Building

We're so glad to announce that our ophthalmology resident, Elisee, and his family have at long last moved in to their new home!  Many people gave generously for this duplex to be built, and it is at last furnished and occupied.  Thank you so much! 

The upper level is for one of the general surgery residents and his family, as well as a small guest house apartment, and the lower level is for Elisee and his family.  Our friends the Thelanders and Chaes did a lot of work to purchase furnishings to be shipped out to Bongolo from the USA so that it will be a comfortable place for these residents to live and learn.  Both Elisee and the general surgery resident, Simplice, will be living at Bongolo at least through 2017.

This is the view of the duplex on our mission station, on the hill above Bongolo hospital

Another view of the same duplex

Well, another building project that we've been recently involved in is for our local Gabonese church, Moutongo.  Our church is located about 10-15 minutes from where Eric and I live and has an attendance of about 50 people on a Sunday.  However, the little building where we meet is on private property that is on loan to the church.  So our congregation has recently purchased some land so we can build our own building, with room for expansion in the future.

Having a church building in Gabon is useful because during the rainy season, it rains so hard that it's impossible to have a meeting outdoors.  And otherwise, people's houses are too small for many people to be able to get together at once.  The Gabonese enjoy worshipping and singing together.  It will also be nice to have a separate room for the children to gather for Sunday school.

Here are Patrice (a local evangelist), Eric and Esther, and our pastor, Andre at the construction site

A group of volunteers from the States who came partly to help us start the construction of our church

Along with building comes finances!  Here Eric is working at our dining room table with our pastor, Andre, and Elisee (who also goes to our church often) to help keep track of Moutongo's finances.

Finally, here is a picture I can't remember if we've already shared (our internet has been very slow lately, or I'd look it up!).  This is our current team at Field Forum, the name of our annual staff retreat.  The picture is taken at a hotel called Les Sirenes in a town called Lambarene, a 5-6 hour drive from Bongolo hospital, where the conference was held.

For all the pictures, if you want to see them in a bigger format, just click on a picture, and it will show a larger view of the picture.  Happy viewing!