2006 October Archive at BrianJBecker.com

She is more faithful than your local Walmart greeter.

I have grown accustomed to my excited kitten greeting me at the front door to our office every morning. She runs ahead of me to wait eagerly at my office door, meowing and waving her tail all the way down the hall. But when I walked up on Friday she was nowhere to be seen. I started to fear the worst: illness, sudden death, the purported gang of cat theives who crave the taste of house cat… I asked around and staff members said that she’d been around just five minutes before - she was waiting there at the door for me.

We gathered around our big table for morning prayers and some time later I glanced down the hall to see the very tip of her tail as she sauntered into my office. (Whew, still alive.)

A little while later I heard our administrative assistant upset about something at her desk. I went to see what was the matter and she said that she’d brought some cooked beef in for lunch. It was wrapped in a plastic bag and she tucked it into her desk drawer with the intention of taking it to the room the staff uses as a lounge after prayers. It was gone! Apparently the cat snagged it and while I was looking for her she was hiding away feasting on her ill gotten gains.

The moral of the story is that my cat loves me because I give her food. At least her dependency is innocent and honest. I can expect to be ditched cold whenever she happens upon some illicit beef.

Greetings from the Democratic Republic of the Congo!

Jambo Sana and Mbote Mingi!

It is Sunday afternoon here at the heart of the DRC and a steamy hot day has been chilled by a gusty cool breeze. There are twin thunderstorms drenching the jungle on the other side of the river. I was just now enjoying the lightning show in the distance and taking my clothes down off of the clothesline before the wind does it for me.

From the old building where I live I have a great view of the Congo River. There is no bridge over the river to serve the smaller half of the city on the north side. A small ferry boat makes infrequent crossings. Most people cross in canoes under human power. These handmade wooden canoes are big enough to hold around twenty passengers in close company and there is a standing oarsman at either end. The boats are pushed awkwardly sideways by the river’s strong current. I just watched a well loaded boat heading straight into the wind. (As if the current wasn’t enough to deal with!) I half-expected the oarsmen to give up and let the wind push the boat back to shore. They paddled on.

I am doing well these days. I have been working with HOPE International here for seven months and it has certainly been a tremendous journey of learning, listening, and growing. I feel very well settled into my work managing the HOPE microfinance institution here. The staff is a lot of fun; they like to laugh and are doing good work. We now serve around 1400 clients who have taken small business loans in community banking groups and lately it has been rare for any of the groups to be late with a payment. This is a testament to the hard work of our staff and to the clients themselves who are putting the loans to work in their market stalls, small shops, and home businesses.

I have made many contacts with the local Nazarene churches and I enjoy visiting with a handful of friends some evenings and on weekends. Hanging out with friends pretty much means spending time at my house or theirs – recreation options are very limited. Just yesterday I was blessed by some great conversation with friends that went way beyond our cultural differences. We talked about the difficulty and joy of life in community, about apologies, forgiveness, reconciliation and our genuine desire for wisdom in these things.

I am preparing to travel to Kenya and Egypt for two weeks to visit friends. I’m hoping that this break will refresh me and renew my energy for the months ahead. The four of us Americans working for HOPE International in Congo are planning a weekend retreat in Uganda next month and we’re going to keep the costs low but we have decided that we do not want to use any HOPE funds since we want to get as much of that into the work that we are doing. If anyone would like to make a donation to help support this special retreat, please let me know.

I am going to try to be better about writing updates. I do update my website often with photos and stories. If you are curious about my life here and the work I am doing, my website is a good place to start (www.brianjbecker.com). Another place to look is HOPE International’s website (www.HOPEinternational.org). There you can learn more about the organization. If you are interested in contributing to our work in any way, please let me know.

Please pray for peace in DR Congo with the upcoming presidential run-off election at the end of this month. Results should be announced around the 15^th of November and we are hoping that the recent violence in Kinshasa does not repeat or escalate. The challenges that normal hardworking people here face are extraordinary, from political violence to the lack of transportation, jobs, and skilled medical care. It must feel a lot like paddling a canoe into the wind and across a strong current. By the grace of God they are paddling on.

Peace in Christ,

Brian

PS – thanks to technological proliferation you can call me on a San Diego phone line and reach me in Congo. If I am not available you can leave a message. If you want to chat and learn about what’s going on in the Congo, about HOPE and Christian microfinance development, or about the baseball playoffs – I am at (619)377-0556.