Refugees Build School with Help from ELCA Global Gifts

In this war-torn, violence-ridden country, hope is starting to take root. In 2005, armed men attacked the village of Peouri, in the northwestern Central African Republic. The bandits stole livestock and kidnapped children to hold for ransom. The people of Peouri hid in the bush, but after repeated attacks decided to abandon their village. These Muslim Fulani herders resettled in Baboua, a predominantly Christian town. Here they were welcomed and were given land to settle on. One of their first priorities was rebuilding their school.

 

Back in 2001, Peouri elders had contacted the Village School program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church to help them start a school for their children. The school had already been in operation for four years when the violence struck and they were forced to move. The Village School program assisted the villagers with finding a teacher and obtaining textbooks and other school supplies, while parents constructed brush-covered shelters to use as classrooms. In the past ten years, attendance has skyrocketed from 41 to 580. Girls make up 38% of enrollment, higher than the national average in this country where only 22% of women are literate. Children from Christian families are also attending the school, and Christian and Muslim parents have joined together to construct a brick and cement building for their children.

 

Now the Peouri School, as it is called, is getting a permanent building, thanks to funds from Global Gifts, a program of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Village School Program Director, Etienne Yaiman, is grateful for the funds which will enable this school to be the first in the Village School program to receive a permanent brick building.

 

If you wish to help the Village School program, contact Rev. Twila Schock, Director for Global Mission Support, 8765 West Higgins Road, Chicago, IL  60631

e-mail: Twila.Schock@elca.org

 

Photo: Villagers stacking sun-dried mud bricks to be fired. The bricks will be used to construct a new building for the Peouri School in Baboua, 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 eighth grade at Rain Forest International School in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

Troesters to Visit Supporters in Summer 2011

This summer we will be visiting the U.S. in June, July, and August. We plan to visit congregations and other community gatherings to give a presentation on our work in the Central African Republic. Our exact itinerary has not been set, but we will try to visit as many of our supporters as possible. We know we will be visiting congregations in Puerto Rico, Illinois, and North Dakota. If you would like for us to visit your town, please send us an e-mail at josephtroester@earthlink.net. Feel free to forward our blog to others who might be interested as well.

 

Please contact us as soon as possible, because dates (especially Sundays) are limited.

 

Photo: Two small children carrying water in cooking pots up the steep slope from the Kanga spring in Baboua, 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 eighth grade at Rain Forest International School in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

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.