Friday, January 25, 2019

Christmas in Congo: Jesse Mitchell

Here's a slice of life from Jesse Mitchell, one of the ten GOM missionaries Karen and I helped orient and train back back in August 2017. We spent the next year coaching Jesse through fund raising and he's now been in the Republic of Congo for five months. Jesse serves as part of our non-medical staff at Pioneer Christian Hospital (PCH). PCH is our hospital in the village of Impfondo.

Jesse Mitchell, Republic of Congo

Jesse is a trained chef working to develop a feeding program to help our patients heal faster, start a sustainable gardening project to supplement the local food varieties, and assist at our partner ministry, Kimia Leprosy Center just down the trail.

From Jesse:
"This has been a crazy holiday season here in Congo...which is perfectly normal for here, I guess. The children at the hospital church put on a brilliant Christmas Nativity play. Mary and Joseph finding nowhere else to stay, ended up in a little palm-thatched hut all lit up with Christmas lights and tinsel, nestled in a small grove of banana trees.

Joseph and Mary and the birthplace of Jesus.

The shepherds and their sheep.

"Angels jumped out of the grove screaming, 'DO. NOT. BE. AFRAID!' As shepherds and sheep (choir boys with ears on) fell to the ground shouting and bleating in terror, respectively. Then the Wise Men came down the isle following the star (a little blinking bicycle light on a pulley). It was perfect.

The Wise Men following the star.

"When the Angel warned Joseph and Mary to not go back to Nazareth, King Herod became furious and sent his terrifying Masked Gunmen to kill baby Jesus. As they searched the church for Jesus, terrifying the little kids, the Angel ushered Joseph and Mary out the side door and on their way to Egypt seconds before the masked gunmen found the hut and blasted away at it with their beeping, sonic laser guns."

Stay tuned for more slices of life from Jesse. 
It's our tremendous pleasure to share how God is working through your partnership to send and sustain GOM's missionaries all over the world.