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We went to a sawmill in the Congo w/ Vadim Kovalev and Glen Chapman Wood World Podcast
8 Plays10 months ago
Today, we have a special episode lined up as Jake sits down with Vadim and Glen to talk about their incredible journey to the Congo. They’ll be sharing stories from their time in the heart of Africa—everything from the challenges they faced in the remote villages, to the unforgettable people they met, and the inspiring work Glen has led over decades. Get ready to hear firsthand accounts of how sawmilling, ministry, and adventure come together in one of the most fascinating places on earth. Let’s dive in!
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Transcript
Introduction and Journey to Congo
00:00:00
Speaker
Today we have a special episode lined up as Jake sits down with Vadim and Glenn to talk about their incredible journey to the Congo. And he brought a box that had top blades in it into the village, man. Like that's a freaking journey. They'll be sharing stories from their time in the heart of Africa. Everything from the challenges they faced in the remote villages The log was so heavy and the the river is so dry that we couldn't float the log to the sawmill. So we disassembled the portable sawmill and moved it towards the log. To the unforgettable people they met. That's when I lost it in front of the camera.
00:00:39
Speaker
The bond, you know? And the inspiring work Glenn has led over decades.
Challenges and Aid in Congo
00:00:43
Speaker
They don't have the resources or the possibilities to be able to earn any money. We in the West can help out with tuition, with education. Get ready to hear firsthand accounts of how sawmilling ministry and adventure come together in one of the most fascinating places on earth. Let's dive in.
00:01:08
Speaker
We had an itinerary set. We had a plan to meet everybody from all over different parts of the world to arrive in Brussels and from Brussels to enter Africa and then go to the Congo. I get to Atlanta Airport and they say, you have to deplane. My back stays on the plane. I get off. There's a storm in New York. They said, we can't go to New York. So they say,
00:01:28
Speaker
Uh, you know, basically go figure it out. Wild story, Jake, but basically the fact that my travel plans were disrupted, I ended up going to Paris, the Olympic games, Paris 24. So I get to Paris and there's a 20 hour layover and they're like, we'll provide you a hotel.
00:01:44
Speaker
Olympic Games. I buy a ticket to get to see a game. Eiffel Tower behind me and the the beach volleyball court right there. And so anyways, because of all the travel explosions, my bag doesn't arrive to the Congo on time. I have like a fraction of all the things that I tried to provide for myself. And the bag of provisions that I originally packed in the States never arrives on time.
Travel Disruptions and Detours
00:02:08
Speaker
And that was supposed to be the easy bit, right?
00:02:12
Speaker
So David, so you guys you were in a separate group arriving to Kinshasa or Brussels? Yeah, we so there was a hurricane coming up the East Coast. That's what Vadim's talking about. But the weather didn't seem that bad when we took off from Raleigh, North Carolina. We were supposed to land in Newark to meet Glenn and then on to Brussels.
00:02:38
Speaker
And we were approaching Newark and they said we have to divert because of weather and they made us, we landed in Dulles. And I called g Lynn up and he says, well, I don't have any indication that our flight is delayed. I don't understand what the problem is. In the meantime, we were able to rebook on a Brussels air flight to Brussels.
Arrival in Kinshasa and Preparations
00:03:00
Speaker
And ah long story short,
00:03:04
Speaker
Glens flight was delayed at Newark, but we got on the Brussels air flight out of Dulles and arrived early in Brussels and ah i lost the two My two suitcases, by the way, got lost in this process because we had to obviously deplane. But I had brought all of my necessities and my carry-ons, so I wasn't in the same situation Vadim was in. We got to Brussels, to the terminal of the board for Congo, and we thought we were supposed to meet Val there.
00:03:35
Speaker
So nathan kept walking around all these congalese everywhere he kept every white man and walk by you value because you know how i have been over there i think they thought he was losing his mind but anyway we finally glenn finally told us about what's going on with him on a different flight.
00:03:55
Speaker
And they'd be getting to Kinshasa later. And we ended up getting to Kinshasa on time and ah got transported to the MPH, which used to be a youth hostel, and spent the night there. And then the next day, of course, the other guys arrived.
Risks and Travel in War-Torn Regions
00:04:13
Speaker
And we all made our flight on MAF at that point, which was the next day, which was a miracle because MAF you don't just, you know, any day take a flight to Kekongo. So, it was a miracle we all got there from different routes on time to make the flight to Kekongo. Glenn, can you tell a little bit about what what is the MAF really briefly and then about the just getting everybody into that flight and and maybe a couple of the intricacies of, you know, arranging for a flight from Kinshasa to Kekongo and
00:04:52
Speaker
Yeah, MAF stands for Mission Aviation Fellowship. And they've been working in Congo since 1960. um some the About the time that MAF got started in South America, they also expanded to Africa. So I've been using MAF from my childhood. In those days, they had Cessna 180s, 206s. Now that all they have is a Cessna caravan.
00:05:22
Speaker
which is larger and they don't have regular flights. They don't have a regular schedule. You make a reservation, uh, to, to go somewhere and they accommodate you. And, um, it's, it was pretty expensive. So had we not all arrived on time, we would have had to, um, make other arrangements, which would have been really expensive. And I would have been tempted to go by road.
00:05:52
Speaker
which would have been in hindsight pretty dangerous. So tell us tell tell tell me a little bit about that. What was the issue of going by road? Because you can go by road and typically you have mud or broken down vehicles to contend with rope bad road conditions, but what was specific about this issue this time for going by road? And said it's what, a day or two drive over the 150 miles?
00:06:20
Speaker
Yeah, if you had a good vehicle, if you had a a Toyota Land Cruiser, you could do it in a day. It's possible to take that road in a day. yeah Two problems. One, it's the end of the dry season. So you have the most sand to contend with. And on roads that don't normally have smaller vehicles like like the Toyota Land Cruisers,
00:06:49
Speaker
and only the big trucks, your road would be really messed up for a smaller vehicle and you'd have a high center to deal with. But the main issue that concerned us was that the area that we had to go through had been overrun by these ah ah delinquents ah who were intent on murdering people from a different tribe.
00:07:17
Speaker
and Going to Kekongo was bad news because Kekongo is where they had stationed some of the military that had been after these delinquents. um So anybody going to Kekongo would have a target on them as well. And so had we gone on that road, there would have been a few roadblocks, one run by the military who would have tried to exploit us.
00:07:46
Speaker
And then a roadblock by these delinquents who would have ah ah threatened to kill us and then tried to extort a lot of money from us. and And they were, they kind of had the run of the territory, so they could have stolen anything that they had wanted ah from us as well. So it's really the wild, wild West.
00:08:13
Speaker
ah these days um in that area between Kinshasa and Kikango. And that's not a big part of Congo, right? Just the distance between Kinshasa and Kikango because of the size of Congo is expansive. Congo is huge. Congo is a third the size of the United States. And there's a lot of trouble in the east.
00:08:39
Speaker
ah between Rwanda and Congo and all the different militias fighting over the ah resources. Our area of Bandundu doesn't have a lot of the resources and we've always thought that that's protected us from these militias who are fighting over harvesting rights. So within the last two years is is the first time that we've seen this um anarchy of the intertribal conflicts ah because there was nothing to fight over before. ah But somehow people had it in them that they needed to do genocide on this one tribe, ah the Bateke tribe, who lives in our area. And so they were trying to control the the flow of the one the one tribe. And anybody who was from that tribe would be
00:09:34
Speaker
taken off of trucks and and executed on the spot. Wow. So I'm glad you guys didn't drive and it really highlights the actual danger of and just the, um,
00:09:47
Speaker
the turbulent nature of these locations, right? And the fact that you guys were able to come in for a week and leave, and the people who live there, they have no way of getting out, and and that's what they deal with on a regular basis, right? Yeah.
First Impressions of Kinshasa
00:10:01
Speaker
And we were fortunate to have Mission Aviation Fellowship, which puts you above the free.
00:10:06
Speaker
Right. So how how was that flight, Fadeen? Can you tell us a little bit briefly about the flight? And then what was your impression on landing in Kekongo? What hit you guys once you guys landed? What hit me is the smell when we got to Kinshasa. But I can tell you why that is. ah the The flight... so but What food did he have on the airplane? No.
00:10:33
Speaker
I guess Kinshasa, I guess from the commercial flight we landed in Kinshasa, got out of the airport and there was just a stark craziness that that I just couldn't start filming. Val was making fun of me that I was filming with my phone and with my GoPro and trying to take pictures with the third camera like I didn't have enough hands.
00:10:53
Speaker
to try to share the experience of what I saw um in Kinshasa, right? But then what you're talking about is now the next day we woke up and we went to the flight, the MAA flight, to go from Kinshasa, the capital, to the small village village of Kekongo. And that flight was super cool to me because I usually go on commercial flights and you don't see it out of the windshield of the airplane. So they I asked and I was like, hey man, like I'd love to record Glenn from the front. And I was sitting there, you know just capturing the moment Val was sitting next to Glenn. If we look at the airplane, i was there was the pilot pilot Jacob in the front left. Front right of the airplane was my seat, so I had the headset. And then behind me was Val, to the left of Val, behind Jacob was Glenn.
00:11:43
Speaker
And so we were trying to capture photo and video of Glenn's, you know, experience taking it in. um So that was profound because Glenn hasn't been there for a while. And he, Glenn, you recognized all the areas that we flow over, right? So you were, you were, I mean, you were, I remember you asking some questions, but it it brought memories back because you used to fly these areas.
00:12:04
Speaker
Yeah, um we've done that. David and I have flown that route for years and years and years.
Filming Challenges in Africa
00:12:10
Speaker
So we know all the rivers and we know the villages and Unfortunately it's the the dry season which is really hazy we couldn't see very well but it was really fun to recognize the rivers and i was trying to shout out to let you know what river it was and what village it was and what villages i had landed at in my power parachute ah so yeah it was pretty amazing to that that flight.
00:12:38
Speaker
be able to make that flight again. But ah just going back a little bit to the the experience of leaving Kinshasa airport and going through the city, Val and Vadim were intent on filming and I was really uncomfortable with these cameras hanging out the window and the driver was really uncomfortable too with ah these cameras around because Kinshasa is really sensitive about about cameras and filming and um you and And there were points where the vehicle would be completely stopped. and And these mobs of people, if they were discontent, if they had not wanted to be filmed, they could have mobbed the vehicle and try to take try to pillage the ah vehicle. So there were there were moments when the the driver would say, okay, pull the cameras in. but But I think I was uncomfortable the whole way with the the filming that was going on.
00:13:35
Speaker
Well, the filming, to give a little bit of context, Jake, as we were got in the vehicle, mind you, I never met Glenn in person. So I and meet him first time when we walk into the airport and he's exhausted. I'm exhausted. But I'm just like, this is happening. It's no longer on the screen. It's in person. We're here. And then Glenn, as we're driving, is telling us all these key moments about the everything. And I'm just like taking it all in. And you've got all the footage now, Jake, so you can go through it. but I mean, that's why I was filming. I couldn't stop filming, Glenn speaking, and then just taking a little bit of shots of outside the window, so...
00:14:12
Speaker
Next time, time to invest in a 360 camera that just captures everything at once. ands say um Yeah, our experience as well, when I was working for Whip Minds, there was very much different parts of Africa. You were very, very cautious with using a camera. Parts of Africa, they're not very fond of getting their picture taken or or things like that. Whereas other parts of Africa like Zambia, oh they they they they they will put on a show for you.
00:14:37
Speaker
Glenn, sorry, Jay, Glenn, can you point out why was there a ah really strange smell in the air? And why was it so dark? And why were there so many people on our route? Quickly? Well, the infrastructure hasn't been improved at all since colonial days, you know, and it was a city of under a million people. And now it's 15 million. And so you have the same the same roads as ah As back in the earlier days it's the end of the dry season everything is burning all the the grassland in the interior is burning the force of burning in the city there is no garbage disposal so all the garbage just gets burnt.
00:15:21
Speaker
ah So you're going just through this filthy ah filthy smoke, and along the street, since there is no garbage disposal, everything just piles up along the street. And there is no more room for pedestrians to walk anymore. A, you've got the traffic, and then you've got the motorcycles, influx of inexpensive motorcycles, weaving in and out. ah you know like It was just total anarchy, total chaos.
00:15:50
Speaker
ah driving in from from the airport that night. And actually, since it was late at night, it was was less traffic than ah normal. If we had been there, gotten there earlier in the day, it would have been even more more chaos. Yes. What time was it? What's this? 11? No, it wasn't that late. It was, let's see, it was maybe nine or so?
00:16:18
Speaker
ah ni Yeah, I think we got to MPH about 10. Sure.
Arrival in Kekongo and Local Reception
00:16:25
Speaker
Yeah. So we're we're approaching 45 minutes and we need to land in Kekongo. And there's a lot more to unpack with Kekongo specifically. David, as ah someone who grew up in Congo, what is it like to see the response? What is the response like when you guys land? When Glenn comes back and seals all his friends? When you as well get back to where you grew up?
00:16:53
Speaker
well ah A bunch of people were there atcongo at the runway. The runway is right in front of the house I grew up in and the house Glenn lived in. So we're not talking like in the United States.
00:17:06
Speaker
but a bunch of people, a bunch of dignitaries. ah Most of them were were there to see Glenn, because of course he spent his life out there as a missionary as well. I had friends and and others who I've known for years who were there to meet me, and it was just like a big family reunion right there around the airplane.
00:17:31
Speaker
And you've you've probably seen the pictures of everybody hugging and shaking hands and they're just a good, you know, getting to see each other again after a long time being away. Glenn, how did it feel coming back? It's been a, it's been a couple of years since you've been back for four years, three years, three years, three years. Yeah. yeah had that deal coming back It was, uh, amazing. It was, uh, I've been dreaming about that.
00:18:01
Speaker
ah for so long. in In fact, when I left three years ago, I thought that it would be the last time I would be leaving. you know it was It was closure. ah But during these three years, my heart hadn't felt the closure. There was something that needed to happen.
00:18:21
Speaker
And going back again showed that it was possible to get back, that there doesn't need to be closure, that it is possible, as difficult it as it as it is, ah the way is still open to be able to get back to the Congo. And that was amazing to be able to realize that this can happen again.
00:18:44
Speaker
So what about these dignitaries and and things? So in the in kind of that first day on the 10th, what were some of the things that happened on that first day?
Cultural and Personal Experiences in Kekongo
00:18:55
Speaker
I have a few notes here that you guys were able to meet with some dignitaries. There's something about a spring, some red clay, and what were some of the, you know, kind of overarching aspects of of that initial day of getting back into things?
00:19:12
Speaker
And maybe Vadim, maybe we can have you share from your perspective, because all this is new to you, right? And Glenn is trying to like, oh, by the way, oh, by the way, oh, by the way. Well, listen, we're flying, we land. I've never landed in a dirt runway like that. We get out and the airplane turns around and leaves. We're off the grid. And then it and then it hit me like, hold on a second, like, you know, we're here.
00:19:36
Speaker
And we made it. And then the thing started and just happening. like As the plane is leaving, children are running towards the airplane. Glenn, I don't think they've seen white people for a long time. So you know it was very special for them, special for us. So I'm taking pictures with the kids. We're going through the village and Glenn's showing us around. In fact, my perspective is very and unique, Jake, because Like i said my bag that i packed with all my spare clothing didn't arrive i have a picture of all that i had took a picture of it when we landed because i didn't have nothing basically my camera gear and a shirt and whatever so glenn said let's go so glenn is showing us the village we go to the marketplace and glenn's like hey like you need to buy a cloth and david's translating for me and glenn's translating and then
00:20:21
Speaker
I buy this, you know, bed size sheet looking cool little piece of fabric. And then Glenn's like, or David, whoever was translating, we got to this other guy who's the tailor. He like ran and taped down my arm and he was like, we don't speak their language. So I'm like, okay, good, cool. So then we we walk around the town and we go swim first time in the Wamba. um I mean, Jake, it's just profound. Like I was taking it all in. I couldn't believe we're walking what Glenn was talking about. It's completely different to hear a podcast.
00:20:51
Speaker
I was the one interviewing Glenn on the podcast and that was a profound moment, but walking where Glenn said is just, is just out of this world. So Glenn, um, it sounds like it was a bit overwhelming for Mr. Badeen, you know, not being able to go down to Walmart and pick up a $3 shirt, and but needing to actually buy the cloth and get measured right there for his replacement. Um, Glenn, David,
00:21:16
Speaker
Is there something special about kind of like introducing someone from outside to some of the things that you take kind of for granted when when you're there or where you kind of take as commonplace? What are the some of the things that ah you then realize, oh, that's right. Yeah. this is Well, I just want to, ah regarding the cloth, there's some people who are affiliated with my family out there that i my my parents were supporting before they died, and I've continued to support since they died. And I was at the market to buy some cloths for some of these women that I support. And I'm haggling with this guy, and Vadim shows up, and he's looking at my cloth. And it's like, what are you doing?
00:22:02
Speaker
So finally I realized he really wanted this piece of cloth. So whatever I'll get a different one But it was just I didn't at first. I didn't understand why he wanted He was there too. All of all of a sudden he's right next to me Horning in on my business, you know to me. It was like what?
00:22:20
Speaker
and i didn't put what David is talking about with the guy so I thought he's negotiating on my behalf and I'm like, I don't need to he had two in his hands I'm like, I only need one Yeah, i was so i was I was buying this for these women and then he suddenly he's there grabbing my cloth. Anyway, there wasn't much choice, but that piece of cloth that fit perfectly with the theme of Koval of the woodworking with the with the leaves on it and all that. that was that that just And that Taylor did such a great job ah with that shirt. But going back to your question, Jake, what what impressed me walking around with my new friends was the contrast from Kinshasa. We were no longer in a filthy, smelly, big city that was so impersonal and populated
00:23:14
Speaker
But here we were in in back in rural Africa that was friendly, where where the people were friendly, where there was space to move around, where we had ah a river and a forest. And it just felt so good to be ah back at home and and and back ah outside of the city. So it was good to be back where there's no electricity or no running water, et cetera. That's what I got out of that.
00:23:42
Speaker
um i want to as I want to kind of get to kind of want the the wood aspect. There's a lot of different things we can talk about, but I kind of want to start honing in on some of the um the wood aspects in the sawmill. and why why We talked about this in the first podcast, so I don't want to like belabor the fact. but um As I understand it, um to get lumber back in the day, in the 90s and late 80s, right? When you're there, you're trying to help the people. You're a Bible teacher, right? At the Bible school there. And you're also trying to help. Each time you come back from the States, you bring some new project, right? To implement, right? like
00:24:27
Speaker
Something to better their lives somehow, and you come across this idea of a saw mill, you get in contact with Woodmizer. Woodmizer helps you get saw mill out there. There's a missionary or there's a guy that does free shipping, you know, with containers that helps you get it out there.
00:24:43
Speaker
um It was difficult for them to, there's trees everywhere and yet they can hardly use it, right? The only thing that they can do is either go down river, hundreds of miles to buy very expensive lumber from a big, big mill that's wasteful and super far away. Or they can fell a log and chip it out or pit saw it, right? As as you you filmed back in the eighties or the nineties of guys pit sawing.
00:25:14
Speaker
So you decide to bring back a song. Can you, in a sentence or two, because we've covered it before, can you kind of say what was in your mind and what you thought might be the impact? Yeah. Here we had trained carpenters and there were building projects, but you couldn't get any lumber. I mean, you had to send a truck really, it was really expensive to have a truck, uh, bring up lumber from, from the capital city.
00:25:44
Speaker
And ah the capital city is where the mill was. And it just didn't make sense when we lived in an area that had all the trees. And ah so my hope was that let's just make use of the trees that are around us and let's provide a resource that we really but we really need. and And there was a tremendous need for lumber in our area because people didn't have chairs.
00:26:14
Speaker
They didn't have tables. Wood was scrounged. They would break down doors to make a coffin, ah for example. And that was in the days before the plastic company put out all this cheap but plastic chairs and furniture. so So there was a tremendous need for furniture for use of lumber and in that area.
00:26:40
Speaker
And someone else had told me about Wood-Mizer. And that's when I was able to to do the research. And the year that I was in on furlough, I lived in port in Salem, Oregon. And in Portland, there was a Wood-Mizer outlet there. So I got trained on the Wood-Mizer and decided what model to buy and and what and and she had it shipped that year. That was probably 1996, maybe.
00:27:11
Speaker
So, fast forwarding, um and because if someone's interested, you can watch the podcast we did before, where we really ran into a lot of the details on some of this, because I'd like to keep it on the trip itself. um So, but Glenn and David, especially, what what is one concept or or big picture thing that you learned from the sawmill project that people can replicate other places where where there are similar needs. It might be wood related or might not, but what is what is in your mind? Okay, from this project, we realized that this is a model that could be replicated or or a way of going about things. would i but i learned What I learned over the years was we first went out with an LT25, which has to be towed
00:28:04
Speaker
ah And we didn't have any vehicles to tow with, so we would just have an army of guys that we would push it. We would roll it on wheels. But then we found out that Woodmizer has another model that's smaller ah that you could disassemble the rail and you could carry piece by piece and you could set it up then in the forest or along the river or whatever.
00:28:33
Speaker
And so Woodmizer gave us the opportunity to be able to adapt down to be able to get a smaller model, but still we could cut logs the same size. um So that was a ah really practical ah model that we got. And that's what we went back to on this trip. You know, 20 years later, that machine under tropical Africa conditions is still is still working. It's amazing. So we get to August 11th and it's Sunday, right? And you're having a Sunday service, you're meeting with pastors, there's a fixing of a generator, David, you're working on, correct? um I'd like to hear a bit from Vadim about his impressions of the the church service
00:29:25
Speaker
And then David, as well, yourself going back there to Congo, worshipping with the church there, um meeting with the pastors and friends that you grew up with, just a few sentences from each about the Sunday services. Jake, um and it's even hard to put into words the feelings that I had. Look, I guess for context, I've been to a lot of churches around the globe deep Siberia, I've been to churches in Europe. I've been to churches all over coast to coast and in America. But once we spent a couple of days in the Congo, we understood that literally these people are making bricks out of clay and building their mud huts and the conditions that these people live in. I objectively have never seen people in a third world country, myself, this poor by our standards.
00:30:20
Speaker
And what was absolutely profound to me to the point where, forget cameras, I was so in the moment at that ah Sunday morning church service that my eyes just started filling with tears. What I saw and what you can look at the footage and see what I was taking pictures of.
00:30:41
Speaker
um I mean, Jake, there were kids there that were dressed so beautiful. They had their hair done. There was a girl in the front row that had these beautiful braids. The adults, they all dressed so, so high end that it's, it was like mind blown to me, Jake. And then the atmosphere was like, they were here to to worship a king or the king that we know.
00:31:11
Speaker
the God, the Creator. And then while I was sitting in the audience, like the sounds of them worshipping with their natural instruments with with everything that was happening, it just was overwhelming, Jake. i i just The contrast of these are the people that in my life I've never met where they are.
00:31:31
Speaker
And yet they are worshiping like people I've also never met before who are as a congregation coming together and praising God and thanking him and worshiping him. It was such a crazy contrast to me, Jake. I literally started tearing up and I had to walk outside and go take some pictures from the outside because I, I just, I lost it, man. Like I'll just stop there, but wow.
00:32:00
Speaker
And David, what is it like to be able to go back and worship? Do you have memories of that as a kid? And then is there anything else specifically on that day that stuck out? Because then we'll get into, we'll talk a little bit about just tent maker ministry and and the kind of some of the challenges that some of these pastors have, right? to To try to minister for the needs of their villages, but then also put food on the table.
00:32:27
Speaker
Well, uh, when I was small, I was a child. I, of course, like a lot of kids, I would be, uh, and in church, I was not, I was, I was more like, was this over yet? I want to get out and go play, you know, but, uh, as an adult, uh, just like Vadim is saying, he was, you see these people worshiping, they're, they're very poor.
00:32:55
Speaker
and yet they are very, their worship is very, very... Genuine. What's that? Genuine. Genuine, yeah. You come back to the States after being there at a worship service and you go to church and you look at just the incredible wealth, the cars pulling in, the the beautiful churches, the and yet,
00:33:21
Speaker
The worship a lot of times doesn't seem as alive and real as these people who have nothing and and they and they don't have they don't have cars. Most of them don't even have a bicycle. you know it's just it's just It's shocking really when you come back to the States after being through that.
00:33:43
Speaker
And David, the pastors here, so a little bit about the theme of ah what Vadim has been working on, which is a tent making, right? Going and helping people vocationally take care of themselves and and continue in the ministries that God has called them to. What are some of the challenges there in those communities with pastors who are trying to minister to needs, and but then also needing to some vocation to to support themselves?
00:34:14
Speaker
No, you're asking me? Or are you asking Glenn? I'm asking you, David. I know you know about this. so Well, ah I don't know as much about about it as Glenn because he lived he lived over there. But I know I have tried, I mentioned this before, I tried to support some people, both as pastors and going through the the school there.
00:34:41
Speaker
to get ah better educated, that hopefully they'll be able to use that as adults to improve their lives because it's there's just, there's no infrastructure out there. There's no, like in America, you can't go out and get a loan, like a student loan, or you can't, the people, the people when they give, especially out in the villages, when they're giving their tithes, it might be a couple pieces of manioc,
00:35:10
Speaker
or a ah bundle of bananas. or You know what I mean? is They're not getting money. they're not it's just It's hard to explain for people who haven't been out there. i do I do what I can, but it's probably not enough. And Glenn, in a short way, having a sawmill or other vocational programs that you've been able to kind of set up out there How does that help young young people, right? Who are trying to get some education and then also, you know, some pastors as well who are there with their families. Yeah. um When we had the lumber mill operational working every day, our students would provide the labor and so they could earn their tuition fees by, yeah by working at the at the mill.
00:36:09
Speaker
But also, what they would do is they would collect cast off scraps of lumber, ah something that we couldn't sell. Maybe the the first cut or something like that, they would take those pieces and then they would that they didn't have to buy and they would make furniture out of those ah those pieces, those cast off pieces. So our students, ah our student pastors learn to be carpenters.
00:36:36
Speaker
And so that kind of made them bivocational, gave them a skill that they could do ah in the process of ah being a pastor. And part of the reason for upping the pastoral school up to university level is that they had a degree that enabled them to be able to teach in the public schools. Whereas just a pastoral degree did not allow them to do that, only allowed them to be a pastor.
00:37:01
Speaker
So it made them bivocational in the sense that they could be not only pastors, but also teachers, and hopefully have some hands-on skills that they acquired at Chicago when they went back. so but and I want to ask you a very kind of forthright question, which is,
00:37:20
Speaker
um How best for a Westerner, for example, or someone from outside of the culture to try to help people and support people who are at the bottom rungs of society, right? And aren't getting any help or leg ups from their own government or their own culture and.
00:37:39
Speaker
um How best to do that in a way that is not white savior, right? We're not just coming in and making everything better because the West knows how to do it better. How best to manage that? you've You've been living that out in in real life. And I think you've probably seen a lot of people who had somewhat good intentions, but also very maybe misguided ideas of what that looked like. Can you talk about that just for a minute? Help us understand that. Yeah.
00:38:09
Speaker
ah I think that um education, like David said, is ah is a real key component. And ah they don't, like around the Congo now with the economics so bad, they don't have the resources or the possibilities to be able to earn any money for tuition fees, which aren't all that expensive.
00:38:34
Speaker
But ah we in the West can help out with tuition, with education, helping people to be able to go to school and earn degrees that would be able to help them.
00:38:46
Speaker
um you know And the Woodmizer, the lumber mill machine was also a tremendous way that churches in America contributed a resource that allowed people to earn their own living.
00:39:02
Speaker
It wasn't just handing them out money, but providing a resource. And so things like sewing machines or generators, that sort of thing can help people to be able to make a living on their own. My wife was really big in training women how to sew. And and ah a good tailor can can do really well out there making making clothes for people.
00:39:29
Speaker
but ah a tailor needs a sewing machine, for example. ah David helped them out with getting cattle. you know so so You couldn't get a loan to buy a cow, but if we would help them to be able to buy a cow, then then in in theory, they would be able to to build up a herd. and And that's one way that people are making it is by having animals, livestock, but you need that initial investment in getting that sort of thing. Let's start with the, this song of the day is, you know, you had Sunday and went to the church and then the song of the day, right? This is one of the days that you are most looking forward to and excited about. Badeen, in just, let's say under a minute, under a minute and a half,
00:40:26
Speaker
um You've been to a lot of sawmills already in the States, right? Big, massive sawmills. So what was it like? How different was it? What was the setting? And then what was is the day looking like as as the guys are actually using the saw? How are they using it? And obviously, I mean, I i help a missionary with websites and things like that in Liberia, and they had to just shut down their sawmill project because of corruption and and many other things. So it is not a foregone conclusion that if you get a sawmill to someplace that needs it, that it's going to be used the way that we hope, right? So that this LT-15 is actually on that riverbank and running and producing lumber is a miracle in and of itself.
00:41:14
Speaker
Okay, I'll happy to walk you through in a minute. First, you need to know that Glenn flew supplies and specifically he's been carrying a box all the way from his home through the airports through all the crazy and he brought a box that had top blades in it into the village man like that's a freaking journey.
00:41:35
Speaker
And so then we got shots of him carrying it on his head and getting it out there. um That's for context. But look, we get down to the river and the guys are working on us reassembling when we got there. There's cool shots that I got of the sawmill on day one was kind of sitting over by the blue container. And I got some really cool photos of them. You can show those now. And then there's um They, for whatever reason, disassembled, oh, not for whatever reason. The log was so heavy and the the river is so dry that we couldn't float the log to the sawmill. So we disassembled the portable sawmill and moved it towards the log, which is wild because, like you say, Jake, usually you have these giant loaders who grab an entire truckload of
00:42:21
Speaker
logs in one fell swoop, put it where they want it, and then, you know, process them through the mill. So we reassembled the mill on the sandbar, where usually, Glenn, you said during wet season, that would be like well above our heads in terms of we'd be standing way underwater. So Jake, David needs to share what he does in the States for his work because When we got down to the riverbank, David's like involved with all the mechanics and like the the setting it up. And I was kind of like, here's a key moment for me, Jake. I walk up to the sawmill and I see one of the locals walking towards us or to work towards David carrying half a spark plug. And I'm like, that's not good. That means the other half is probably stuck in the block.
00:43:08
Speaker
and I don't know if we have any more spark plugs to begin with. yes so part for david t jack What was the state of the Somme when you were in it? and you're you're a me mechanicalt You're a mechanically inclined individual, it sounds like. Yeah, ah ah currently I work for GE Aerospace. ah helping assemble what they call a GNX, which is a ah ah jet engine for, I actually flew on the 787-10 coming back from Brussels of newik Newark. I had the presence of mind to take the tail number of the aircraft. When I got to work, they were able to look up through the paperwork and I helped build the two engines that were powering that airplane across the Atlantic. But,
00:43:54
Speaker
ah on the sawmill, they pretty much know how to maintain it. But there's some things that they they haven't had any official training mechanically. So for instance, they needed to change the oil filter.
00:44:14
Speaker
They didn't have tools to do that. But I do a lot of my own work at home, too, on my cars. So I showed them how to get a Phillips screwdriver. Pardon? He said, oh, do you now? you just You don't just build jet engines. You also do stuff at home?
00:44:28
Speaker
Yeah. right And by the way, just because I am a mechanic doesn't mean I can just look at a broken machine and fix it. You know, it rags me to death that people think a mechanic can just walk up to anything and fix it because there's a lot more to stuff than just being able to be clairvoyant or something. But anyway, ah I should amount a pound of Phillips screwdriver through the housing of an oil filter and then spin it off because I don't have the tooling.
00:44:54
Speaker
and they were trying to drain the oil and they didn't realize that it was the the filler cap is on the end of a ah hose and they were trying to turn the cap off and the whole hose was spinning on the fit on the other end. So I showed them you put a backup wrench on and but and simple stuff like that just because I've never had any experience with that. It's not rocket science.
00:45:18
Speaker
ah they ah Glenn brought new parts for the wood miser. And one of them was a spark plug, which ah they tried to put in and they broke it because I don't think they were holding the socket straight on the wrench. It was like sideways and it broke the porcelain on it.
00:45:37
Speaker
So, but DM, all I did is grab the old spark plug, look it over, say, well, this looks good. I mean, it's not new, but it should function. Just put this back in and this time, make sure you go straight in with a socket so you don't break this one.
00:45:51
Speaker
and they they they but by the way when they when they took out the old spark plug part of it I think fell into the cylinder because I don't know if pictures of that but because Val was trying to help them with something he had to try to fish out this little piece that was inside but eventually got it out and ah got everything together and it ran so Well, Glenn, I was just looking at you guys, David, and once I saw saw like this craziness happening, Jake, I was like, we might not get footage of us cutting any lumber, and I need to go to clear my head. So I took my long lens on my camera.
00:46:30
Speaker
And I just like walked away as far as I could on the sandbar and I was just getting pictures from afar because I was just like What is happening right now, man? Like this dude's holding an oil filter with the with the hole in it This guy's walking around with half a spark plug They're like pulling it with a rope like I'm like and I saw two guys bring the actual engine over and put it on the frame mind you sound like I so david yes like i just was like it's gonna be a miracle if this thing turns over and starts running so i just walked away and was taking pictures really cool pictures i gotta say like from afar with a long zoom lens but i was a little bit afraid a little bit skeptical
00:47:09
Speaker
i've I've had several instances going to film sawmills in Italy, in Ukraine, in the Philippines, where what I expected and what I was expecting to film was not what I found. And in some cases, a whole trip for nothing. Yeah, so I can identify with that feeling, Vadim. So when you get the sawmill running, the the blades go on, the new fresh blades, right?
00:47:37
Speaker
So Jake, yeah, so there's a group of guys working on, and you'll see this in the footage, there's a group of guys working on, with David, getting the the getting the engine to work, and there's now a group of guys pushing the log to position it so that it's ready to cut. And that's where the story unfolds, where I had David, well not David, Nathan was sharing, like we're literally doing all this engine stuff, and here comes,
00:48:05
Speaker
Here comes Nathan floating down this big white guy, floating down these logs down the river. And it's the Wamba river, man. Uh, I guess, Glenn, for whatever reason, they're kind of afraid to swim. Can you explain that? Like like Nathan's like, just like a hero with one shoe coming into towards us.
00:48:25
Speaker
Yeah, there are a lot of bad things and it could be a lot of bad things in the river, but people, people don't, uh, people don't know how to swim either. There's one tribe that knows how to swim, but the other tribe doesn't. um oh um After you guys left, I got a picture of the crocodile that they that they caught in the Wamba River. I'll send that to you guys. Okay, hold up. I knew there was snakes and lions and stuff. I didn't know there was a gator in the water where I was swimming. A crocodile.
00:48:56
Speaker
Crocodile. Well, I've got gators here in Florida, so a crocodile there, yeah? I mean, how big was it, Glenn? Like, baby? or No skinny dipping in the longer river again, okay? ah ah I'll send you a picture. It was ah it was massive.
00:49:12
Speaker
Can I just enter jump in here a second? When I was growing up, I was quite the outdoors kid. I used to go out in the jungles and the in the on the river camping. And the favorite place we used to go is down, this is what we call the three islands camping. And I i never i knew there was crocodiles in the river, but I never thought, I mean, Glenn glenn will tell you that they're supposed to just be little pygmy crocodiles.
00:49:40
Speaker
And I never thought about, I heard them chirping out in the in the swamp and whatnot, but they told us, we went camping, by the way, after you guys left. And they were telling us that down at three islands, a fisherman caught this crocodile in his net. It was a big, heavy net. the The crocodile drowned because it got tangled in the net. And when they pulled it in, it was just massive.
00:50:05
Speaker
And they of course, they eat everything that they any any animal they'll eat. so they skinned this But they skinned it and gave the skin to the chief of King Bhuma. But I'm thinking this thing was, the way they described it was massive. And here I've been swimming in this river for years, not worried about it. After I heard that story, I didn't want to go on the river again. Well, I'm thinking back in a shock because i didn't i didn't thought I didn't think that that was like today. I thought that was you know your childhood.
00:50:34
Speaker
these gait or granals? I think what it was is the crocodiles thought this little six-year-old running around and swimming must know something we don't, so we're going to leave them alone.
00:50:47
Speaker
like the audacity. So Vadim, quickly we're trying to kind of wrap up the song a little bit. Yeah. So you guys got saw boards coming off logs. Yeah. yeah yeah I mean mean, look, once the thing fired cranked up and and like turned over and started running miracles. And then from there a couple hours later,
00:51:07
Speaker
the locals glen i observed glen because glen was not and david you guys were helping but you weren't telling them what to do which is profound to me jake because that means that what glen did originally how many uh crews you know later these guys train themselves and it's sustainable right that's the ultimate goal of missions is not to hold control over whatever a sawmill it's to teach them and give it to them and that's the whole way through Jake all of these days I was just blown away with Glenn is just here to observe but they're already doing it and doing it while they're making boards and could be improved sure but like sure wow so let's move to the kimbuma David maybe you could share we finished breakfast and we're on our way to kimbuma how do we get there
00:51:59
Speaker
First of all, i wasn't I didn't know I was going to Kimbuma that day until the day before. I thought Glenn was going to take you. So as I was kind of surprised I was going. But ah then Glenn says, well, you're a child of Kimbuma. And I said, what? Well, it's because Pastor Joseph lives at Kimbuma along with his family. And when I was growing up, he I don't know how much time we have, but he came to my parents when they he was When his first child was born, his wife had died in childbirth and the child was starving because none of the women were lactating in the village. And my parents gave him some food for the child. And then when that was used up, he came back to ask for more. And they said, this is, I'm just from what my parents told me. They said.
00:52:50
Speaker
We're Christians, we believe people who are able bodied should work for their for their living. So we wanna help you with your child, but we'd like you to come work for us and we'll also provide you a salary. And so he agreed to that. And the child grew up to ah be a healthy woman, lives in Kinshasa now. ah But when I became probably my 12, 11, 12, 13 years old, I was starting to go out and explore ah around Kekango.
00:53:19
Speaker
And one day I came back and bragged to my parents that I i swam from a sandbar across the Wamba and then back again with some Congolese friends. And i was so I was real proud that I'd been able to do that. Because as you know, the current can be very swift. And ah I think it was Bob Smith who was another missionary who happened to be visiting. And he said to them, you know, there are crocodiles on that river. That was kind of a stupid thing for him to do.
00:53:49
Speaker
And the next thing you knew, no, they brought me out to talk with them. And at the time it was just Tata Joseph, which is Mr. Joseph was standing there and they told me in his language that I could still go out and camp and explore and whatnot, but he was going to go with me to keep me out of trouble. He's a, he's a teke, which are the water people. And, uh,
00:54:16
Speaker
I didn't want to do it because I didn't want i didn't need a babysitter, but ah that was the conditions. that Unless he's with you all the time, you're not going anywhere. and ah We became real close friends. and he be he'll be Like I said before, he's like a mentor. He showed me how to canoe, to fish, how to go out in the jungle and be careful of things and be observant. and and It was very special.
00:54:42
Speaker
And then when we came back, my wife and I in 2013, and I was visiting with him, ah one of his children told me that, ah you know, your your parents told you to obey our father when he told you to do stuff. And our father has told us to obey you if you ask us to do something. That's when I lost it in front of the camera.
00:55:08
Speaker
But we're telling you that story because it's emotional. It's the bond. So anyway, I don't know if that's what you wanted me to talk about. Perfect. And then we entered the village of Kimbuma. And for context, now looking back, I'm realizing that, wow, I mean, Jake, I don't know how to describe this to you, but what happened in the short number of days that we were there, our crew was there from Koval.
00:55:38
Speaker
It's absolutely insane. Like you would need a large team of producers and executives and directors and scriptwriters to capture all of the content that we got in such a jam-packed schedule. We arrive and the story unfolds. David, just explain. We ate with the chief. We went to the spring. We saw the church. Like so much happened, Jake, that like I can think quick, man, but like it was just happening.
00:56:09
Speaker
So David, can you give us some context for kind of how that day went a bit and some of the, uh, some of the impact that Vadim was talking about? And then we'll probably try to wrap up this particular conversation with the Kumbuma as kind of a climax and knowing also that Vadim and his team are working on going through eight terabytes of footage and bringing the story to life and your guide <unk>n' story i know if a dean wants to do another one with featuring Rita and her work and her impact that she's told me about. So David, can you give us a little bit more about what was the significance of of these events that happened in this village and some of the needs there and some of the passions and desires of your heart? Well, ah
00:57:01
Speaker
Just a side note, yeah but Diem has kind of mentioned that he was, I think he was overwhelmed when he got there. His original idea of what the film would be like kept changing. So we were on the way to Kimbuma. He says to me, hey, you think they could chop a tree down for us? Or do they have a tree that just chopped down? And I was kind of irritated with him because I was thinking,
00:57:25
Speaker
I don't know if I said this to him or not, but you should have asked this a couple days ago, so we were to give them time to do something, not when we're already there. But I brought up to the the guys from Kimbuma as we were going across the river.
00:57:40
Speaker
And ah so they were talking about it, I think, while we were visiting Kimboma. We got to Kimboma. By the way, Nathan went ahead of us. I'm not sure why he's got separated from us, but we got to Kimboma and we couldn't find Nathan. Well, for some reason, and the chief of Kimboma has taken a liking to Nathan because when we got there, we found out some people had come and gotten Nathan and taken him to the chief's house and they were hanging out.
00:58:11
Speaker
And they went to get him once we got to Kimboma to join our group again. And yeah we met Pastor Joseph and then we went to ah into a mud hut and we had some lunch. Badim was there, Val, Nathan, I, Pastor Joseph. And then Badim kept asking, can we go see this? Can we do that? and We ended up going to the, we saw their their their grade school and met the teacher.
00:58:41
Speaker
And then we went to the church, which I think you've seen pictures of, and and saw the inside of the church. And there was a big, big truck in the village, which is unusual, but it was there to pick up ah corn and maniac to take back to the city. That's how they make some of their money. And then ah you guys went off to see the spring where they get, they don't have running water in the village, obviously. They're mud huts.
00:59:08
Speaker
So they go down in the valley to get water and bring up in buckets. And while you were gone, I flew the drone around King Bulma and took some ah movies of that. And the kids all just love those drones. So they were all hanging out with me, watching what was going on. And then, oh, when we got when you guys got back, of course, we got the the pictures of Adim doing gymnastics on the ah on the on the bars up on the top of the truck, the cage with the with the driver. That was just spontaneous. you know we We as truck drivers, we didn't know, we never met him before, but he was acting like he's their next door neighbor or something. in us
00:59:49
Speaker
And oh then got done with when we finished with Kimbuma, the guys said, we got some trees. They were first going to take us upstream to look at some a tree that had been cut. But then they said, well, we could actually see one if we go downstream, which is toward Chicago. So we ah we got in two canoes and headed down river. And first, and this was not what I had expected, we we we went off into the jungle and they had cut a big tree down. and Cut it into four pieces and we're making dugout canoes out of them. Two of the sections had already been made into canoes and been put in the river. And that was totally ah spontaneous. And then we went a little further down and we we've found the tree that Vadim wanted to see that was going to end up being milled into boards.
01:00:39
Speaker
And then used, well we went on to Kekango, you stayed because you and ah Val wanted to have the, uh, when the sun is just setting, what are they, the golden hour, I think they call it. You want to take it during the golden hour. And I think you had Gaylor, which is one of Tatirozef's, uh, pastor Joseph's sons starring in that. And, uh,
01:01:00
Speaker
ah I wasn't there when all that went down. So kind of to wrap this up for today, if there's three things I'd like to do, which is kind of to have Glenn summarize what he what how the trip went from his perspective as being your guide and taking you back. Also, I'd like Vadim to tell us I know you have big plans for what is coming next from all this, but I'd like you to tell the listeners what to expect next, the next thing to expect. Not the things coming after, but just the next thing. And then I would also like each of you quickly just to say, for listeners, why should we care about what's happening in Keykong with a sawmill or a school or a hospital?
01:01:50
Speaker
and and the bigger story that we need to keep in mind about. how the wood world connects all of us worldwide, right? In the US, we have this very developed forestry industry and all this stuff, but forestry is very much applicable and impacts people in key Congo here in Southeast Asia, right? As we try to take care of our God-given natural resources and use it to betterment of his children, right? Jake, I think, I apologize here, but I would ask that we take
01:02:25
Speaker
10 minutes and finish the hospital day to day because I'm going to have a crazy travel schedule and so will Glenn and David. We just won't be able to connect together. I would suggest that we take the 10 minutes, go through the hospital a bit and then on our way out then we just finish the episode and just be done with it.
01:02:45
Speaker
Um, okay. So we wrap the kimbuma day. We get the shots that we need to create an opening sequence. We get back to the village, have dinner the next day. This is now the hospital day. Um, Glenn, give us some context about why is the hospital, as you said, is one of the top three things important to a mission or to that mission specifically. Yeah. I think when you have young converts, um,
01:03:13
Speaker
yeah the The fear is that they will go back to their sorcery, ah go back to their traditional beliefs. um So when they get sick, they would go back to the witch doctor or something like that. And so missions always went hand in hand with medical, so that we would provide ah ah medical care, not only look out for the spiritual,
01:03:40
Speaker
but also look out for the physical aspect of the individuals. And so missions has always associated ah doctors along with evangelists and and church workers. And so Kekongo was a model of that. ah The first missionaries that came to Kekongo built a thatched house that doubled as a medical dispensary.
01:04:10
Speaker
And it just grew from there then. ah There was a medical dispensary and then they brought in a missionary nurse and then later a missionary doctor and a hospital was built. And and so now you have a um ah medical infrastructure around Kekongo so that when people get sick, they come to the church center and they have a chaplain and they pray and they deal with their their physical issues and don't have to revert back to sorcery and finding out who the witch is and start burning down houses and and making false accusations about but people. So the medical and education and the church all go hand in hand and have traditionally been that way.
01:04:58
Speaker
Jake, so this is another profound moment. Because I'm telling you, like it would take an army of Hollywood people to plan out this trip. Glenn, when We arrived at the hospital. Dr. Daniel was in charge showing us and we got invited by their staff. I want to quickly skip to the moment that I didn't even plan for Jake. We didn't expect the main character who was chopping that tree down the day before at Kimbuma is Pastor Joseph's son, Gaylor, that David just mentioned. Gaylor's older brother
01:05:38
Speaker
almost died the days we were there because of an appendix. And the crazy thing is Gaylord was visiting his brother wearing the same clothing that he was chopping the tree down from the day before. Unstaged, unscripted, unplanned. Glenn, unpack that for me. What what was Gaylord? Like, theoretically, it makes sense. Just walk me through what we saw with Gaylord's older brother and make sense of it, please.
01:06:06
Speaker
Well, Galer, we arrived at the hospital thinking that this was gonna be just an impersonal a visit to the hospital, but it turned out to be way more personal because the the guy that we had been with, ah his brother ah had just had surgery and without the surgery, he would have died. And so here we were in the hospital that that saved his life. And providentially, there was a doctor who
01:06:37
Speaker
Has brought his family to kikongo where the doctor could have been making a living in the city but chose to live in a rural setting and Hardly getting paid at all because the the patients coming in ah Don't have any funds to to pay their medical fees with and so you have this dedicated doctor Who's saving people's lives every day? with very little Financial renumeration for for what he's doing. So we saw the importance of the of the hospital very in a very personal way, having Gaylor's brother there. Yeah. And I mean, Glenn, context, I heard there's
01:07:21
Speaker
No electricity right now. The generator that's in the back of the top of the hill is broken. There's no electricity. They're still doing surgeries, saving Gaylord's older brother's life while we were there is profound. Like that's unscripted. That cannot just even happen. And yet it did. And then we saw the surgery facility, the sterilization unit that they used to like burn wood, Jake, burn wood.
01:07:44
Speaker
so boil this thing that looks like a giant kettle with all this stuff and then that sterilizes the equipment with no electricity in the Congo and there's photos of that. I'm just looking into this pot and it's just like what is happening right now like wood again provides the heating energy to Realize equipment there's babies born there's a way that they're getting water supplied This was the only place in the village where I saw a faucet or like a hose spigot looking thing where they were refilling water from a big cistern that we've went into or Jake you can fill all us in later, but
01:08:17
Speaker
I mean, we're talking with Gayler, we're talking with ah Dr. Daniel and his staff. There was like so much content that you can go back and reference. And then there's a conversation that happens with the administrator, the main doctor, myself, Gayler, and you, Glenn. What were we talking about at the top of the hill? If you remember, just kind of summarize summarize what what we saw and experienced the whole day, I guess.
01:08:42
Speaker
um that I'm not sure what you were referring to the top of the hill. The generator? Well, we were by the generator. There was two conversations that Jake, you can go back and look for that give a lot of context to this conversation. But Glenn, we were by the cell phone tower at the top of the hill near the generator. And we had conversations. I believe it was about Gaylord because he's in my pictures I'm looking at here. And then we walked down the to the middle of the hospital under the cover and sitting down, we talked deeper about The hospital, I mean, just kind of summarize quickly, why is the hospital important? Is it still functional? Did you expect it to be functional when we arrived?
01:09:21
Speaker
um When I left ah three years ago, there was a real conflict in the hospital because the last doctor had been run out for corruption or something like that. And so I didn't know if we would have even have a doctor there or not.
01:09:41
Speaker
um But one of the missionaries is the medical coordinator for all of the Baptist hospitals. And she assured me that yes, at Kekango, when we go there, there will be a doctor. So we were pleasantly surprised that that we would have a doctor. And that was it reassuring to me, having all these visitors, these expatriate visitors, that that there would be some sort of medical care while we were visiting at Kekango.
01:10:08
Speaker
but ah but also think how reassuring it is for the villagers to have, they they would walk you know all day or multiple days to come to the hospital and to find out that there is no doctor, how disappointing that would be, but how encouraging it is to know that yes, there is a doctor on duty and Kekongo has has trained medical personnel. And in fact, there's even a nursing school right there at Kekongo. So some of the people that we met with on that first day around that big room were some of the nurses that had been trained at Kekongo. Others who are trained there are in the villages. When Vadim talks about the 30 villages,
01:10:53
Speaker
there There are way more than 30 villages around, but there are 30 villages that have a church and schools and and a medical dispensary. That's what makes a a church center.
01:11:05
Speaker
And so the hospital there furnishes nurses who work in the villages who would examine a patient and say, we can treat you here in the village, or if it surpasses their skill or expertise, then they would have the competence to say, okay, you need to go to Kekongo. And so it'd be a triage system that would send patients to Turkey Congo. And there's no ambulance. There's no ambulance. No ambulance. So you would have your walking wounded or else someone would be strapped onto a motorcycle and taken to key Congo by motorcycle. Glenn, water is quite critical for a hospital to function, to wash out wounds, to do all kinds of things. Where did the water come from for the hospital?
01:11:59
Speaker
can't run a hospital without water. And so back even in the early days, there's a hydraulic ram system that pumps water up to the cisterns. So they fill up a cistern that then provides the head for providing water for those spigots. And there's a forest right there next to the station called Nfin de Nsiku, which means the the the protected forest. And so you have this watershed that's being protected so that the water continues to run. And one of the disappointing aspects of going there was finding that the the forest had been burned and there was even people that were trying to plant fields in and that area. So one of our contributions was to ah encourage the hospital
01:12:57
Speaker
that it's their role to protect that that that watershed, that forested area, because we don't want the water to run dry. We don't want the water to get to to get polluted. So that was one of the significant contributions that we made and unwittingly was encouraging the hospital to make sure that that place is protected.
01:13:20
Speaker
Glenn, and I think that's appropriate. We've got a lot of conversation for Jake to go back to look at all the things that happen at the hospital. It's very encouraging that that hospital is functional today. And I think that the the last key key thing we talked about there is that we already touched on it, but the university, and and Glenn, with that theme of what you were just saying, like we wanted to encourage them, you you asked me to speak at the university. I thought it was going to be a small group. It turned out to be a significant group. On the last day when we woke up,
01:13:47
Speaker
ah You translated into French, I think, was it, Glenn? My message for the wood world globally through this project, Jake, is that God is good. Wood is good. And key Congo, missions like key Congo are really good. And so, Glenn, could you summarize, I guess, why why and what was the message that we were trying to get across there?
01:14:14
Speaker
So at the university, we're training not just pastors, but other professionals in different fields, ah such as French, such as computer science. So so these will be the leaders in ah in the rural community. And the first day that we were there, we were interrupted in our filming because the the government official had arrived.
01:14:42
Speaker
and was controlling who were these foreigners who were coming into his is territory. And what surprised me was that the government chief, the official who wait was there to meet us, was our former student who had just graduated from the university. And and so these officials who had been impersonal, who were harassing us in the past,
01:15:11
Speaker
Now the chief is is our own graduate, who we whom we had worked with in the church. He was from Kindundu, which is a village that's across the valley there. We'd worked with him as a lay leader in the church. And then as a student,
01:15:28
Speaker
and and then became the the political administrator of ah of the area. That was a profound moment to me that the the government official wasn't somebody that we needed to be afraid of, but was somebody that we can trust and someone who we'd worked with ah in the past and because of the university ah had gotten this authority given to him.
01:15:54
Speaker
And he's not the only one thats that's given these government positions. There's another guy that who is also in ah in a high government official. So it just shows the value of the university and in raising up leaders who have been at Kikango, who have heard the gospel, who have heard about taking care of the environment,
01:16:17
Speaker
ah who who are trying to manage the country in in a way that's not contributing to the corruption and and just selfishness, but a way that's looking out for the whole the whole community. So that that was a profound moment to me that our graduate was was the chief that we had formally been afraid of and no longer need to be afraid of him because he's our colleague. That is incredible. And so the university therefore makes a big impact And that is why he said education is one of the key things you want the people to learn how to read fundamentally, but also to be able to grow. To be, to be leaders, that's to be fast to leaders in the community. And now that's actually significant because it's not just to get some kind of education. They actually are able to get some kind of diploma and sort of certificate and that gives, that sets them up for personal professional success. Yes. Very much so. Yeah.
01:17:12
Speaker
Okay, Jake, you can find all this content in all of our content. I'd like to point out, you asked, what's next? Well, at the end of, after I was able to give a presentation, or oh I'm not even sure what you call it, preaching, Glenn, I mean, you, I brought this to this conversation. Glenn approached me afterwards and gave me this little envelope of, it's just a piece of paper that's folded. And it's profound to me, Jake, because in here,
01:17:38
Speaker
Uh, look, there's these Congo Franks that they gave me. And, um, so there was, it was a gift. And so what I realized is several things. One is God is good to me. You know, like I didn't expect anything. And, and, and they, they said it's a gift for preaching from Unibok right on the envelope. And there's a Bible verse on it, Galatians. It says Galate.
01:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, galate. That's what they call the gift to the to the speaker to the preacher. And they said, to Vadimah, they added an A at the end of my name. They don't like my my name. they added all All African words end in a vowel. You can't have an African word that ends in a consonant. So Vadim becomes Vadimah.
01:18:31
Speaker
ah I usually just introduce myself as V going forward. I just say, hey, my name is Vadim, but I just go by V. See, conveniently I wore a shirt that has a V on it right there. But anyways, the funny thing, no, it wasn't funny. It was profound that yeah Jake that I received this gift and and it's symbolic to me more than it is, of course, the money value of ah it But ah Glenn, what happened next, and this ties into Jake, what I see as the future is there needs to be another trip because we didn't touch on so many things or so much depth to the story. And Glenn, one of those things that I believe is your wife was missing. rita Read a chapter. There was a building that had read a chapter and written all over it. yeah And Glenn, then touch on why was the library profound to you? In fact, Jake, there weren't many moments.
01:19:23
Speaker
There was one particular moment where Glenn teared up and got emotional. And that was when we entered the library. Glenn, what was that moment for you like? Well, Rita, you know, she is skilled in so many ways. And um not only did she work with the women, the pastor's wives and the church, the the women of the of the church, but she was also set up the library.
01:19:52
Speaker
and took this cluster of oh of old books and established, classified them according to the Dewey Decimal system and arranged them in such an aesthetic way. And we have arguably the best library in the country.
01:20:13
Speaker
um just from books that she accumulated and arranged and structured it so that you could come and work and there was a librarian and the the the the books were computerized, a librarian who would get the books that people would be interested in and register them, and and so it's controlled. Whereas other libraries in the in the Congo, ah the books just disappear. But when I walked into that library after three years,
01:20:43
Speaker
it was exactly the same as the way Rita left it. It was so well taken care of and we had supported the guy who had been who we had left in charge of the library and that was profound to me because they had valued the resource that they had and it was still being used and I just saw Rita all over that that library her her tender care in putting up the the decorations and the cloth and the arrangement and all that was so aesthetically done and so so valued and and taken care of. That's why that was so profound. What is just the next thing that people should it be expecting? There's other things, but with this podcast, I want them to know, okay, within a couple months, I would be expecting to see what.
01:21:37
Speaker
okay well The next steps, I have it actually written down, so I'll just read you what I have written down. There will be a landing page and a website that we will put up to really explain the tent maker movement is what I'm calling it now. It's no longer just a film project. that's no longer I mean, there's literally more behind what I'm seeing. So we're were we've got a team working here putting together ah ah a little website.
01:22:06
Speaker
We will on that website show photography of our trip. Jake, you and the people that are working on, you're working on a vlog for us on YouTube. I think that's one of the key things. There is gonna be a, um of all the footage that we shot professionally,
01:22:24
Speaker
Uh, that's going to be a pilot is what we're expecting it to be. And then we're also behind the scenes working on a pitch deck because actually this whole project or the filming of what we saw, I believe is just a pilot to a docu-series, a documentary series of, of, uh, you know, films, it could be one documentary film.
01:22:49
Speaker
um There's a lot of ways it could be sliced and diced. So we're gonna, as we're digging into the footage, we will be evaluating what's the appropriate route to take. ah We believe that we could bring a tremendous value for investors. If we were to go that route, it's possible to go um in so many different directions with this project, Jake. And right now it's just ah at the if it's infancy stage.
01:23:16
Speaker
Right. So there's a lot of interesting ideas and plans of taking this to the next level, but at the same time for the casual viewer who's really inspired by this conversation and can't wait to see all this footage. This pilot might be available online in a few months or what do you think?
01:23:36
Speaker
Yeah, it kind of depends on which route we take. We want to enter European film festivals. We want to enter the United States film festivals in in Canada. So it depends. Some of those film festivals require us to show that pilot or this piece premier it at one of these specifically events. So I would say the vlog should be available on YouTube soon.
01:23:58
Speaker
um And the the whole film will it'll take some time. There's there's a lot to unpack there. There's a lot to do. I think that eventually Glenn, if you and Rita go out to or start planning the next trip to the Congo, ah please let us know because we'd like to send another crew with you out there, potentially. So there's There's a lot, Jake, but specifically watch out for a vlog on YouTube. So subscribe to our YouTube channel and subscribe because then that way you'll get notifications when we post stuff and watch out for the vlog. I don't know what we're going to call it yet, but it's this Tentmaker Congo Africa.
01:24:41
Speaker
boots on the ground and you'll see in it the travels to and from, you'll see the weeds of the craziness that unfolds there. There's moments on there that are really profound that you'll see and and an experience for yourself. Well,
01:24:57
Speaker
David, thank you for being on the call today. Glenn, of course, you you took a chance to to try to bring a camera crew to the Congo. And what what would you both say in a few words? How do you feel after this trip, um having had a camera crew with um some passionate people along?
01:25:23
Speaker
Right? what what how do you feel what What were some of the fears at the beginning of taking this crew with you and then how do you feel like at the end, what were some of your thoughts there? Yeah, I was ah fearful about so openly having a camera crew. In fact, someone who had recently filmed for a church out there it told me how they'd been questioned so much at at the airports Uh, in fact, when Val and I arrived at the airport, uh, Val was, well, we were going through the airport and he was right behind me. And all of a sudden I looked back and he wasn't there. And so I had to retrace my steps and he was in a, in a government office and they said, you've got camera equipment. You know, what, what are you here for? And they were, they were getting ready to interrogate him. But.
01:26:22
Speaker
I went into the the language the local language and I just said, I'm a missionary and we're getting ready to celebrate 100 years of missionary work in Congo and they're here to celebrate that with me. And and and that defused the situation and I even was ready to hand the guy $10 as we walked out of the office and he wouldn't take it. He wouldn't take it.
01:26:51
Speaker
and that never have, as an official, refused to take money. You know, it was it was obviously a gift. It wasn't corruption. I wasn't bribing him beforehand to let the stuff. But we had already been released, and he wouldn't take it. He saw the value of of what we were what we were intending to do. And then, ah so that was Kinshasa, but at it was It felt very comfortable having the camera crew there to to to film that. But to me, it was just such an honor you know to be able to go back after three years and having these guys ah really interested, a personal interest in in my story, in in in my returning. And um I'm hoping that the the the video isn't about me.
01:27:47
Speaker
But it was an honor to have these guys along with me. It was an honor for me in front of Kekongo to be able to bring four other guys with me to say, we validate Kekongo. We validate this place. You guys are special. You guys are important. And to prove that you're important, here are these filmmakers who are coming to film what's going on here.
01:28:15
Speaker
to show that they are special. yeah David, what were your what were your thoughts and maybe your reservations of having a bunch of trigger happy camera guys coming along to the Congo? It was similar to Glenn's when it came to the how are the officials going to look at us bringing cameras in and I always wear I have a drone that I bring a Cheap drone that I take movies with it. I get nervous just bringing that in and yet it all went smoothly and ah It was fun to watch but Dean and Val and
01:28:58
Speaker
Every day they were reinventing what they wanted to do and then Val was coming up with different ways to film and and take pictures. and But one thing i slightly off I'd like to bring up is i I always bring a lot of stuff with me and then i some stuff is already intentional gifts and other things I'm going to just leave with people who need it.
01:29:27
Speaker
And I had brought a, for my personal use, a mag flashlight, which is like a high-end aluminum case flashlight. the The beam can be focused out or narrowed in at LED light, very bright. And by the end of the trip, I still had it in my person because it didn't feel like the right person had needed it.
01:29:52
Speaker
and The day before we were going to leave, I ran into the doctor from the hospital, who I knew who he was, but I'd never actually talked with him. And he wanted to know how I was doing. I was on a path in Akikango. I said, well, I've got a cough and I've got ear infections. I'm not feeling well. And I'm kind of worried about how my trip back to the States is going to go.
Unexpected Gifts and Reflections
01:30:15
Speaker
He says, oh, OK. I'm going to come over tonight with some medicine.
01:30:21
Speaker
And that night it was dark, obviously. He comes up to the house. He's using his cell phone light as a flashlight to find his way. And he comes in. He's got a bunch of medication. He's very, you know, take this much tonight and this much tomorrow and so on and so forth.
01:30:41
Speaker
But it was I had been praying. I mean, it sounds it sounds so so simple. like You guys might not think it's a big deal, but God, am I supposed to just bring this mag light home with me? That's what I was thinking the whole last couple days.
01:30:55
Speaker
When I saw him walk up to the door using his cell phone light as a flashlight, and this is the doctor, and he probably is using this when he goes to people's homes when they're sick at night to try to see what's going on, and he is the guy. He is the guy. And I showed him the mag light, and I showed him how to focus it, and it is this blindingly bright, bright And I said, this is for you. And I showed him there's a spare bulb in the back end and it just takes two D cell batteries. And he was very grateful. And so it was like, I understood and he understood, you know, they don't have electricity. And this simple thing was, this is the guy God wanted me to give this light to is what I'm trying to say. And you guys may think that's LBS, but to me,
01:31:51
Speaker
I didn't know, I'd given so much other stuff away. And this is like, it's not a cheap flashlight. Am I supposed to bring it home or not? And yet last night, here it is. This is for you. So that, like the cap, the trip off for me, that was the, that was it. It was at that point, I'm done. I'm ready to go home. Well, lots of good things to come. Thanks for all the,
01:32:20
Speaker
the stories and we could have made this easily into an eight hour. And maybe we will, maybe this will just be the first of a series. So thank you guys.