First day in Africa

Africa.  It is a word that can conjure a lot of different mental pictures.  The Savannah, desert, war, ebola, 100 different languages, mountains, ocean, Madagascar… for me it varied between the movies I had seen, television shows, my trip to Egypt, and heck – even songs (Africa – Toto, Do They Know it’s Christmas Time – BandAid, etc.).  Not in my wildest dreams would I think that it looked like Honduras – but there you have it.  Papaya trees, palm trees, trees that resembled so many back home, flowers, and even the people.  Living in Honduras you have a wide variety of people – we are a melting pot of skin tones from very dark to very light skinned.  So seeing tan and dark skinned people speaking Spanish didn’t even seem that much different.  But that’s where things ended.  The culture here…it is so very different.  After only a day that much is very evident.

Africa, Day 1 brought us to the capitol city of Malabo, which is an island off the mainland.  It takes 30 minutes by flight to arrive to the rest of the country.  We arrived quite late at night – around 10pm, therefore really couldn’t see much of anything.  We were fed by our host family, went to bed, and the next morning scooted off to the airport for our next flight to the mainland, and to the city of Bata where we will be staying for the remainder of our time.

The location we are staying at is a compound which hosts a bible college, a number of ministry homes, and the future sight of a dorm and possible clinic. Because of our afternoon arrival, and the bible classes that were to be taught by our hosts, we still didn’t see much of the city proper, but we have 10 days to get a full glimpse of what this city is all about.

In between seminary classes, there was a short 30 minute chapel service attended by the majority of the students at the bible college.  It was so beautiful.  Hearing people of an African culture singing in Spanish…was simply amazing.  I captured just a flavor, and after listening to it I know you will know what I mean.

We are humbled by where God has taken us in Honduras and all of His work there, and are amazed to see His work in another country so far away.  The poverty is very real here, the electricity is transient at best, and potable water only obtainable from bottles.  However, we have found that the climate is amazing!  I had assumed that the conditions were going to be similar to Honduras, and the unbearable heat, but I have found so far that it is quite nice.  Granted, we may be getting the “good” weather, and typical weather may be quite horrible, who knows.

All in all, Day 1 and 2 in Africa, Equitorial Guinea (EG), has been a whirlwind, and we still need to desperately catch up on our sleep.  Looking forward to what tomorrow has to bring.