The past couple of months I have had the privilege of attending the International Protestant Church of Kinshasa (IPCK). They are one of the few churches here in Kinshasa that hosts an English service every week. I have attended Easter sunrise service over the mighty Congo river with them. As well as meeting some awesome people who are passionate about what they are doing here.

This morning I experienced a time that will stick as a wonderful memory from IPCK. The choir consists of mostly local people and a few expats,,, this morning in service they performed a song as they always do. The difference this morning was that this song was a native Congolese song sang in Swahili and another language I can not pronounce. The beat of the music and the swaying of the choir members moved through everyone in the building. There was no possible way to keep from tapping your toes and clapping along. The words of the song said something like "I have looked for Jesus and here I have found him". It was awesome to see people from Congo, America, England, S. Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Canada, and many others singing along together.

And now for a complete extreme to the great experience, a couple weeks ago I was out at the airport helping clean up the airplanes on a day off from flying. We all decided to go back to the office for lunch but realized there were about 6 of us with two cars and only one driver. (Airserv provides drivers to take us virtually anywhere, its a great help) Having been here a couple of months I knew the way home well and volunteered to drive. No big deal. It would be myself and our new mechanic who only had 3 days of Congo life.
About half way home we came to a corner with about 5 traffic cops standing around. One stepped into the road and motioned for me to stop so he could let the opposing traffic proceed. I had my blinker on to turn right and as I came to a stop my steering wheel went straight,,, thus automatically turning off the blinker. One of the other uniformed guys happen to see this and looked into the vehicle where he saw two white men sitting. He then decided to come across traffic from the other side of the road to "advise" me of my blinker problems.
We discussed in my very broken French and his zero English the now apparent problem as I sat in the middle of the road and other cars wizzed by. I should mention that 90% of these other cars don't even have head lights, brake lights, or blinkers. After a few minutes of shrugging and heated French sent my way he asked for my Congolese Drivers licence. Only problem being I have no Congolese drivers licence!!!! Even more problems!!
I managed to convince him via about 1000 Congolese Francs to let me go on and I would show him the licence another day. (550 Congo Francs=$1) It was at this point I appreciated ever more our wonderful drivers who stand waiting for our phone call.
I typical case of Driving while White here in the Congo.
Well there is a few more things of interest but they will wait for another day.