Congolese Women's National Soccer Team Comes To TASOK

This last weekend our school, TASOK, hosted the National Soccer team as they came to talk to a group of young people and hold an inter-squad scrimmage. It was great to watch and see these women play really well. They will be participating in the World Cup preparation matches for women starting soon. They are the best there are here in Congo. Enjoy these pictures I took of them.

Some Great Joe Cabalka Shots Here In Congo

These are some of the best shots of Joe so far in Congo.....I thought you all would like to see what he's been up to and gotten to experience. This shot is Joe watching the Congolese National Women's Soccer Team enter our TASOK facility to practice, and hold an inter-squad scrimmage. Joe and I were very impressed with the level of skill some of the women had. They definitely could run!

This second shot is Joe learning how to canoe in Kikongo. All of us tried our hand at it.....what you can't appreciate is the speed of the current moving downstream (from right to left). I hate to brag but my canoeing days in Minnesota's BWCA and my summer as a canoe guide in Maine (Maine Wilderness Canoe Basin) set me way apart from anyone of our party. Really, you know I hate to brag......but I totally dominated!




This last shot is when we were in Kikongo as well and we went deep into the bush and ended up at a waterfall. The kids found a clay-like substance that they all painted on each other and had a blast. I think they all went back to their tribal roots while they did it.......

Awesome Shot of A Typical Congo Storm

I took this picture up on the soccer field at TASOK the other night. I put the Canon Digital Rebel on Manual Mode and delayed the lens opening for 25 seconds and took a bunch of pictures. I caught a bunch of lightning and flashes which illuminated the clouds which were building up for the storm. Thought I'd put this on the blog so you could appreciate the lightning and storms that we get here in Congo. When the storms come the thunder shakes the homes here and the rain pours down solid for hours. It's been so much fun for us to appreciate huge storms and rain. God is AWESOME!

More Kikongo Pictures.....Had A Great Time You Know!

Pictured above is a very typical hut out in the heart of Congo. We never got to go into one....its really rude to ask to go into one I heard....but I sure would have loved to see what's inside. The people sit outside most of the day preparing their food and just hangin'. The men are fishing or working the crops while the women are beating the mantioch down into flour for their staple, fufu. This woman is beating the mantioch root which has been dried for days after bringing it out of water for 4 days in order to leach a poison from it. It becomes flour (like corn meal) that they mix with water and make into a rather tasteless playdough-like food.

This is a very typical look at Congo landscape as we took off from the Kinshasa airport. As we flew on the hour flight to Kikongo this is a very typical view of Congo. It is very fertile ground with lots of great farm land and very few village. Villages are out there to work the land....cultivating the land for Congolese crop like corn, Mantioch plants, bananas, pineapples, and rice. In the forest they harvest rubber, and timber. There are other sections of the massive country that are rich in minerals and precious gems (diamonds, silver). Its an amazing country that has lots to contribute to the world (massive power could/should be potentially generated by the Congo river).

This is one blog entry to our trip to Kikongo......we saw amazing sunsets and moon rises. This shot shows you how cool one of the nights when the moon started to rise. I caught this shot with my camera being on a 25 second open aperture. You can even see some stars up in the sky.....the moon was just starting to rise and there were clouds that were on the horizon and the moon rose up between them. We were in awe at the color and and beauty of the sky.

How would you like to have this place to visit if you had to go to the bathroom. This is a very typical outdoor toilet in the middle of Congo. It would be hard to convince any woman that I know to use this facility unless they were really desparate! No Thanks....I can hold it!!!

Easter Sunrise Service Looking Out on the Congo River

This is our church at our sunrise celebration for
Easter. We had a great service and a breakfast followed that was a real treat.....like amazing cinnamon rolls. If you look in the background you can see Kinshasa buildings on the horizon. We overlooked the city and prayed lots for the city and for the country of Congo. I would ask you too to pray for this country....for the politicians and statesman to really put the needs of the Congolese first.

This is a picture of our church service and the oldest church building in Congo. It is a Baptist Church and a national landmark in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is a simple, beautiful building that has been around since 1900. It has really cool stain glass windows that depict Christ and His disciples in really sweet African style. This building is right across the street from where TASOK use to be and then later had their dorms for students whose parents sent them to TASOK but were on the field in their mission stations. This is a picture of one of the stain glass windows....the cross! Really cool to see the Congolese view.

This is our Pastor Walt Shepard, pastor of the International Church of Kinshasa (IPCK). It was his desire to hold an Easter Sunrise Service looking out over the city of Kinshasa and the Congo river. It turned out to be awesome! We had great weather and an absolutely gorgeous place to hold a worship celebration of Our Lord's Resurrection!!!! While the celebration was going on many canoes like the ones we road in Kikongo were passing by us on the Congo of fisherman out doing there thing.

More Kikongo Photos From Easter Break!!!!!

This is a terrific picture of mother and son! We were waiting for our ride in the canoes on the Wamba river and I snapped this pic of them by the water. Grace and Joe and I had such a nice time in the heart of Congo. We are cherishing the days that went by too quickly! We came away from Kikongo with a renewed heart for the Congolese people. All of us were impressed with how strong the people were and how they seemed at peace in a place that doesn't have frills and fluff. They eat rice, beans, a root that they make a starchy food with called fufu, and their greens called pandu. Very few of the people looked malnourished and most looked healthy and happy. The BIG problem is Malaria which affects over 50% of the hospital patients. That is a huge battle that seems very hard to beat. Pray for Congo about that would you?

Okay....if you've ever complained about the athletic equipment that you've ever played with then you need to come over to Congo. This is a picture of the only 'soccer ball' that I saw in the village. They have at least 2 soccer fields and kids play all the time I'm sure.....I'm thinking that they would love our cheap, plastic versions that we despise!!!!! This ball is really one of the most amazing sights I have seen in Congo. It is RAGS wrapped up and tied together in a ball that they, I'm sure, need to repair regularly. The only other 'soccer ball' I saw was unripened papaya that little kids were kicking around. My heart broke over this one!!!!!!!!!!!

This picture is showing our walk on of the many well worn paths around Kikongo. We saw two vehicles in the whole village......so that lets you know that its all about walking.....to the Wamba River, to the water source (a delicious spring near the river), to the small market, to their farming plots, to church...wherever! Everywhere we went on these paths we were greeted so kindly and felt very welcomed by everyone. I hate to say it but, that's NOT how we are treated all the time in the capital city of Kinshasa, sadly!

This is a great picture of some of the kids that followed us all around the village as we took a tour of the Lowrey's ministry spot. We fell in love with the kids and got a great sense of the great impact the mission station has had on these kids and the countless others that have grown up here in Kikongo through the 40 some years the mission station has been open and ministering to the people.

Kikongo Trip on the Easter Break.....Awesome!!!!!!

Our school has an Easter break just like pretty much everyone else......so we decided we needed to get out and see a part of Congo cuz we've been hearing all about how beautiful Congo is and how great the countries people are. We were invited to Kikongo, which is an hour flight from Kinshasa, by missionaries Mike and Jill Lowrey (shown to the right). The Lowrey's are from Bakersfield, live next to us at TASOK, have 2 children that attend TASOK, and work regularly teaching at the Pastoral Training Center in Kikongo. They have a great home there and welcomed 21 of us to go and enjoy the Congolese culture in the heart of Congo (that's the village below....notice the soccer field in the open space). We accepted very happily. We hopped on a MAF flight (our plane is pictured above taking off to get another load of people from Kinshasa) with John Gorenflo as our Captain/Pilot (see article about John in a past blog) and took off on Wed the 4th of April.What an amazing 4 days we had. We really relaxed as we floated down and played in the Wamba river, learned how to paddle a Congolese boat (like the one pictured below with Grace in it) up and down the river, walked thru the village of Kikongo, played with the Kikongo children, played in waterfalls, had campfires, and ate too much. Pictures don't do justice to the really beautiful spirit of the people that we met in this village and to the beauty of the area. In the next few blog entry's I will show you pictures of what we did and what it was like. We feel so refreshed and are ready to finish the 9 weeks that are left of the TASOK school year. I need to show you just a few pictures though of Grace and Joe to let you get a taste of what it was like and how cool it was to be in the village. This is Grace in one of our transport vehicles...a Congolese canoe....getting taken to the other side of the Wamba river to go to the waterfalls that we played in. Obviously, that's me and Joe in the waterfalls...coolin' off!!!

This is a great shot of Joe being swarmed by children who followed us and we loved it. Joe was great with them and played with them....it was fun to watch him interact with these kids (that's a dad talking proud of his son!). We really felt honored to be accepted by this village and to come along side them see how they live, work, and play.