Gabon ~ there and back again...

Gabon of the glittering sea, sweltering heat, vibrant greens resplendent with ribbons of rivers flowing throughout. Gabon rich with dear national friends, brilliant teammates, innovations, and epic challenges. Gabon of life-changing events and heartbreak. Gabon of joy and affection. Gabon of change and transition. Gabon, there and back again.

It's been nearly three years since we've lived our everyday lives in Gabon. We spent a year here in Cameroon in 2013-2014 to be dorm parents at our kiddos amazing school. Then we went back to the states for our first and only year-long "home" assignment. And now we are back in Cameroon for Sam's senior year and Steve's assignment of managing the SIL aviation program here and our program there in Gabon, Aviation Medicale De Bongolo.

When we left Gabon in May of 2013 we thought we'd return as residents after two years. That has not happened. We have had a course change (pilot talk) and that new course has led us away from living our everyday in Gabon.

Our aviation program in Gabon has transitioned from being supported by Air Calvary to being supported by Missionary Air Group. Those changes have resulted in giving AMB a broader and stronger support base State-side. Our new program CEO Sean Donnelly met us in Gabon recently to check out our program there and meet national leaders and the mission team at Bongolo and see the aviation operation up close and in living color.

Going back to Gabon as a visitor is a very new experience. It is at once both achingly familiar and benignly remote. It's like coming home after going away for a long time and finding things to be the same but changed; all mixed together in a thick fragrant soup of clunky feelings and sharp rememberings.  

We had the honour of introducing Gabon to Sean. It was truly a time of reconnecting with dear friends and dreaming new dreams. We were able to be all together with Sean and our team in Bongolo and the national church leaders in the capital.

We got to connect with Libreville friends from OSPAC/RBC, the Pasteur President Victor and Vice President Samuel, as well as Hope House and Hands of Grace, and our beloved Bongolo team down country. It was a whirl-wind tour packed with many meetings and greetings. The in between times found Steve and Sean scheming and dreaming God-sized dreams for the country of Gabon through the lens of mission aviation.

We stayed as visitors at the guest house we once ran. Our home is now lived in by a sweet family who has been efficiently running the guest house since our departure in 2013. We left most of our
things behind thinking we'd be back. So some of our time was spent sorting and sifting through our stuff. Our stuff ranged from mundane household items to treasures of finding painfully sweet letters and hand-made Christmas decor lovingly made by our kiddos from a different time and place in our family.

It was another archaeological dig site of sifting carefully through layers of life debris to retrieve and save eight suitcases full of photos, mementos and family history to be weighted and packed ready for any returning visitors to kindly hand carry them back to the States where we hope to sometime be reunited again. Stuff that has gone from one continent to another and now (hopefully) back again.
There and back again...a Straw's tale.





 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

COVID 19 positive in the remote equatorial rainforest

Image
"... because sometimes we need the space to chew on things before any answer can have real weight. Some truths need to happen to us, like when a child feels the cold ocean waves lapping at her feet for the very first time. Such encounters lift us out of ourselves until the world breaks open, becoming suddenly more wild and wondrous than mere moments before. And premature analysis, no matter how airtight, can empty such occasions of their evocative potency." -Justin Rosolino, from his book "Idiot, Sojourning Soul" I live in an almost mythical place, like a setting in a storybook, it is stunningly beautiful, mind-numbingly mundane in it's same, same everyday and at times also flat-out unpleasant and ugly. The contrasts of light and dark, good and bad are like a furious rainstorm that comes suddenly on a sunny day, a deluge of precipitation that cracks the heat in half and softens the red dirt roads into a myriad of puddles reflecting the sky and trees above
Read more

You think you know a guy...

You think you know a guy...  I mean I've been married to the guy for over 20 years.  Then suddenly, while we were getting ready for our walk/run this morning, he walks in the room holding up what look like a pair of spandex bicycle shorts.  They are completely unfamiliar to me.  I assumed it was unclaimed laundry from the basement ( it happens a lot around these parts living with 12 teenagers).  Steve's face is alight with delight as he excitedly exclaims, "Look Honey, it's my old baseball sliding shorts!"  He goes on to show me the pocket in the front to hold the athletic cup.  It's like he's reunited with an old friend.  "Wow" is my only response at this point.  Then I ask, "when did you get those?"  He takes a moment to think back and responds, "When I was 15!"  Wait, what?!  "You've had these 'sliding shorts' since you were 15??"  He responds with, "You never know when you might need sliding shor
Read more

Peas and Carrots

Image
"Turn both your pockets and hearts inside out and give generously to the poor; then your lives will be clean not just your dishes and hands." - Luke 11 That verse lept off the pages of Luke as I read the bible after praying for God to speak to me directly about whether or not I should go to the Hope House orphanage to stay the night and help take care of the nearly 50 kids living there. You see, I have reasons not to go... I am traveling to the states today (a day and a half later) and it will be a long journey and I really need my rest. I get headachy and miserable when I don't get enough sleep. And I have visitors at the guest house now that need my attention and I need to pack and do some last minute shopping for family members that I will see soon in the states... And... well you get it! Honestly, it's hard to go to the Hope House. I am often overwhelmed by the needs and in awe of the love and care that dwells there. Kristy O'Neal is here for four mont
Read more