Letters from Rwanguba – October 30, 1985

When we lived in Africa, we sent letters from Rwanguba, DRC (formerly known as Zaire), to our families several times a month. Here’s the next one from the archives, to which I added photos. Thanks for stopping by today.

October 30, 1985

Dear Mom and Dad,

Thank you for your good letters, which we just received Oct. 24th. One was a computer printed letter dated Sept. 29th and the other was a calendar notecard dated Oct. 15th. We were really sorry to hear about Paul Pedersen’s passing away. It just doesn’t seem possible, and we know that you are feeling the shock even more than we are.

Rwanguba Hospital and our house atop the hill

Dad, you sounded like you really enjoyed your last charter bus trip with First Baptist Boise. We are really starting to miss that beautiful scenery that you get to enjoy there. I’m not if that is because it really is spectacular or if it is mainly familiar…maybe it’s both.

How do you like the new carpet? It must be all laid down by now. We are sure glad that we brought along a piece of beige carpet about 8′ x 10′ for our living room. It’s just perfect for grouping our couch and chairs around. Underneath it is that old-fashioned kind of tile that is put down with hot glue, and it takes a torch to remove it, too. It is green and gray.

We have just finished producing a Rwanguba Hospital Newsletter which I sent to Wheaton last week. We are asking that a batch be sent to you to send to the White Cross list and also to our personal mailing list. I’ve enclosed some names to be added to the White Cross list. As I typed them out, I realized that you also will be putting them into your computer, which takes time. We appreciate your work.

Lee chats with a patient at Rwanguba Hospital

This past week is sort of a blur because we had quite a bit of sickness at our house. There is a flu going around Rwanguba which lasts for about 48 hours, and causes high fever and headache, mainly. First Lee got it, then as he was recovering, I got it and had to go to bed for 2 days. We thought at first it was malaria but the tests were negative. After I began to feel better, Rebekah came down with it and had vomiting, too. We all lost weight but it was most evident on Rebekah. She was up several times a night, too, so we both had to make up sleep during the day. It sure is nice to see her feeling well again and back at school. At times like this it really is a blessing to have household help.

Our Bekah and Becky C

The radio has been very busy the last couple days. I had to do some flight following because we don’t have our own pilot here and there is no way to contact the nearest airstrip, which is just a stretch of grass 18 km from here. We are all still looking forward to the day when our own airstrip is finished.

Norma at the SW Radio

Thank you for being willing to do some shopping, Mom. I hope that I asked you to airmail the packages to this address:
Nill Family
c/o Tudy Kile
B.P. 202 Gisenyi
Rwanda

(MAF and AimServ, who bring things from our Nairobi address, have a big backlog of freight just now. Our hosp. order for x-ray film has been sitting in Nairobi for over 2 months! Yes, it’s a bit frustrating.)

We’re driving to Goma tomorrow for supplies. We’re trying to get stocked up because we are having our big annual missionary mtgs Nov. 16-21. That translates into company for meals 3x/day for 5 days again!

Love,
Norma, Lee, + 3

Posted on October 10, 2017