Past Chronicles

Dear Praying Friends,

Thank you for your continued prayer. Barbara and I arrived at our home in Bouake on Sunday afternoon. The trip was uneventful though a little long. The Suzuki that we're driving now can only do about 60 mph and along with the numerous road blocks it makes for a long trip. The 200 miles took us about 7 hours plus an hour out for church in Toumodi.

When we arrived in Bouake we once again found the situation different from the last time that I was here. There are West African Peace Keepers all over town with tanks and armored personnel carriers scattered through town. If they'd been here six months ago our offices, Bible Institute and downtown church would still be there. In addition to the new military presence the electricity had been off for three days in our neighborhood when we arrived.

Since we had no electricity, the first evening here was spent trying to get someone to come and fix it. I finally persuaded a couple of the supervisors to come and give it a try, but they couldn't solve the problem because they didn't have any way to climb the poles and it was raining again. They promised to send out a team in the morning. Barbara's first night back in Bouake was spent in the dark. A little unnerving for her since our neighbors had been robbed at gun point just three weeks ago. Monday morning nobody showed to repair the problem. I went back to the electric company and was told that everybody was in a meeting and that I'd have to come back at 2:00 pm. When I arrived they had bad news for me. They had made a unified decision not to do ANY more repairs until the rebels give back their stolen equipment. Not good news for me. The finally took me to see the regional director so that he could explain it to me. After a LONG discussion I was able to persuade them to "finish" the work that they'd started on my house. They got there before we started to lose the contents of our freezer so that was a blessing. It was melted, but still cold. Last night we had fans and lights, things that we often take for granted.

The situation seems to deteriorated further so it looks like we're going to have to give some serious thought to moving out of the rebel held territory. It appears that this could drag on for a very long time. While we're in Yamoussoukro next weekend we're going to take a day and see if there is an adequate house available. If we can get it worked out and the rebels will indeed let us take our stuff out, we'll probably make the move to Yamoussoukro. It is technically the political capital of the country and will offer us a good central location from which to work. Please pray with us about this. In the meantime things are a little tense here so pray for our situation.

We're not sure how often we'll be able to keep you informed because we're a little cut-off here with very bad communication lines.

May God richly bless you as you serve Him.

Tim & Barbara Downs
Cote d'Ivoire, Africa