A Five Star Mud Hut: Feb 18, 2010

Recently I visited the northeast region of the Democratic Republic of Congo. I went with a team of five other missionary and pastor colleagues for the General Council of the Assemblies of God of DRC. For six days and five nights, I had the privilege of staying in a five-star mud hut in the middle of the jungle



The floor was packed dirt. But not too tightly packed; the legs of my old hospital bed kept sinking into the floor causing the bed to tilt and my mattress to slide to the foot of the bed. The walls were made of woven branches, packed with mud and then covered with a thin (very thin) skim coat of cement. They didn’t reach to the top of the palm frond thatched roof, which meant that my neighbors’ snoring was easily heard.

Bathroom facilities were an outhouse with an attached shower stall. In this case, shower means a bucket of water with a cup that you could dip out of to wet and rinse.


My accomodations: dirt floors, cement walls over branches. But it was the best they had to offer.

So what made this a five star accommodation? It certainly wasn’t the facilities themselves. No, it was attitude of the people who met us and cared for us. The people of this central African country have been devastated by decades of war. This destruction has wiped out almost all the existing infrastructure. These are people who have almost nothing (to our way of thinking) and they risk losing the little they do have at any moment because of the ongoing unrest.

And yet, despite their overwhelming needs, they gave us the best they had to offer. Remember the thin coat of cement on our walls? Our hut –custom made for the occasion – was the only one I saw with a covering of cement. They had done this to make their American guests feel more comfortable and keep the dirt from the walls off our clothes.


To understand the incredible sacrifice that this required, you have to understand that there was no cement readily available in the little village we stayed in. The roads have deteriorated to the point that even the trucks aren’t coming anymore. Which meant that all the cement was brought into the village by bicycle, over mud paths that once were roads, and over a distance of several hundred miles.

There was no running water. All the water was carried up to our guest house in jerry cans from a spring about one half mile away. Then, in order to meet our needs, they heated some over a wood fire so that we wouldn’t have to take a cold bucket-bath.

I could go on about the sacrifices, but needless to say, it was a humbling experience to see these dear brothers and sisters in Christ give so generously. Their hospitality was beyond compare. It was that heart of service – willing given – that made my stay in a mud hut a five star experience

Trip to Congo: Feb 6, 2010

Phil spoke on Thursday morning about the widow and her jars of oil- about having faith to believe God will provide, giving what you have for God to use it, and taking action to allow Him to work.

As a side note, this was Phil's first trip back to the region where he spent the first 4 years of his life as an MK. He was less than 30 miles from his first African home.