Sorry this has taken so long to post. I wrote this soon after we arrived in Congo but have been unable to post it due to technical difficulties. Now I do not have time to write a current post but I am well. Blessings on you all looking forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks.
Dear Friends and Family,
I my team and all our luggage safely arrived in the Congo. I am doing well. The first couple days were especially challenging as my body tried to adjust to the pollution, the new food, different eating times and different foods. In Congo because of the extreme poverty often people will not eat lunch and sometimes not breakfast. Also because it is a very warm culture if you are eating you are obligated to share with the people around you. So we have not really eaten lunches since we got here. At first it was hard but now today we actually had a lunch around two and it is now seven and I’m not at all hungary. I am realizing again how little food some people live on and what an abundance we have in North America. It seems so unfair that some should go without when we throw so much out.
It’s hard because as a North American I just want to fix it and make it fair, but as a Congolese I am learning that relationships are more important than tasks. I can make an impact and touch lives for Christ by taking the time to build relationships wether with the taxi driver, the youth and children we are working with or the kids on the streets or in hospitals and orphanages.
In my mind I’ve been trying to figure out how to explain the Congo to people and I feel like no matter what words I use you will not truly understand for yourself until you have been here. The first things that hits you as you walk off the plane is the air. It is oppressively heavy with smog and pollution. It feels like you need to cough but you can’t. As we walked out of the airport there were people everywhere. Animated smiling people. We drove down the road in a taxi van which we had rented. So nine of us are 17 pieces of luggage and nine carry-ons along with Jean Baptise, the driver and the apprentice climbed into a van no bigger than a normal eight passenger van. This van was a cargo van with windows hacked out on the two side panels and the back to benches removed and narrow board benches put in. We had 23 people in there today and we’ll likely have even more once we no longer have this van hired.
Then we proceeded to drive through Kinshasa to our home for the month. At first the road was smoothly paved highway but the further we got in to the “abandoned” neighborhoods the worse they got at some points disappearing between layers of dust and garbage, littered everywhere with plastic bags, bottle caps. . .some days we have driven down narrow bumpy dirt alleys lined on either side by fences and strewn with boulders. I have no idea how our driver manages to navigate these roads but he is amazingly good at it. In Kinshasa there is no such thing as road edict. Drivers weave in and out of traffic on both sides of narrow roads. Pedestrians walk willy nilly. Drivers honk loudly as a warning to get out of the way and you better move quickly otherwise you will be driven over.
It is challenging to adapt to another culture, but at the same time it is something that I really enjoy doing. Trying new things, meeting new people, being in Africa our all things I am passionate about. So as hard as it sometimes it is I am really enjoying myself and learning a lot.
The first day we arrived we went to Jean Baptise’s family’s home and had dinner. It was very good and they were very welcoming. The next morning we got up and went to the embassy’s to register that we are here. Then we went shopping to stock up for running a Congolese household. Everything takes longer in the Congo. We need to treat our drinking water, sanitize our hands before we eat and bleach, cook or peel all our food.
Because there is no standard of transport getting places takes longer as well. So we are learning to be patient.
The next day we went to Boma Yi Sika (House of Mercy) an orphanage for children who have been kicked out of their homes. We spent the day doing introductions touring the place and then just hanging out with the kids. The regular team will be working there doing a DVBS program in the coming weeks so this week was mostly just introductions. When we were playing with the kids I was shaking hands greeting them and then this one boy Vinny grabbed onto my hand and would not let go. The whole day that we were there he held my hand and sat on my lap. It was so sweet. He didn’t speak even to the other children and he was younger then most of the other kids there. I wonder what his story is and pray that God will bring healing and restoration in his life.
On Friday we went to Bon Berger a medical clinic where the nurses will be spending a lot of their time. In the morning we toured the place and then spent time listening to the story and vision of the two doctors who started the clinic seven years ago in a small shack. The neighborhood where Bon Berger is situated is considered an abandoned neighborhood. The government is not involved in the neighborhood and there is only one public school and two public clinics for the population of 100 000 people. In order to get there we had to cross a waste stream.
The regular team spent our time drawing pictures in a small church school, then we taught them a Bible lesson and sang some songs with them. We enjoyed our time. Meanwhile the nurses observed at the hospital.
Today we spent the day with the youth group from Jean Baptiste’s church. We went to the Congo river and shared testimonies then we hiked through a rock quarry to the other side. Where we sang on the rocks and talked a bit more. Then we hiked back through the jungle/bush and the quarry to the other side where we had a snack of peanuts, bread and some chicken. Afterwards we headed back to our house and most of the team passed out from exhaustion and dehydration. I stayed up. Today has been the first day when I have felt full of energy. Praise God!
So pray for
energy
safety
unity within our team
health

Thank you so much for your prayers and support.
Britt

Going. . .Going. . .Gone!

Hi Everybody,

Sorry this will be brief it is late and I need to go to bed I did not sleep well last night. Tomorrow is our last full day in Canada and then we fly out on Sunday and spend unreal amounts of time in airports and on airplanes as we fly half-way around the world to minister to the Congolese people and learn from them.

Debrief has been going pretty well. I'm just so ready to be in the DRC already, but the past week of training, orientation and language prep has been good. God has been revealing Himself to me in new ways each day. I'm excited to see what He has instore for me in the DRC.

I ask that you pray for health, safety while traveling, that God will enable my body to digest fats so that while I'm in the DRC I don't have to make the decision between being disrespectful and eating food that I know will make me sick. Pray that the financial support will come in for me and all my teammates. Pray for unity in my team and patience as we live in uber close quarters in the DRC with less than stellar conditions. Pray for grace as we deal with conflict within the team. Pray that we will be able to communicate with our limited French.
Thank you so much for your interest in my life and your prayers and support.
Blessings on you all.
Britt

One Week To Go

So the past two months have been pretty crazy. I have been working a lot. But tomorrow is my last day and then it is the homestretch of packing and getting ready to go to the DRC. Pray for me and my team as we raise support, pack and pull together the last minute things.
I have to go now and get some more things checked off my list.

One Week Down

So tomorrow it will be one week since I moved back to the country and only 8 weeks till I leave to go to training for the Congo.
This past week has been hard, I think going home will always be a little hard for me.
On Friday I went home and made my brothers birthday cake. Then on Saturday I hosted his birthday party and mediated between my Mom and him. The party was pretty long and so I was wiped out after wards.
I started work on Monday and worked Monday and Tuesday moving trees and getting things ready for opening. Then today I did respite for a friend. The greenhouse opens on Thursday and then I will be working more regularly there.
Tomorrow is my first day off and I plan on going over to the house and starting to pack and sort through all my stuff which is piled all over the place from my various hurried degrees of packing and having my Dad and brother unpack over the last three months. So pretty much all my possessions are randomly located in boxes all over the basement and I want to find stuff and organize it.
I plan on downsizing. I have enough stuff to furnish my own house or apartment and well it seems that my life will be a lot of moving around in the next couple of years so hopefully I will be able to have a garage sale and raise some more money for the Congo.

My friend just gave me this quote "For as long as you can remember, you have been a pleaser, depending on others to give you an identity. You need not look at that only in a negative way. You wanted to give your heart to others, and you did so quickly and easily. But now you are being asked to let go of all these self-made props and trust that God is enough for you. You must stop being a pleaser and reclaim your identity as a free self"-Henri Nouwen
Coming home is hard because everyone has a box that defines their perception of me and that box is outdated so I really don't fit into it. Yet still people want to fit me into it. So it is a constant battle to break that mold
and have the freedom to just be me as I am without the crutch of doing and people pleasing.I am praying that I can find the freedom even here to really blossom into the person God wants me to be.That I will have the courage like the crocuses to poke my head out and make myself

vulnerable to the world allowing God to work in and through me.
I find it especially hard because the last couple of months I have been able to really just be me whoever that was in the moment, having the freedom to grow with people and discover the things that are core to who I am. Now that I have established some of those things it is a challenge to hang onto them when I am back in an environment where people really don't know who I have become. Their image of me is shaped by
my childhood and for most outdated by several years as I haven't lived at home in two years. So even though nothing drastic has changed a lot of subtle shifts in view point and mindset effect how I live my life and the motivations behind some of my actions are different. I am me, but I am growing and continually redefining what exactly it means to be me.
The three things that I know for sure are that I love God and want to follow Him, and that I love people. Those things haven't changed but the direction they take me has.

Reflections on Moving On

May-01-09
12:18 AM

Hello everyone,
Today on my drive home I started thinking about how many times I have moved in the past bit. I have moved four times in the past eight months. Moving so much really challenges my desire to hang onto things. It aids me in my efforts to live simply by challenging me making me ask myself if I really need the things that I tend to accumulate. It's hard because there is a part of me that wants to nest and have nic nacs all over my living space, but that part is losing to the me that goes alright well I don't want any more junk. Only useful things and my art because it is necessary for me to thrive. That mentality was sorely challenged when I went home yesterday and started going through stuff from my squirrel days. I tried on a pair of boots that my friend gave me two years ago. You have to understand these are not just any boots they are beautiful boots. I have large feet and often feel like the only shoes that fit me are clunky, but these boots made me feet feel pretty. You know how certain articles of clothing can make you feel as if you are in fact beautiful. These boots did that for me, but I never wore them much because they really hurt my one foot.
However, I kept them secretly hoping that my feet would shrink or that the boots would become just a little looser across my right foot. Today when I tried them on they still hurt my foot. In fact my foot is hurting now as I write this. The pain only serves to underline the ridiculousness of me clinging to a pair of boots that never fit me.
Why did I cling to this pair of boots? Was it the ideal they held? The dream of being something I'm not? The knowledge that I will likely never buy myself a pair of handsome boots like them? The fear that God doesn't really know me and therefore will only provide me with drudgery clunky rubber boots?
Honestly, I think it was probably a little of each of those things. The thing that scares me the most is that I know God, we have walked through many fires together. I have experienced His provision and love and yet there is a part of me that stubbornly clings to these useless boots saying I have to look out for myself because no one else, including God, will. The reality is that people often fail and I end up looking out for myself, but God, God does not fail. Whenever I fully place my trust in Him and throw myself upon his mercy He provides in ways beyond anything I can comprehend.
So why do I hesitate to trust Him? Why do I sit alone mired in fears? Why am I seemingly incapable of completely relinquishing my hold on my life even when I know it is the answer to my sometimes crippling fears?
The answer I think lies in my condition, that of being human. As much as I know the truth in my head and have experienced it in my life I still struggle to believe God's truth.
Imagine Jesus is sitting across from me staring into my eyes.
"Keep trusting me?" He asks as he holds out his nail scarred hand. "I love you and I promise to never leave you or forsake you. Keep trusting me, really trust me. Let go of all the things that are distracting you, don't embrace fear as a friend. Trust me, ask my Father, search for us and then you will find us. You will be given what you ask for and the things you trust me with will be taken care of." Matt 6&7
He is telling me that I can't rest in the fact that I trusted Him in the past and He came through, but I have to be actively engaging in relationship with Him journeying down the next path. Going over and over the lesson of trust until I really truly learn it. To the point where I am able to throw off all my possessions and fears living contentedly in the trust of God.
Unfortunately I am human and as Kenneth Boa says the renewing of our minds is not a one-time deal but a continuous cycle of "surrender and trust and of emptying and filling as the Holy Spirit replaces the lies we have believed with the truth of our identity in Christ". I know the truth; that God will provide and that the Creator of the Universe loves me deeply, madly, incomprehensibly for all eternity. That love is so great that He gave His only son, Jesus who was perfect to suffer, bearing the punishment for my sin. I have immeasurable intrinsic worth, because not only did God create me in His image and declare that I was good. He sent Jesus to rescue me when I choose to run away from Him and broke His heart. Even now when I wander and doubt He calls me back.
No matter how much I know this in my head and have even experienced it personally in my life, those lies are buried too deep and I doubt yet again. I cling to the boots as a toddler rebelling against their parent. I tell God that I don't really trust Him when I cling to these things, but I am learning to trust Him. To hold all things in my life with open hands. It is so hard and I struggle often, but I continue to hold my life in open upturned palms to God. My hands are open to receive but also open to surrender giving it all back.
So today I put my boots on the garage sale pile.

Update Letter April, 18, 2009

Dear Friends and Family,
This March God called me to go back to Africa. So I applied to and was accepted to join an incredible summer of outreach with MBMS (Mennonite Brethren Mission and Service) International’s ACTION: Winnipeg program. I feel that this trip is an important next step in my journey of discipleship with God.

ACTION is a discipleship training program offered by MBMS International. The purpose of the program is to expose participants to a creative medium for sharing their faith with those around them and to learn from other cultures and people groups. Through training in various forms of compassion ministry I hope to grow in intimacy with God, know God’s heart for the world and go and join in God’s mission.

I will be travelling in a team with other participants from around North America to the Democratic Republic of Congo during July and August 2009. Long term missionaries and the local church will be hosting our team throughout our assignment. Our group will be hosted by Jean Baptiste, a local pastor and his family. Please pray for them in their long-term ministry to the DRC.

Leve Toi (Stand You or Rise up you) - A school for visually, hearing, and physically challenged children. Our team will be involved in some small building projects and will run a carnival and kid's program for children from the school and the community.

Rama Elohim Mission – a ministry to local artists. Relationship building is an important part of this ministry - our team will spend a day getting to know the artists and hear about their passion for their ministry. We will also lead a Bible study with this group and any local artists that come.

Bon Berger - A local Kinshasa medical clinic initiative. All the clinic staff are Christians and they view the clinic as a ministry to the community. Our team may be involved in distributing medications for parasites or infections to homes and running a carnival day for the children in the area.

Bomoyi ya Sika (New Life) - An orphanage for both boys and girls. Our team will be involved in a combination of work projects - painting, cleaning, cementing, etc. and the rest of the time they will concentrate on loving the kids - playing games, etc.

Sango Malamu - This is a radio/television ministry that reaches a large audience in Kinshasa. Our team will share our testimonies and discuss topics with the host on both radio and television.

Christian Sportsman -). Our team will play sports together with their team, share testimonies and have Bible studies together.

Shalom – joining a team of local church planters in their ministry of Shalom.

Over the past year I have sensed a shift in my life from being a very goal oriented achiever to a far more relaxed holistic life-style. Within this shift has been an increasing call to Africa. Right now this is the next step in following God’s call to Africa on my life. This past year God has been teaching me to hold material objects, dreams, people, and all things lightly before Him with open hands. Willing to receive them but equally willing to lay them down. God has also been showing me that my spiritual gift is love and that I just need to get out there and love all people but especially African people.

Among other things, I anticipate learning humility on this mission as I once again realize just how small I am and how big God is. I expect to have my heart broken and restored as I meet beautiful people in a hurting country. Earlier today I was talking to a friend about missions and we were remarking on how God keeps widening our focus in mission. Just when we think we know what we are supposed to do God shows us another layer. God calls us to continue to trust Him and delve into each new layer/project/people group He shows us.

Please join me in praying for: health, team unity, God’s continued direction in what we do in the DRC and for the next step in my life, safety, financial support, wisdom, discernment, and an ability to serve. Pray also For The DRC, the people we will work with, the places we go, and each of my team members as we prepare are hearts and minds to grow and minister in a true spirit of love to each person we come in contact with.

Thank you for standing with me as I step out in faith. I will keep you informed as to how the trip has gone.

I have included a support form, which I invite you to fill out if God is calling you to support the outreach of MBMSI that I will be involved with this summer.

Thank you so much for caring.

Brittany

You can find me (although while I’m there we will have very limited access to communication):

On my blog: http://followingthewindingroad.blogspot.com

On Facebook

Or email britt.abrahamson@gmail.com

On My Way To the DRC

I took this picture on my way back to Winnipeg on Wednesday.
This weekend, has been the pulling together of a lot of different pieces of my life. I have a job for seven weeks this summer before I head to the Democratic Republic of Congo. PTL! I'm accepted for the ACTION program through Mennonite Brethren Mission and Service International. I have gotten all my shots and malaria pill perscriptions. I bought some cool glue stick sunscreens so I don't have to worry about it spilling all over my bag. It is starting to feel so real. I am excited to see how God is going to use my team and I in partner with MBMSI this summer.
The next two months will be intense as I work. Raise support and get all the little details ready so I can go to the DRC.
I ask that you partner with us and pray for safety, team unity and finances.