{"id":741,"date":"2010-08-06T11:58:34","date_gmt":"2010-08-06T16:58:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/?p=741"},"modified":"2010-08-21T19:05:35","modified_gmt":"2010-08-22T00:05:35","slug":"tim-helen-smith-joined-us-in-congo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/2010\/08\/tim-helen-smith-joined-us-in-congo\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim &amp; Helen Smith joined us in Congo"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">Tim &amp; Helen Smith arrived last Friday to join our missionary team in Congo.\u00a0\u00a0 The Smiths spent 3 weeks in Equatorial Guinea during which they visited their friends and the churches they worked in over the past 10 years.\u00a0 They also sorted through their belongings and decided what to move to Congo, what to sell and what to give away.\u00a0 Friday they chartered the JAARS Cessna 206 and flew from Yaounde to Gemena with a few of their belongings.\u00a0 The rest of the stuff they are moving will come on a later flight. <\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2010\/08\/PC-TH-entering-PCE-house2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-747 aligncenter\" title=\"P&amp;C, T&amp;H entering PCE house\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2010\/08\/PC-TH-entering-PCE-house2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"455\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">The Smiths arrival completes the next step of re-establishing long-term missionary presence in Congo, something the CEUM has requested for years and the Covenant has desired to do.\u00a0 We arrived in early April and now our teammates are here to live next to us. <\/span><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">Keith Gustafson serves as the Congo Country Coordinator based in the US and makes 4 month-long trips per year to Congo.\u00a0\u00a0He was in Congo in April when we arrived and now again in July when Smiths arrived.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><a href=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2010\/08\/team-of-5-at-Bokonzo1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-745 aligncenter\" title=\"Team of 5 at Bokonzo\" src=\"\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2010\/08\/team-of-5-at-Bokonzo1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"394\" height=\"216\" \/><\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: small\">Tim and Helen made these comments about returning to Congo. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">Helen:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201carriving in Congo today feels like I have come home.\u00a0\u00a0It feels comfortable to be back in Congo.\u00a0\u00a0The music, the singing, the greetings, the kind of reception were wonderfully welcoming. \u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\"><span style=\"font-family: Arial;font-size: x-small\">Tim: \u00a0\u201cfeeling the warmth of people\u2019s love and their joy in seeing us is very encouraging.\u00a0\u00a0We had a neat feeling coming up to the reception prepared for our arrival.\u00a0\u00a0We could not have imagined that God would bring us back to Congo and yet here we are as we have sought to follow His leading.\u00a0\u00a0We look forward to what He has in store for us here in Congo.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-report-this\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand?moderation_action=report_form&object_type=post&object_id=741&width=250&height=300\" class=\"thickbox\" title=\"Report This Post\">Report This Post<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tim &amp; Helen Smith arrived last Friday to join our missionary team in Congo.\u00a0\u00a0 The Smiths spent 3 weeks in Equatorial Guinea during which they visited their friends and the churches they worked in over the past 10 years.\u00a0 They also sorted through their belongings and decided what to move to Congo, what to sell [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world-mission-events-trips"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Tim &amp; Helen Smith joined us in Congo - Ekstrands in Congo<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.covchurch.org\/ekstrand\/2010\/08\/tim-helen-smith-joined-us-in-congo\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tim &amp; 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