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.