1997 Harvey Holiday

HIGHLIGHTS

New Year's Day

Dear Friends,

Perhaps on the dawning of this New Year, sounds of the evening before are still ringing in your ears... Party music, noise makers, best wishes, conversations, resolutions... For your listening pleasure, we've captured some of the sounds that have flooded our home on this holiday...

Steel-wheeled wheelbarrows striking railroad ties as they cross the tracks at 5 am with loads of fresh French bread for market... The early morning sweep sweep swish of brooms on cement, on dirt, cleaning courtyards, streets, and foot paths for a new day.

Notably absent is the waterfall-like rumble of the gravel sorter at the factory across the road.

The doorbell's ringing. A friend, a patient, a beggar, waiting outside the gate, shifts weight from one sandled foot to the other... The scraping of metal on concrete as the gate opens into our courtyard.

"Balai, balai" a broom vendor passes by, holding his handiwork over his shoulder, like a Continental soldier... The trudge trudge of recruits in boots running, chanting military songs... The beep beep rattle rattle of Toyota taxis rounding the corner.

Roosters, chickens, chicks scritch-scratching in the dry leaves... Lizards scurrying across the window screen... Birds with a new song... Children laughing, playing, crying, chasing the chickens.

A machete chopping wood, clearing land.

Sticks being thrown at the mango tree, a soft thump, the scurry of children's feet running to claim fallen treasure... The shake shimmy shake of the papaya tree as a passerby climbs and claims the yet unripe fruit... A melange of three or four languages being spoken, sung, shouted at once.

Empty LP gas bottles being rolled to the filling station along the bumpy dirt road. A kick from a flip-flopped foot every now and again.

The excited song of passengers drifts in and out over the thunder of the Express Train for Pointe Noire, finally underway... The POP POP of guns fired into the air discouraging fare-dodgers from jumping on the train.

The crackling of a fire burning a rubbish heap or clearing a garden across the way.

The gentle incessant thump thump of the neighbor woman pounding manioc roots into a powdery paste... The shrill sorrowful cry of a woman in mourning, wailing her way home from the hospital, spreads the sad news... Voices in song accompanied by hand made rhythm instruments from the house church across the alley.

The drone of electric fans... Dogs barking apathetically, growling, howling, whining in the night, tormented by flies on open sores on tattered ears... Rain, mangos, safu, falling BANG! on the tin roof... Our louvered windows rattling in rhythm with the heavy thump-thump of flat cars loaded with tropical hardwood trunks as wide as a man is tall.

"Merci beaucoup."

A word fitly spoken [is like] apples of gold in pictures of silver (Proverbs 25:11). As we complete our first year in Congo this January, the sound we most want YOU to hear is a big THANK YOU.

Thank you for your support, prayers, letters, packages, gifts. In case you were wondering, we were able to make an action-packed trip to the U.S. in November, but we have not yet told you how grateful we are to be back in the Congo among the now familiar sights and sounds. This year we are looking forward to finishing our language studies and beginning full-time medical ministry. Thank you for your part in making this possible and pleasant for us. May God richly bless you and yours in this Happy New Year.

In His Service,

Joe & Becky, Olivia, Claire & Isabelle

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