For our first full day in Congo we were woken up to the smell of omelettes and fresh bread for breakfast as opposed to plane food! After lunch we went to Reol and Jeannichelle’s church that is located in the middle of a slum. It was really hard to drive through such an impoverished area without feeling spoiled by all of my American luxuries and comforts. Once we arrived at the church we were escorted to the very front row to sit, it was as if we were famous because people would walk up during the middle of the service to either take a picture of us, or just look at us white folk. What I loved most about the church was that everyone seemed to always be dancing! Every single song we sang had a distinct dance to go alone! Throughout the service multiple small groups of children even come up to the front of the room to perform song for us. It was too much cute to handle. One small girl had never seen white people before and she really wanted to sing for us but she was scared that we would make-fun of or laugh at her for some reason, so she refused to look at us and performed with her back to us throughout the entire song, ha! After a long church service (4 hours!) we went straight to a zoo located about 3 minutes from Bravo! Although there were cool exotic animals to see, it was also quite sad because the zoo was pretty much on its last leg and was very run down, mistreated, and destroyed. We saw around 15 animals, and of the 15 about 3 were actually just dead in their cage, and the others lived in cages completely filled with trash. It was sad to see such neglect as a result of a weak government (we were told)! AND lastly, to conclude our day we went to see the rapids on the Congo River! They were enormous and seemed to go on forever! We walked around on land looking at the rapids from many places, we even stumbled upon a spot that had a few naked men bathing in the river, ahh! We quickly walked the opposite way, and then shortly after headed home to Bravo. 

Tomorrow we leave at 6am for Impfondo, where the hospital is located! Please pray for safety during our travels and that all of our luggage would be allowed on the plane!