We left Lisala at 12:30 pm and arrived in
Yakata at 6:30 pm. We have been welcomed by Pastor Ambroise Mongbamala
(Yakata VGR sub-center manager) and the members of his church. Exhausted by
the blazing sun of the Friday afternoon and encouraged by the warm welcome
we received from the brothers of Yakata, we accepted their invitation to
spend the night there. From Yakata, we stopped traveling on the water to
travel on the road.
On Saturday, at 6:00am, everybody was up. Some were packing their bags,
others were warming up their motorbikes, and everyone was getting ready for the
next 16 miles to go. We thought any transportation means were good: motorbike,
truck, bicycle, or walking; the main thing was to get to Yeyimbo.
As soon as we arrived, they welcomed us with two greeting speeches. The first
speech was to welcome us and to tell us how happy and how thankful the Yeyimbo
population was for us to be there. A translator was translating for us. The
chief of the village said the second speech.
This Saturday afternoon, my team distributed to the Pigmy brothers and the
village people the materials collected in the Lisala church before the trip.
At 8:00pm, the meeting began, and many servants of God joined us for the
Lord’s Supper. Several local pastors were present. I began the meeting by
speaking about “The Message of the hour.” We then proceeded with the Lord’s
Supper at 11:50pm till 1:45am. It was about 2:00am when we began the feet
washing. Then my associate pastor, Joseph Likonzi, and I went to rest on a little
rubber mattress on the ground, and the others stayed in the church all night on
mattresses and on the benches made out of a the trunk of a trumpet tree.
Then Sunday morning, around 6:00am, we had a meeting with the people from the
village about teaching their children. Our purpose for educating these Pigmy
children is for them to be able to read the Bible and the End Time Message. As
planned, we all left except me because a local pastor asked me to speak to the
Pygmy brothers. The first group of people had already got back to Yakata, while
the following groups were still in Yeyimbo, stopped because of the rain. They
finally arrived in the late afternoon.
Some of the testimonies from our trip include two girls and two boys from
Yakata believed the Word of God and were baptized after we left. A woman in
Yaelanga, in her 40's, believed the Word of God after a sermon from the a local
pastor. When he preached in Yeyimbo, six people believed and were baptized.
The non-Christian Pygmies from Yayimbo testify that, since their Pygmy
brothers believed the Word of God (the End time Message), their superstitions
are annihilated. The non-beleivers can’t hunt elephants and leopards because their
superstitions allowing them to disappear are weakened because of the daily
prayers from their Christian brothers.
All the Pygmies testify that, thanks to our regular visits, the people of
their community now respect them.
At the end of the trip, when we arrived in Lisala, there were two rainbows
with an oblique basis uniting them. They appeared on the other side of the
shore, just in front of where we arrived. The people there said that it was a
sign from God confirming He was with us during the trip. May God bless all those
who contributed for the success of this missionary trip.