21st October
Well the weeks have ambled away without anything too remarkable happening – a Sunday visit to Akieni and one to Ngouoni, both of which are on the tarmac road so not too difficult, though 175 mile round trip to go to church is perhaps a bit much!
The greatest question recently has been "How long can a bottle of gas last?" I usually have a spare, so don't worry about one running out, but the spare is empty and both the last two times I was in Franceville there was the gas to be found anywhere. As a result I've lived the last few weeks wondering whether the current bottle will run out in the middle of baking a loaf of bread or with dinner half cooked. Thankfully it hasn't yet and I've only another two days before my next trip to Franceville. I took the precaution of leaving the empty spare in Franceville last time I was there and a friend managed to get it replaced with a full one when there finally was some available. The shortage has sort of encouraged me to make more use of my solar oven – or would have done except the rainy season, though late, has now started with a vengeance; and for some reason it's mainly raining early mornings instead of late afternoon or evening. This is not conducive to the use of a solar oven, especially as very often the downpours are lasting six, eight or ten hours!
Last Saturday (17th Oct.) Fulbert, Sebastian (the new pastor at the Alliance church) and I headed off across the Plateaux for a couple of days. It was a happily straightforward trip. We stopped first at Edzangalou where the pastor got to see the small annexe building, but there were no Christians about. We continued on the Odzuma where we spent the rest of Saturday. Fulbert went off to weed his field, I took some time to test the draft translation of Noah (yes, it's finally completed) with a couple of people. It's harder to test than passages we've translated so far, simply because it's so much longer, but on the whole it seemed acceptable. Now I need to find ways of testing it in Léconi with people from the southern part of the Latege area – I already know there are two-three dialect issues but we need to see if we can find some compromise words.
In the evening we held a meeting with the Christians, when it was disappointing but not altogether surprising to discover that only on young boy could still retell the parable of the prodigal son and no-one could retell the Good Samaritan, at least not until they'd had a reminder. Oh well, most of us need to hear things more than once to make them stick. The pastor gave a good message about perseverance and being faithful to reading and holding onto Scripture – the only trouble is only one person reads French. What Bible are the others supposed to read?
Sunday, after a short prayer time with the leaders, we set off cross-country to Yia. The little annexe there had already begun their Sunday service with around eight women, one man and six children. This is up on the last few times we've visited and they seemed to be doing ok. Hopefully the pastor and the new outreach team in Léconi will be able to arrange more frequent visits to help build them up.
The gate-keeper of the game park was at his post today so we were able to drive through instead of round, which is always welcome, though we saw no animals that day. Mysteriously the truck engine overheated badly on the way home, for no very apparent reason. That necessitated a couple of stops while it cooled off. I remain to see if the problem recurs going to Franceville or if it was another mysterious blip. - Mind you, it probably won't overheat going in (it's more downhill than up) but coming home, which is a nuisance because by then it's too late to get help!
Got another new cock and hen while in Odzuma. We'll see how many, if any, eggs they produce before getting stolen/escaping!