Margaret Hull writes: (see photos in later Photo Album entry)
I want to tell you about two things: our meal yesterday noon with the Hibaile family, and the church service this morning. Many of you are acquainted with Dr. Augustin Hibaile who took his doctorate at Grace Seminary, and his wife Marie-Helene. They have both visited the States various times. Dr. Hibaile has a ministry, CIDEL, teaching Christian ethics and leadership to government officials, which includes Ministers all the way down to the police officer on the street. He is also a part-time professor at the Bangui University where he teaches ethics and leadership.
Marie-Helene is involved in many things; she is the mother of eight children, the oldest one currently a student at a university in Morocco, down to four-year-old Jeffery. Their firstborn died, and this along with many of life’s experiences has prepared this couple to be counselors to those with family problems.
When we arrived at their house for lunch, Marie-Helene was not yet home. She was teaching a class to a group of women on how to relate to their husbands; her 19 year old daughter had in the meantime prepared the meal.
Dr. Hibaile mentioned that he and Marie-Helene had recently been called to counsel a neighboring couple who were actually in a fist fight. The couple later remarked that they had never received this kind of counsel before, and they subsequently have had three of four sessions with the Hibailes. The husband in this case is a Muslem and he had simply set the furniture outside the house and told his wife to get out.
Augustin said that this week the Prime Minister had stopped him as he was leaving a government building and remarked that Hibaile had not visited him recently. He had seen Augustin going in to visit other government officials but why not him? So they set a time and Hbaile had an hour-long visit with the Prime Minister, who told him that he wants to build this government on Christian principles.
There is still a long ways to go, but at least there has been a beginning. And possibly we have Dr. Hibaile to thank for this.
Sorry, this is already too long, so we’ll talk about the rest some other time.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Bye-bye Becky & Hand in Hand Orphan School Visit
Friday, October 18
Margaret Hull writes:
We drove out to Yembi this morning, getting there about 8:30. Three teachers were busy teaching their students. Saturnin (that’s the spelling, but he pronounces it Saturné) had his group inside the church because the hangar for his class had blown down in the great wind and rain of yesterday.
I’ve never seen such an orderly group of kids who answered immediately to their teacher, sitting up straight and doing as told. It was very impressive! The Level 3 class was meeting under a mango tree, using a blackboard on a portable stand. The students sat on benches in front of the teacher and could gaze out at beautiful scenery all around.
Lois Wilson’s home church sponsors this Hand to Hand school. Lois arranged to have a big FETE (party) next Tuesday for all the students. She gave 75,600 CFA’s (Central African francs = about $165.) sent from the church, to Pastor Pezza who will arrange to buy the food - meat and rice and an orange for each child. There are 125 students (3 classes). The pastor was very, very appreciative.
Today we all had visitors. Lois was delighted to see her special little friend Nadia, a deaf girl of 7, who may attend a school here in Bangui for the deaf. She had come down from Bata, where the Bible School is located. Lois taught there for years.
Margaret was busy doing interviews with widows. She has finished seven and doesn’t know how many more there are to go. There were originally only eight women chosen to participate in this project, but Barb explained that no one wants to be left out, so they are all trecking in to the mission to get their story written down on paper and get their picture taken. Two of them came directly from a funeral and didn’t have their jewelry on, so Margaret had to lend them her ear rings when she took their picture.
We are wondering where Becky Dick is now. She went out to the airport four hours ahead of time last night for the plane which was to leave around midnight. About 1 AM she and another missionary who was also to go showed up at the mission. A gas leak had been discovered, so the plane did not go. A phone call this morning told them to be back out at the airport as quickly as possible. The plane was supposed to leave about 11 AM.
We all appreciated so very much Becky’s input on the team. We miss her tonight and the dogs will have to howl and bark without her notice.
Last Blog Entry from Becky Before Her Departure
Becky Dick writes:
As some of you may have known I’m a widow of six months. When Barb approached me about coming to teach here soon after Phil’s death, it seemed to give me a purpose to go on. In the two-day teacher training seminar I tried to teach the teachers ways to adapt the curriculum to the orphans in the classroom and how to have lessons that are multi-leveled.
The hardest part was trying to adapt these teaching strategies to a teaching situation where there are such limitation for resources. These teachers only have a large chalk board, and each student has a slate and chalk. Back in the USA as I’d share with Barb and Ginger my ideas, for example using hands-on material, they would shake their heads. So we adapted to using things like sticks and stones to help children learn.
I stressed first the need for them to remember when they were children – so as to give them insight into their students, and also I encouraged them to establish relationships with their students. I shared Matthew 18:3 where Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” And also Mark 10:14, “Let the little children come to me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
After sharing I John 3:1, “How great is the love that God has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God and that is what we are,” they sang a song that uses this verse.
My heart was breaking this morning when we visited a Hand in Hand school (local church-based Christian school for orphans) to see children as young as three in the same class with ones who are 8-10 years old!
My prayer request is that, since they have very young children coming to their schools, that they find a way to separate the very young ones from the older ones who are more ready for lessons on literacy. Pray that the pastors, who are in charge of the schools, will find other ways to teach these nursery school age children.
Of course, as a teacher, I really feel for these teachers having such a wide age-range of children.
What a responsibility and privilege these teachers involved in Project Hope & Charité’s schools have. Please pray for Barb Wooler and Ginger Hock (PHC’s Hand-in-Hand Director) as they work with our African colleagues and local churches here in Africa to teach these children who otherwise would never be sent to school.
“Tomorrow’s world will be shaped by what we teach our children today.” I found this quote in My Daily Bread.” What an impact the Project Hope & Charité students can make in this country as the Lord tarries His return!
My last prayer request is that God will help me know how I can continue to help from the USA side.
As some of you may have known I’m a widow of six months. When Barb approached me about coming to teach here soon after Phil’s death, it seemed to give me a purpose to go on. In the two-day teacher training seminar I tried to teach the teachers ways to adapt the curriculum to the orphans in the classroom and how to have lessons that are multi-leveled.
The hardest part was trying to adapt these teaching strategies to a teaching situation where there are such limitation for resources. These teachers only have a large chalk board, and each student has a slate and chalk. Back in the USA as I’d share with Barb and Ginger my ideas, for example using hands-on material, they would shake their heads. So we adapted to using things like sticks and stones to help children learn.
I stressed first the need for them to remember when they were children – so as to give them insight into their students, and also I encouraged them to establish relationships with their students. I shared Matthew 18:3 where Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” And also Mark 10:14, “Let the little children come to me, for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”
After sharing I John 3:1, “How great is the love that God has lavished on us that we should be called the children of God and that is what we are,” they sang a song that uses this verse.
My heart was breaking this morning when we visited a Hand in Hand school (local church-based Christian school for orphans) to see children as young as three in the same class with ones who are 8-10 years old!
My prayer request is that, since they have very young children coming to their schools, that they find a way to separate the very young ones from the older ones who are more ready for lessons on literacy. Pray that the pastors, who are in charge of the schools, will find other ways to teach these nursery school age children.
Of course, as a teacher, I really feel for these teachers having such a wide age-range of children.
What a responsibility and privilege these teachers involved in Project Hope & Charité’s schools have. Please pray for Barb Wooler and Ginger Hock (PHC’s Hand-in-Hand Director) as they work with our African colleagues and local churches here in Africa to teach these children who otherwise would never be sent to school.
“Tomorrow’s world will be shaped by what we teach our children today.” I found this quote in My Daily Bread.” What an impact the Project Hope & Charité students can make in this country as the Lord tarries His return!
My last prayer request is that God will help me know how I can continue to help from the USA side.
Losing One of Our Four Muskateers
Thursday 16 October
Margaret Hull writes:
Hi everyone. There’s lots of activity here this morning. Barb is waiting for the rain to let up a little so that they can make the dash to Air France to weigh in and get boarding passes. Though the plane leaves only a bit before midnight to make its way up to Paris, check in is this morning.
We’re all sorry to see Becky go. She had a good ministry here and all the people have fallen in love with her. Because of her 34 years of teaching experience, being the mother of twins, and losing her husband to cancer six months ago, she has a lot of points of reference with these women.
Not only do we have to be flexible with the hours of electricity that we have, but in other things as well. Last evening at the widows’ meeting (which I hope to tell you about later) we made arrangement for eight women to come here to the mission and I would interview them, get their stories, and take pictures of them. We arranged that two would come two each day for four days. This morning six of them showed up, in the rain! So instead of finishing this blog, I’ll go do interviews.
Lois Wilson writes:
Excuse me…. It’s now Lois writing. My two visitors just left after a wonderful visit. Christine, my prayer partner at Bata, and Marcelline, head of the Bata pre-school. I had the privilege to teach both of these women and to see them both grow in the Lord by leaps and bounds. It’s been exciting to visit with them this week. They came to Bangui to take part in the Seminar taught by Becky Dick. Christine teaches adult women who are either still illiterate, or are beginner readers. Marcelline teaches the wee children of the Bible Institute students. Students bring their families when they come to study at Bible Institute for 3 yrs.
The reason for today’s visit was so Christine and Marcelline could spend time sitting with me to mourn my Mother’s death. I was in PA when my Mother went to Heaven October 2, 2007, but my family here in C.A.R. mourned as well. So today these dear sisters in Christ came to help “share my sorrow”. Such a wonderful family God has given me here in Africa.
Margaret Hull writes again
Margaret again. I wanted to tell you about our meeting with widows yesterday afternoon at Madame Zo Koe’s house. Almost all the ladies were already gathered in the shade on the north side of the house when we arrived. Small tables had been set with soft drinks, sandwiches, and thermoses of coffee and tea. We had barely gotten started when the sky darkened, the wind blew, drops began to fall, and we all dashed to the big porch to continue the meeting.
Becky’s testimony, as she shared her experiences as a widow, was especially effective. Barb had asked me to tell about widows in Portugal and the sadness in their lives, the way they wear their mourning clothes from the day of the husband’s death to the end of their own life, whether it be 10 years or 40, how they go to the cemetery every week to burn a candle and pray for his soul.
What a contrast there is between the widows of Portugal who live in the presence of death, and the widows of CAR who hang on to life! Later we heard testimonies of several of the women, and it was both heart-breaking and uplifting, to hear of their sorrows and yet their hope in the Lord. The meeting ended with a fantastically joyful time of singing, dancing, claping and giving of thanks.
Margaret Hull writes:
Hi everyone. There’s lots of activity here this morning. Barb is waiting for the rain to let up a little so that they can make the dash to Air France to weigh in and get boarding passes. Though the plane leaves only a bit before midnight to make its way up to Paris, check in is this morning.
We’re all sorry to see Becky go. She had a good ministry here and all the people have fallen in love with her. Because of her 34 years of teaching experience, being the mother of twins, and losing her husband to cancer six months ago, she has a lot of points of reference with these women.
Not only do we have to be flexible with the hours of electricity that we have, but in other things as well. Last evening at the widows’ meeting (which I hope to tell you about later) we made arrangement for eight women to come here to the mission and I would interview them, get their stories, and take pictures of them. We arranged that two would come two each day for four days. This morning six of them showed up, in the rain! So instead of finishing this blog, I’ll go do interviews.
Lois Wilson writes:
Excuse me…. It’s now Lois writing. My two visitors just left after a wonderful visit. Christine, my prayer partner at Bata, and Marcelline, head of the Bata pre-school. I had the privilege to teach both of these women and to see them both grow in the Lord by leaps and bounds. It’s been exciting to visit with them this week. They came to Bangui to take part in the Seminar taught by Becky Dick. Christine teaches adult women who are either still illiterate, or are beginner readers. Marcelline teaches the wee children of the Bible Institute students. Students bring their families when they come to study at Bible Institute for 3 yrs.
The reason for today’s visit was so Christine and Marcelline could spend time sitting with me to mourn my Mother’s death. I was in PA when my Mother went to Heaven October 2, 2007, but my family here in C.A.R. mourned as well. So today these dear sisters in Christ came to help “share my sorrow”. Such a wonderful family God has given me here in Africa.
Margaret Hull writes again
Margaret again. I wanted to tell you about our meeting with widows yesterday afternoon at Madame Zo Koe’s house. Almost all the ladies were already gathered in the shade on the north side of the house when we arrived. Small tables had been set with soft drinks, sandwiches, and thermoses of coffee and tea. We had barely gotten started when the sky darkened, the wind blew, drops began to fall, and we all dashed to the big porch to continue the meeting.
Becky’s testimony, as she shared her experiences as a widow, was especially effective. Barb had asked me to tell about widows in Portugal and the sadness in their lives, the way they wear their mourning clothes from the day of the husband’s death to the end of their own life, whether it be 10 years or 40, how they go to the cemetery every week to burn a candle and pray for his soul.
What a contrast there is between the widows of Portugal who live in the presence of death, and the widows of CAR who hang on to life! Later we heard testimonies of several of the women, and it was both heart-breaking and uplifting, to hear of their sorrows and yet their hope in the Lord. The meeting ended with a fantastically joyful time of singing, dancing, claping and giving of thanks.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Saturday & Tuesday Blog Entries - Margaret & Lois
Margaret Hull writes:
Lois Wilon writes: Orphan Teacher Training Seminar
Saturday, October 11, 2008 Today was a warm day. Lois had her face in one of her two fans most of the time. At Margaret’s invitation four long time friends joined us for the mid-day meal. Baba Dibona and his wife Alice have been married for 54 yrs. He was a fantastic obstetrical nurse in the medical work here in the C.A.R. for many years, and his wife taught in many girls’ classes and camps with missionary ladies.
The other couple who came were young Dibona, also known as Dr. Dibona, and his wife Denise. They’ll celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in 09. Dr. D. treats PH-C orphans with much love. Wife Denise is a good teacher of Nutrition to the Fulani people. We enjoyed being with the older and the younger Dibona couples, people who serve the Lord with gladness.
The other couple who came were young Dibona, also known as Dr. Dibona, and his wife Denise. They’ll celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary in 09. Dr. D. treats PH-C orphans with much love. Wife Denise is a good teacher of Nutrition to the Fulani people. We enjoyed being with the older and the younger Dibona couples, people who serve the Lord with gladness.
Lois Wilon writes: Orphan Teacher Training Seminar
Tuesday, 14 October ……… Tonight we’re “resting up” after a full day of Seminar. Becky did a good job teaching activities to help young children learn different concepts. Following lunch we had a “practice” session. During the 2 day Seminar Margaret, Barb and Lois all had a part in putting Becky’s words into Sango so the 29 teachers could understand. It’s been two good days, but we’re really tired this evening.
Lois translating Becky's lesson. 29 teachers attended seminar.
God showed us again His faithfulness in giving help when needed. We’re having a nice rain as I write, so we should sleep well tonight. Rain often keeps the sounds from the street a little more subdued, making it easier to get a good night's sleep.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Sunday Worship Service -- Becky Dick
by Becky Dick
Today we worshipped with the Brethren at the Castors Grace Brethren Church. It was a wonderful experience to be here after hearing, knowing and praying about this area of Africa since I was a child.
We were greeted at the entrance to the church by a man in a uniform. Barb Explained he is a TTN (Soldier of the Good News) mens group. We were ushered to our bench by an older woman (see photo at right) who made sure that we and everyone else squeezed in -- with thousands of people needing to be seated, wasted space is not allowed! Our bench, which was about ten feet long, was filled with seven people.
The music was such a blessing. They had two choirs sitting on opposite sides of the podium. The pastor, Pastor Joseph Ndomale, shared the word from II Samuel 24:19-25.
Afterwards I was greeted in English by a gal that I knew in Winona Lake when she was a little girl! It was Pastor Ndomale's daughter. What a treat to meet her again after all these years!
We capped off the morning worship time with a trip to the Grand Cafe, a bakery/cafe. The coffee and tea were delicious as were the French pasteries. Of course, with our two-day teacher
seminar starting tomorrow, our conversation eventually turned to the lessons we'll be presenting. Please pray for our time with these orphan teachers -- we'll have 30+ teachers in our class.Friday, October 10, 2008
GO Team Journal Entry: Marg Hull
October 10, Margaret Hull writes:
Pictured (l to r) Margaret Hull, Lois Wilson & Becky Dick
Here we are, Barb, Becky, Lois and Margaret, thankful that it is finally time to go to bed and we can begin to try to catch up on some of the sleep we missed over the past two days as we were en route to Bangui, Central African Republic. We’re so thankful that God brought us and all eleven of our checked trunks through safely, and that M. Zokoe, husband of Madame Alexandrine, (director of the Project Hope and Charité) was at the airport to hasten the processing of all that baggage.
I, Margaret, wasn’t prepared for the emotional bomb that would explode in my heart as we made our way into the city I had left in 1989 after 25 years of ministry in this country. I would miss seeing many dear friends who had died in the interim of my absence, and others who, because of the danger of travel, would not make the trip down to Bangui.
This afternoon we went out to the center to see and participate in Mme. Zo Kwe’s meeting with her groups, a combination of four of the total of eight orphan groups, which meet weekly for fellowship and encouragement. We were deeply impressed with the joy and well-being of the 200 children gathered there – their happy singing, their touching testimonies, even the obvious health of their bodies. They came by the dozens to shake our hands, to practice their English on us, and to crowd into the pictures we were taking. God is at work in the lives of these children.
I talked with one student, Mandaba, who on Monday will begin his 4th year of study at the Yaloke Christian High School. He told me that he is grateful to God and his sponsor for the possibility of studying at this fine school, and for the care he receives from the Project Hope and Charite. Barb told me that he is an excellent student, at the head of his class, with a clear Christian testimony. I thought, “What a worthwhile investment his sponsor has made.” But then I realized that every investment in the life of a child is a potentially eternal, greatly worthwhile investment. I’m anxious to meet my little gal, Josette, perhaps tomorrow.
I had the unexpected pleasure of talking with children and nephews and nieces of the people I had worked with years before; children who have become adults and are now living and working for God. For instance:
- Dibona Paul. He is the nephew of one of my favorite nurses, and was one of my medical students. He now serves as the doctor of the Project, and works in a surgical clinic here in Bangui.
- Elisabeth, daughter of Wieina, who was a nurse at Boguila for years and died a few years ago. She is a teacher in one of the Hand to Hand schools.
We are only one day into our adventure and have already seen so much. Our focus for this weekend is on a training seminar we are offering on Monday and Tuesday (Oct. 13-14) to over 30 PHC teachers. It will be taught by Becky Dick, who taught young children for 35 years, and the rest of us will be helping with translating and leading discussions.
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