for your prayers and encouragement. We really cherish all of the messages and emails you send to us. Enjoy some of our pictures from the last few months!

Crashing the US Embassy pool one HOT afternoon

The youth group!

They loved the water games

These boys were inseparable. 

There's Mickey!

He is so proud of this picture.

The chandeliers were beautiful! haha

Happy Anniversary!

It was great to spend time with her.

Gotta love Grandma :)

The Family in St. Augustine.

My besties! Im so glad they got to visit.

Pirate Night!

We look so mean.

Reunited with our baby :) and of course she is terrified of the balloons.