Merry Christmas from the Central African Republic

Ndjoni Matanga ti Noël!

Joyeux Noël et Bonne Nouvelle Année!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Fröhliche Weihnachten und ein glückliches neues Jahr!

¡Feliz Navidad, Próspero Año Nuevo, y Feliz Día de los Reyes!

 

From Joe, Deborah, and Christa Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: The Troesters in Africa, Christmas 2010.

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Eighth grade at Rain Forest International School in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

 

Christmastimes

Christmas in Yaoundé (where I live for most of the year) is pretty much the same as Christmas in any big city: about two or three weeks before the twenty-fifth, everyone goes nuts. The roads become so trafficked and immobile, that they are barely short of impassible and anyone trying to navigate them is definitely ludicrous. The stores, big and small, are packed to the brim and overflowing. Everyone everywhere is grabbing presents off shelves and then waiting in mile-long lines to pay for them. Outside, there are loudspeakers playing Christmas music over, and over, and over, and over again, while the cars on the blocked-up roads are adding their own accompaniment of "honk-honks" and "beep-beeps." In fact, besides the weather, Christmastime in Yaoundé may very well be almost identical to Christmastime in any large city in the western world (though probably on a smaller scale).

 

On the other hand, about 600 kilometers away, through the rainforest and across an international border, lies the village of Baboua. People there are celebrating a very different Holiday Season. There aren't any large shopping centers for people to be packed in like sardines; in fact, there aren't any shopping centers, period. The simple dusty road is just as devoid of traffic as it always is: a car or truck passes every hour or so…maybe. Yet the same Christmas spirit is displayed throughout town. No matter where you go, you can hear the calls of "Bonne Fête," "Joyeux Noël" and "Bonne Année," which are akin to the North American calls of "Happy Holidays," "Merry Christmas" and "Happy New Year." People are wrapping up their presents to give to special family members and friends. It always amazes me how much people still rejoice in their meager surroundings. Even though most families will not have any Christmas decorations up and certainly not a Christmas tree, people still go around wishing each other "Merry Christmas," singing African Christmas songs, and sharing their small Christmas meals.

 

Meanwhile, at our house on the American Station, there is a very different sort of Christmas going on. As soon as I get home on break, I open up the dusty Christmas boxes and my mom and I turn on the Christmas music (much to the dismay of my dad). The whole interior of the house is soon decorated and transformed with tinsel, Christmas lights, stockings, and the small, artificial Christmas tree. On Christmas Day, my dad makes up an absolutely scrumptious dinner, and we invite other missionaries over to celebrate with us. And as the adults converse on and on (as adults are wont to do), I sit and listen, reflecting on the Christmas Season.

 

When you really think about it, nearly everyone on earth celebrates the Holiday Season in one way or another. Whether they are Christian, or Jewish, or Muslim, or anything ranging to completely non-religious, Christmastime affects them somehow. One might stop and wonder (as everyone does in those cheesy Christmas movies we are forced to watch every year) what is the true meaning of all this cheerfulness and joviality?

 

Long ago, on a Christmas Day that most likely did not occur on December twenty-fifth, a tiny new-born babe tightly wrapped in rags lay in an itchy manger. His parents looked down at him with joyful tears in their eyes, praises on their lips, and wonder in their hearts. The tiny, unfocused eyes of the newborn looked back up, and he smiled a beautiful, toothless grin at his mother and father. From the heavens above, starlight shone down, and the angels sang, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:14)

 

Christa Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Hand-painted Christmas card by an anonymous Central African artist

 

Christa Troester attends Eighth Grade at Rain Forest International School in Yaounde, Cameroon. Her parents, Joe and Deborah are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.

 

Celebrating 50 Years of Independence in the Central African Republic

On December 1^st the Central African Republic celebrated 50 years of independence. Our town of Baboua is small (only 16,000 people), but the parade lasted over an hour. It was complete with military raising the flag, cheerleaders (see photo above), and baton twirlers. Children and adults from all the schools in town marched by: first the preschools, then the elementary schools all the way up to the Bible School and Seminary. There was even a Tae Kwon Do demonstration and motorcyclists performing circus style acrobatics.

 

People here are proud of their country and their independence, even though the country is racked by numerous problems. Most people are subsistence farmers living on less than a dollar a day. Over half the children do not go to school. Less than half the people do not have potable water. Only about ten percent have improved sanitation. Health care is marginal, with thousands dying of malaria and other preventable diseases each year. There are armed rebels in the eastern part of the country, near the border with Sudan.

 

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) and their partner, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the CAR are here doing what they can to improve health, provide education, and promote development. Your support means that you are here helping people struggle forward so that the next fifty years will be better than the past.

 

Thank you!

 

Joe and Deborah Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Cheerleaders celebrating on December 1 in the National Day parade in Baboua, western CAR.

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaounde, Cameroon.

 

NEW: Global Gift for Spring Boxes in the Central African Republic

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) has added our project to their Global Gifts Program. So by following the instructions at the end of this blog entry, you can now contribute directly to the construction of spring boxes to provide potable water to villagers in the Central African Republic (CAR).

 

Spring boxes (such as the one in the photo above) are one of the most cost-effective ways to increase access to potable water. Each spring box costs approximately $2,000 to construct and may serve a village of up to 2,000 people. Once built, spring boxes require very little or no maintenance and usually last for decades. Now, instead of muddy, parasite, and bacteria-infested water, villagers can collect clean spring water, piped directly from the source, and protected by a cement wall and basin, making it easy to collect the water in a sanitary way.

 

Once the spring box is in place, PASE also trains people in proper hygiene, such as hand-washing, to avoid water-borne diseases. With current funding levels, PASE is able to construct 10 spring boxes a year, but with more funds for construction tools and materials, PASE could double the number of spring boxes constructed annually without hiring any extra personnel.

 

Please follow the instructions below and contribute to providing clean water in the CAR.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Women collecting water from a recently constructed spring box at the Emmanuel Clinic in Gallo, CAR.

 

How to Remit A Global Gift

 

1.      Write a check to "The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America"

 

2.      On the memo portion of the check, write "Water Management Project-CAR Global Gift."

 

3.      Write a brief note that includes the following information:

A.    Your name and address

B.     The amount of the gift

C.     The name of the project, "Water Management Project-CAR Global Gift"

 

4.      Send your check and letter to the following address:

ELCA Global Mission

Attention: The Rev. Twila Schock

8765 W. Higgins Road

Chicago IL 60631

 

Digging Sand from a River Bed for Clean Water, Bohong, CAR

Last week, the Lutheran Water Management Project (known as PASE for its French acronym) began construction of three spring boxes in Bohong, located in northwestern Central African Republic. After the violence and insecurity of the past several years, many internally displaced persons and returned refugees have settled in this region.  Bohong is about 5 hours northeast of our office, so logistics are a bit complicated as cement and wood for formwork are not locally available.

 

We needed sand to construct the spring box in the Mbeyeng neighborhood, so I drove the villagers 12 miles south of town to the Ouham river, which is normally a braided stream with lots of exposed sand bars. However, the river was in flood from recent rains. So the villagers waded into the stream until they were chest-deep and shoveled sand into buckets that other men held just out of the water and then carried to the shore (see photowere through, they were understandably cold and tired; but they still sang all the way back into town (about a 45 minute ride).

 

The hard work and dedication of these men clearly indicate the value they place on clean water. Your prayers and contributions help us to help them help themselves.

 

This work is supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) through their Global Mission and World Hunger Fund programs.  To find out how you can help, contact Rev. Twila Schock, Global Mission and Development Services, 8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631.  Or e-mail her at Twila.Schock@elca.org.  Checks may be made out to ELCA-GM.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Villagers from the Mbeyeng neighborhood of Bohong, mining sand by hand from the bed of the flooded Ouham river south of Bohong, Central African Republic. The sand was used to construct a spring box to provide clean water for their neighborhood.  

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.  Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaounde, Cameroon.

 

Clean Drinking Water for Yongmondere, CAR

Along the main dirt road from Cameroon to Bangui, the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR), sits the village of Yongmondere, home to some two hundred people. Until now their only source of water has been a little spring where the water trickled out in several places. It took a long time and a lot of patience for villagers to fill a small container.  For over a year, the village chief of Yongmondere has been asking the Lutheran Water Management Project (Known as PASE for its French acronym) for help with potable water in his village.

 

Last week, PASE began construction of a spring box in Yongmondere and finished the work in less than a week.  The work went faster than expected partly because the women of the village helped by carrying the sand and rocks to the spring on their heads.  The villagers are very pleased with the results.  The concrete slab and pipe make it is much easier and cleaner for them to fill their buckets. Managing the spring increased the available flow to over 8 gallons per minute. This means they can now fill a 5 gallon bucket in less than a minute. 

 

Sustainable development projects such as this–the spring box has no moving parts and will require no repairs perhaps for decades–help improve the lives and the health of villagers for years to come.  For only $5 per person, the village has a sustainable supply of potable water for the foreseeable future. 

 

The advance team from PASE has now left to begin work on two springs near Bohong, located in northwestern CAR where many internally displaced persons and returned refugees have settled, after the violence and insecurity of the past several years seems to be over.  Bohong is about 4 hours northeast of our office, so logistics are a bit more complicated as cement and wood for formwork are not locally available.

 

Our work is supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) through their Global Mission and World Hunger Fund programs.  To find out how you can help, contact Rev. Twila Schock, Global Mission and Development Services, 8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, IL 60631.  Or e-mail her at Twila.Schock@elca.org.  Checks may be made out to ELCA.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Woman and her daughter collecting water from newly constructed spring box in Yongmondere, Central African Republic (after the concrete cures, the extra long pipe coming out of the spring box will be trimmed.)

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.  Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaounde, Cameroon.

 

World Water Week in Sweden and in the Central African Republic

Last week, international experts gathered in Stockholm to discuss the water problems of the world. At the opening address, Anders Berntell said, “Bad water kills more people than HIV, malaria, and wars together, affecting the lives of families and the economic development of many countries around the world.

 

This week in the Central African Republic (CAR), there was no meeting of water experts. We did not need an expert to tell us the effects of bad water. As they have for decades, women and small children go daily to the nearest stream or spring for water of dubious quality. Most families do not even have a pit toilet for sanitation. People regularly get sick from water-borne diseases. Typhoid, giardia, and amoebic dysentery are common ailments at the hospital. There is a cholera outbreak in a neighboring country. We hope it does not come here. People in the CAR die from these preventable and treatable diseases because they lack access to safe water, sanitation, and health care.

 

This week, however, the Water Management Project (known as PASE for its acronym in French) began construction of a spring box in Yongmondere, a small village about 15 kilometers west of where we live. This is the tenth spring box we have worked on since the beginning of the year. That may not sound like much, but with a small amount of funds from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) we are able to improve the life of many villagers in western CAR through the construction of spring boxes, plus teaching hygiene and working with village water committees. 

 

Soon, I hope to be able to post a picture of the finished spring box in Yongmondere.

 

Joe Troester

Baboua, Central African Republic

 

Photo: Man drinking from small spring that drains into an old metal pot, Yongmondere, Central African Republic

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.  Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter, Christa, attends Rain Forest International School in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

 

Emmanuel - God With Us

Here is the final version of a video from a crazy friend of mine, Bruce Sundeen. He visited us in January and made this video for a new Lutheran Health Clinic in Gallo, about an hour east of our house. The video also includes details on other work by the Lutheran Church in our area.

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Emmanuel; God With Us

Here is a video from a crazy friend of mine, Bruce Sundeen. He visited us in January and made this video for a new Lutheran Health Clinic in Gallo, about an hour east of our house. The video also includes details on other work by the Lutheran Church in our area.

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Earth Day in the Central African Republic

Today is much like every other day in the Central African Republic (CAR). Life continues its simple rhythm following the annual cycle of seasons. Slowly we are changing from the dry season to the rainy season. Everyone here is a farmer and now is the time I can watch them planting crops. They burn the field, turn over the soil by hand with a homemade hoe, and plant. Then like farmers everywhere, they wait and hope for just the right amount of rain. I know that the dusty dirt roads will soon be replaced with mud, but no one knows when.

 

Family life continues inside and around the traditional mud brick houses in the village. The daily meal is cooked over an open fire. Women and children fetch water every day and carry it home on their heads. Most people get water from springs, which at this time of the year are barely more than mud holes. In a few places where there is a relatively clear trickle of water and then there is a line of people waiting with their buckets. It takes a long time to fill a 5 gallon container from a small trickle one cup at a time. Parents send their children to wait in line. Most children do not go to school. Three out of four girls are kept at home to help with the chores, such as fetching water.

 

Water-borne diseases are common. Those who can afford it, go to the hospital where seeing the nurse costs about 25 cents and prescriptions for diarrhea, worms, or malaria are filled for only a dollar or two.   Unfortunately not everyone can afford even these modest fees.

 

PASE (the water management project that I work with) teaches hygiene and sanitation to villagers. We improve water sources and repair wells. We do simple, sustainable projects to improve the lives of people that live in this part of the CAR.

 

People often ask me, what they can do to help. One of the things I tell them is to be informed. Read. Mail is slow here and I have not yet received my April 2010 issue of National Geographic. But many people have e-mailed me that it is a special issue devoted entirely to water. It talks about accessibility, purity, and the impact of climate change. I have heard that it talks of the work of my colleagues in Water Aid (a British NGO) that are working in Ethiopia and elsewhere.

 

We do not celebrate Earth Day here, but I would like to ask you to celebrate Earth Day by informing yourself about the many water issues that the world is facing. Please think about those less fortunate than yourself. Think about the futures of the children that never go to school because they spend the day fetching water.

 

For those who wish to support the work of the ELCA in the CAR, please contact Rev. Twila Schock, Director for ELCA Global Mission Support at Twila.Schock@elca.org

 

Photo is of the April 2010 Cover of National Geographic.

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Nigerian Lutherans Help Their Central African Sisters

Recently the Central African Republic has seen a positive development in relations between francophone and anglophone church bodies. Specifically, the women of the Yola Diocese of the Lutheran Church of Christ in Nigeria have come to the aid of their sisters in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central African Republic. Twenty-eight Nigerian women and one male pastor braved a three day drive on bad roads across two international borders to join their Central African sisters at a national women's conference. 

 

The conference, the biennial synod of Femmes Pour Christ Centrafricaines (Women for Christ of the Central African Republic), was held in Bohong, a town in northwestern Central African Republic.  This area has seen much violence and unrest in past years, but is now starting to recover as peace has been restored to the region. 

 

The women of the Yola Diocese helped provide music for the conference.  Their singing and dancing, accompanied by percussion instruments which they left as gifts, enlivened the synod's proceedings. 

 

In addition to the musical instruments, the Nigerians brought gifts of five sewing machines, jewelry-making materials, fabric, shoes, and kitchen utensils to give to their Central African counterparts.  They also offered classes in jewelry-making and in preparing a local non-alcoholic beverage. The Nigerian church women sell these items to raise funds for their church work and to help sustain their families. All travel expenses were paid for by the Nigerian women themselves. 

 

The conference proceedings were translated from Sango (the Central African trade language) into Hausa (a Nigerian trade language), by Josephine Oumarou, the newly elected vice-president of Women for Christ. Madame Simone Baigo-Dari, out-going president, receives our congratulations for having organized this successful meeting, and for inviting the women of the Yola Diocese, whom she met at an international conference held in 2008 in Cameroon. 

 

In a world full of so much ethnic violence and hatred, the women of the Yola Lutheran Diocese of Nigeria have demonstrated that unselfish love and concern for one's neighbors can still be found - and that you don't have to have a lot yourself in order to help others. 

 

Photo shows Nigerian Women's Choir singing, accompanied by traditional percussion instruments.

Deborah and Joe Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

 

 

20th Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central African Republic (EELRCA)

This past week (April 8-11) we spent an exciting few days at Bossabina 2, a small village in the north-western Central African Republic near the border with Cameroon and Chad.  Together with our friends and colleagues we celebrated the 20^th biennial Synod (national conference) of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central African Republic (EELRCA).   Over two hundred delegates met to worship, study the Bible, and elect their new church leaders for the coming four years.  Twelve new pastors were ordained, all of them having completed two years of pastoral internship after graduating from the Theological School in Baboua in 2008.

 

The synod re-elected Rev. André Goliké to a second four-year term as president of the church (a position equivalent to bishop in many churches).  Rev. Jean Gbami of Bohong was elected as Vice-President.  Mr. Jean Marc Abbo was selected as treasurer.  Mr. Abbo is director of PASE, the church's development program for providing potable water and hygiene education, the organization with which Joe works as technical advisor.  A new administrative committee was also elected, with one representative from each of the church's seven regions. 

 

Representatives from two of EELRCA's partners, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Germany (ELM) were present at the synod.  As two of the ELCA representatives, we were privileged to be guests of the EELRCA church in Bossabina.  We enjoyed great hospitality, including hot water for our "bucket shower," (heated over an open fire), and lots of manioc, rice, meat with peanut or okra sauce, and, for breakfast, omelets made with fresh local eggs. 

 

Photo is of a traditional Gbaya dancer celebrating the end of the Synod.

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  Their daughter Christa is attending seventh grade in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Hostel Parents Needed For Missionary Children

As you know, Christa lives in a student hostel in Yaoundé, Cameroon, while she attends 7^th grade at Rain Forest International School.  Her hostel (known as UBAC) is run by an association of missions, and is home to kids from several families working in CAR and beyond.  The current 'hostel parents' will leave at the end of this school year.  The hostel committee chair wrote to us recently:

 

"We are still hopeful that the Lord has someone chosen for this ministry, but only He knows all those details.  Please continue to pray and to present the need...  In the meantime, we all need to realize that, if there are no hostel parents, there will be no UBAC hostel next year.  We as parents need to begin to think of what the alternative might be for our kids."

 

In other words, there is no one in sight to take on the job of hostel parents when the new school year starts in August THIS YEAR. 

 

So who's going to be affected if there's no hostel next year?  Not just our daughter!  Look at the range of ministries in their different locations that may be limited or have to stop next year if there's no one to make a home for these kids…

 

Ben, Desirée and Lyle are 18, 15 and 13 years old and their dad has been a Mission Aviation Fellowship pilot since 1985.  They are now working in Lubumbashi, D R Congo. 

 

Jessica is 17. Her parents are church planting among unreached people in Cameroon.

 

Peter and Rachael are 15 and 13. Their father supervises nine Bible translation programs in the CAR and is a translation consultant.  Their mother works for SIL's Central Africa Group and home schools their little brother.

 

Christi is 13 and her mother and father work with the Mpiemo people of southwestern CAR. They are now in Bible translation as well as literacy projects. 

 

Benjamin is 13. His family is with Presbyterian Evangelistic Fellowship in southwestern CAR. His father is involved in hospital maintenance and repair, printing, and evangelism. His mother is director of a nursing school, helps with hospital administration, and teaches in Sunday school and women's Bible studies. 

 

Our daughter, Christa, is 13. We work with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in western CAR.

 

Being a hostel parent is a demanding job, but brings a lot of rewards. Here's what Janelle Johnson wrote about her time as hostel assistant in Yaoundé (for Cameroon, you could read the Central African region!).

 

"As I was getting ready to spend the evening with 12 teenagers whose collective life experience spans 3 continents, 6 languages, and more years spent in foreign cultures than in their own passport countries, I knew that God was at work in that place…

 

My time in Cameroon was an opportunity to be a part of God's work in that country. I was able to come alongside career missionaries and encourage them in their work as well as to support the work of Bible translation, church planting, medical services, and agricultural development work of missionaries from numerous mission organizations. 

 

So, what in the world is God doing in Cameroon? He is working through teachers and preachers, pilots and musicians. He is reaching the lost and helping the poor. He is helping people learn to run small businesses that support their families. He is going into prisons and transforming lives. He does this through his people. People like you and me. So why not join him?"

 

What kind of people are needed? A husband and wife team, who are mature believers, are in a healthy marriage, have serving hearts, and love teenagers.

 

Please pray and think about this need.  Pray that God will call and equip the people he's chosen for this role. Contact us to know more about what the job involves, and feel free to mention it to anyone who could be looking for just this opportunity to serve.

 

Photo is of some RFIS students watching a football (soccer) match in the rain.

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. 

 

PASE helps bring potable water to the dry, dusty Sahel, Part II

Bossabina II and De Gaulle are two adjacent villages in the northwestern Central African Republic (CAR), near the border with Chad and Cameroon.  From 2003 until 2008, this area was plagued by armed bandits and rebels, who carried off anything they could find, including crops, livestock, and what few personal belongings people may have had.  Children were kidnapped and held for ransom, and some villages were burnt and villagers killed.  The people of this region are poor, and the area, part of the Sahel, is hot and dry, with little surface water. 

 

From February 1 to 12, PASE (the French acronym for the Water Management Project of EELRCA - the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Central African Republic) built five spring boxes.   Original plans included only one, or possibly two spring boxes, but the community response was so overwhelming that PASE decided to build five spring boxes total.  Between 100 and 200 villagers volunteered every day to carry rocks and buckets of sand on their heads to the work sites, and to assist in digging out the springs so that pipes could be installed. 

 

 In the photo above, a Fulani girl gets water from one of the five springs, Girgiri 2, to fill up the basin, which she will carry home on her head.  Many Fulanis, a primarily Muslim ethnic group, live in this area.  Although the work was sponsored by Lutherans, local Muslims were among the volunteers and will benefit from this project as well.  While we were working at one of the springs, an elderly Muslim man arrived.  He prayed for our work and asked God to bless us.  The villagers sang and danced at the completion of the spring boxes, which will provide an additional 50,000 gallons (200 cubic meters) of clean water per day to the two villages. 

 

Joe

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. 

PASE helps bring potable water to the dry, dusty Sahel

In April the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the Central African Republic (EELRCA) will hold its biannual synod in Bossabina II, a village in northwestern Central African Republic (CAR).  Bossabina II is located in the Sahel region of CAR, where it is hot and dry, with little annual rainfall.  Water is scarce and trees grow only head-high.  On a reconnaissance trip in January, PASE (the French acronym for the Water Management Project of the EELRCA) found that the people of this impoverished area have no source of potable water.  Instead, they are forced to drink water contaminated with bacteria and parasites. 

 

This week PASE is traveling to Bossabina II (about 4 hours north of Bouar) to build three spring boxes to help supply the local villagers with potable water. The photo is of the truck ready to leave our office in Baboua with 12 sacks of cement, boards for formwork, wheelbarrow, rebar, pipes, tools, etc. Pictured from left to right are:  the driver, Ninga Luc; PASE director, Abbo Jean Marc; and PASE employee Moussa Salomon (dressed for the long, dusty motorbike ride).  The work crew of seven Central Africans, including one engineer, two masons, and four animators (community development workers), are expected to be in the field for two weeks.

 

Joe

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers. Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua. 

 

The Young Women's Scholarship Program in the Central African Republic

In the Central African Republic (CAR), barely half the population can read or write and only 22% of women are literate.   The Young Women's Scholarship Program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) aims to improve the level of women's education.  Girls who have successfully completed elementary school are eligible to compete for scholarships which will fund their education through the high school level. 

 

Pastor Rachel Doumbai of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in CAR (EELRCA) and I recently visited thirteen of these girls, aged 11-18.  They are studying at the Catholic Technical High School, a boarding school in Maigaro, in western CAR near the city of Bouar.  Reine and Delphine (photo above) are two of the four girls who will graduate in May and hope to continue their studies this fall.

 

Reine wishes to study law, and perhaps become a lawyer or a judge.  Delphine plans to study biology at the university, then go on to medical school to become a doctor.  In a country where infant mortality is near 20% and the average life expectancy is around 40 years, Delphine will certainly be able to make a difference if she achieves her goals. 

 

All thirteen of these girls are extraordinary; in the CAR it is unusual for a girl to finish elementary school, much less graduate from high school or university.  ELCA and its partner church, the EELRCA, are doing their part to encourage girls to stay in school and to become community leaders.  If you wish to make a gift that will bear fruit for many years to come in one of the most impoverished nations of the world, please send it to ELCA Global Mission at the following address.

 

Rev. Twila Schock

Director for Global Mission Support

8765 West Higgins Road

Chicago, IL  60631

Telephone:  773.380.2641

Twila.Schock@elca.org

www.elca.org

 

Checks should be made out to ELCA Global Mission and labeled "Young Women's Scholarship CAR."

 

Thank you very much!

 

Deborah

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  She also works with the FCC (Women for Christ) and the Village School Project to improve communication between the CAR and the United States. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.

 

Emmanuel Health Clinic in Gallo, Central African Republic

Tuesday (January 19) was the inauguration of the Emmanuel Health Clinic in Gallo in the western Central African Republic. Deborah and I attended the event along with some 2000 others, including representatives of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), The Evangelical Lutheran Mission of Germany, Hermannsburg (OELM), Global Health Ministries (GHM), and Lutheran Partners in Global Ministry (LPGM).   Until now the health needs in Gallo and the surrounding villages have only been served by a small Lutheran dispensary, with the nearest hospital an hour away over a dirt road full of potholes.  The Emmanuel Health Clinic boasts a modern operating theater, laboratory, maternity ward and 18 beds.  The opening of this clinic will greatly boost health care in this underserved, poverty-stricken region. 

For humanity as a whole, the health improvements achieved since 1960 have been unprecedented. In the past 50 years, mortality among children under five years old has dropped by two-thirds world-wide. There are a few countries, such as the CAR, where these improvements have not occurred. According to the United Nations, the CAR is in the midst of a severe humanitarian crisis, with the population shrinking due to lack of medical care, insecurity, and economic collapse. The CAR is currently third from the bottom (out of 182 countries) in the Human Development Index. Despite this, little humanitarian service—in terms of money, personnel, or supplies—has flowed into this country. 

In CAR, roughly 300 to 400 excess deaths occur each day due to the lack of a functioning health system. The country's security problems and poor infrastructure are not the greatest barriers to relief and development, rather the biggest limit is lack of global interest. If we want to improve the lives of the poorest citizens on our planet, perhaps CAR, where the barriers to doing good are small and the potential to do good is large, would be a great place to start.   Small efforts, such as the Emmanuel Health Clinic, will make a huge difference in a corner of the world that has been neglected for too long. 

The photo above shows Deborah translating for Pastor Tim Iverson, Executive Director of Global Health Ministries, during the inauguration ceremony.

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Pastor Deborah teaches at the Lutheran Theological School in Baboua.  Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.

New Clothes for the New Year

One of the beautiful things in Africa is the locally made fabric and all of the clothing made from it. Cotton has been grown in this part of Africa since before independence. The local cotton was made into cloth and is dyed the old-fashioned way in small batches. Consequently, churches and other organizations can have fabric specially made for an event. They then sell the fabric and often everyone has clothing made from the same material.

 

The Women for Christ in Central Africa (FCC) have just released their 2010 fabric (see photo above). Women from all Lutheran Churches in the Central African Republic will be buying the material and then trying to outdo each other in the style of their clothing. The goal is for the women who attend the 2010 Women for Christ Conference in February to demonstrate their solidarity by all wearing the FCC fabric.

 

Joe

 

Joe and Deborah Troester are ELCA missionaries in Baboua, the Central African Republic.   Pastor Deborah teaches at the Theological School in Baboua.  She also works with the FCC and the Village School Project to improve communication between Central Africa and the United States. Joe serves as technical advisor for PASE, which provides clean drinking water and promotes good hygiene and sanitation to villagers.