Sample E-mail Newsletter

Here’s an email newsletter we sent to our e-mail newsletter subscribers while Jay visited Congo in October 2002. It is representative of the kind of information you’ll receive from us on a regular basis if you subscribe to our newsletter e-mail list.

October 22, 2002

Dear Friends,

Thank you for your prayers for us. We are so greatful for them. News is coming much slower from Africa this week, but I did get an email today confirming that Jay arrived in Impfondo on Sunday.

Apparently, even though we have been "communicating with the Head Honcho" (see the last prayernet), HE had other plans for when the team would get to fly north to "home base". Sunday instead of Friday or Saturday! They are safely there now though and planning to work this week at the hospital.

I don't know if I will get any more updates while Jay is in Congo, but we'll update you all next week, when he is home again! The team flies to Paris on Monday overnight, 10/28 to 10/29 and then is in Paris from 6:15am Tuesday until 6:55pm (Paris time), maybe seeing the sights if they have any energy left? They are supposed to arrive home in New York at 9:10pm EST, Tuesday the 29th.

Please pray for health for the children and I because we all have a bad cold and cough that doesn't want to leave us. Thanks! Please pray for the CT team in Impfondo this week that they will stay healthy, safe and get a lot accomplished!!!

Thank you again! I'll update you all when I can. Have a lovely autumn week until we chat again. ~Crystal

Here is Jay's latest news (written Sunday night, 10/20) that I have from
Impfondo:

We made it to Impfondo Sunday morning around 8:30am on a 1963 model year Antonov 12 aircraft operated by Trans Air Congo (TAC). We had hoped the plane would be ready to load on Saturday morning and we'd fly to Impfondo on Saturday, but after meeting with the director of the airline's Pointe Noire office Saturday morning, he said the aircraft wouldn't be ready until 6pm. And since there is no ILS (Instrument Landing System) at Impfondo's electricity-free airport, that meant we wouldn't be able to fly until sunrise on Sunday morning. A day later than we had hoped, but we would make the best of it.

We got our workers and our hired truck to the church where the equipment was stored, loaded it all up, and were at the airport (along with the tractor and the pickup truck with towable generator) by 5:30pm. The workers had to unload the truck onto the dirt tarmac at the airport because the truck had been hired to go somewhere else for 6pm. An extra move of the supplies that we weren't happy about, but... as they say in French, "ca va!" ("It goes!"). At 6pm, we were all standing around on the tarmac next to all of our equipment, wondering when the plane would show up.

Joe went right over to the TAC office at the airport to learn that our airplane was across the tarmac, having just been refueled for another flight... to Brazzaville! As it turned out, the power had been out at the Pointe Noire airport for a few hours on Saturday, so the fuel pumps would not operate. (Joe observed that, had we known, we could have brought our huge, 65kw generator over to the airport and provided them with the electricity they needed!) There was nothing to do now, but wait. We made the most of the time by grabbing a bunch of our plastic boxes, putting them into a circle, and having an impromptu worship and prayer time with the workers! It was pretty neat, though communication was limited by the language difference. (Joe had to leave for most of the service time since he had to take care of some other last-minute purchases.)

The plane returned from Brazzaville about 9:30pm Saturady night. After refueling again, it taxied over to us and we started loading. It was a hair-raising, death-defying adventure! The huge generator trailer pulled the tractor right back off the plane while I was trying to pull the generator up the ramp with the tractor! I was quite scared by that, but reacted properly and didn't end up damaging anything. We later got the trailer up (with much difficulty) using the pickup truck. After the large equipment and boxes and wood and steel materials and generators and hospital equipment, the engineer said we couldn't load the cement that Joe just bought to bring with us, because he estimated that it would make the plane too heavy to land on Impfondo's short runway. So the cement stayed. We finally looked at the clock, and it was 1:30am! We went back home (the McKabe's and Hotalen's house), got about 2 hours of sleep, and then went back to the airport. Whie loading the plane, I had asked the engineers if the pilots were sleeping, and he said "yes." I told him I was very glad to hear that!

So we took off in the morning about 6:25, and arrived in Impfondo a couple hours later. It took us a few hours once we landed to get everything unloaded and moved to the mission and hospital, but it was an exciting time, since it was the final stage of getting the equipment here! We all praised God together afterwards and are gearing up now to do work at the hospital tomorrow.

Jay

Congo Area | jayandcrystal.com