Today I woke up and was exhausted, every part of my body hurt from the previous day. My bones and joints seemed to rebel against walking, but my stomach felt ok, so I headed to the hospital.

Today was also a rainy day, and not just a small drizzle. In Chicago we often have these hurricane-like storms that take out power and take down trees everywhere! Everyone’s basement floods, and the streets become rivers. Those storms are intense and powerful, but they usually only last for a half-hour to an hour before the sun comes out and everyone runs outside to see the damage.

In Congo, they have these storms too, but they last alllllllll day. From 6am till 1pm it rained like God was bringing another flood. If you took one step outside—you were instantly soaked. Also, the cars/trucks here are well worn out. They go through so much just trying to drive down the roads here, and they carry so many people, so basically their water-proof-ness is limited or nonexistent.

So this morning Priscilla and I ran out of our house to our ride, trying to avoid the rain, and then got into the car and realized it was leaking water from everywhere. It was hilarious. We were riding to the hospital with the Tenpennys, and the whole time we just laughed at how wet we were getting!

Once at the hospital, everything seemed to be at a standstill. Everything and everyone was soaking wet. There were no morning devotions or morning reports; it was pretty much just a morning of sitting-until-the-rain-lets-up.

Once it did let up, I was exhausted and slightly dizzy because I was super dehydrated and hadn’t eaten for over a day due to my diarrhea and upchucking fiasco. So I went to one of the guesthouses to lie down for a little and eat some bread. When I started feeling better, Priscilla and I headed to the Eye Clinic that just opened today at the hospital. Dr. Samoutou is an optomologist, and he started the Eye Clinic. So now that the Samoutous are back in Congo, the Clinic is open again! So we went there and learned a little bit about the equipment, helped take inventory, and just hung with Dr. Samoutou for the morning.

The rest of the afternoon was spent wandering around the hospital, helping out here and there by taking vitals.

After the hospital we headed back to the Mission for dinner and just some good old hanging out with the Harvey fam (here is a picture of their house).

Goodnight!