The need to evacuate fleeing missionaries and their children, using the Ara airstrip, was known by God before the jealous Alure chief even decided he wanted one.  God no doubt prompted the ideas on what we needed to do to be prepared.  He even prepared the mud hole the rebel army under Laurent Kabila couldn’t pass through, until He stopped the rain. 

The second house we lived in at Rethy was a delightful modification of the dormitory where I had lived as a child.  My former dorm parent was the designer and loved building a special place for us with an upstairs.  We moved two more times, to nearby apartments on Dorm Hill before we were forced to evacuate, leaving all our belongs behind.

Two very different men, Silavano and Mbikpa, had very different houses and very different values.  I knew both of them, one had nothing, the other had become richer than any other man in the Rethy area.  The shrewd business man amassed a vast amount of riches, yet God would call him a fool.  The wise worker feared the Lord and received wisdom.

Every culture, certainly those in the part of Africa where I grew up, uses materials that are locally available to build their houses.  Where even nails don’t exist a long-lasting house can be built that offers shelter from the elements, a place to live, and to raise a family. The skills are passed down to the next generation.  Who taught the birds how to build a nest?

Climbing to the top of Mount Aboro was a special activity when I was a child at boarding school in the Congo.  I wanted to share the same experience with the children for whom I was now responsible, as their dorm parent.  The outing proved to be quite different from what I had planned, ending with a spectacular display of a mountain fire against the horizon that night.

I helped destroy a couple forests and started a forest fire while I was at Rethy, yet those were very special places to me when I was living there.  Humans have an impact on the environment, sometimes considered positive, but more often seen to be destroying what can never be restored.  God has given us responsibility to have dominion over what He created.  He made it all green again.

For whom was the Koda hydroelectric plant built on the side of the escarpment? Is destroying a community spring in a valley marsh, in order to sink a well in the muck, a desirable service to the community? People definitely need water to live and liked it pumped up the hill to the hospital, however who needed the electricity, for what? What is built does not last unless God builds it.

Descending 5,000 feet from Rethy down to lake Albert and climbing back up in a day used all the energy we had. The potential energy of water falling down that escarpment was beyond measure and Marr Miller had seen a large falls plunging down from the plateau not far from Rethy. We had checked the falls at VP and concluded they were too small to provide electricity for us.

Exploring the site of an abandoned perfume factory in Zaire was the initial motivation to develop a 400 KVA hydroelectric plant in the highlands overlooking Lake Albert.  During a ninth grade class field trip we did the feasibility study, learning more about potential and kinetic energy than can be taught in books.  Boarding school activities at Rethy stimulated creativity.

When I was asked to help I didn’t receive specific instructions from the one I was helping.  I knew exactly what needed to be done, took the initiative, and used what I had, to do the best I could. The one I was helping never showed up at the project and didn’t speak to me for a couple days.  From my perspective the job was well done.