We all have days where everything seems to go right.Other days disasters seem to bunch up in the wings eagerly jostling each other for their chance at you.And then there are days when joys, successes and disasters all tumble into the mixing bowl of life at once.Wednesday, April 30th was one of those days for me.

The oil palm promotion project is going into its seventh month.Some of the 42 cooperating local farmers' associations have done a superb job of nurturing their young palm trees.Others lag behind.The Lusekele Agricultural Development Center extension agents work hard to make sure that each cooperating group has the knowledge and the tools to make a success of the project.That means regular on-farm visits.On April 30th Philippe Kikobo and Philo Bidimbu were making another routine visit to verify nursery progress in the Luniungu sector.Timothée Kabila, the Lusekele coordinator, and I went along to see the work ourselves.

The morning fog veiled the banks of the Kwilu.The rising sun muffled behind the fog occasionally turned the micro-droplets of moisture into drifting pinpricks of lights.Our motorcycles whined through the morning coolness.On the agenda for that Wednesday: visits to four palm nurseries, a discussion with the Association of Luniungu Fish Farmers about rapid manioc multiplication during the dry season, and mapping of the main roads, nursery sites and palm oil extraction sites of the Luniungu River drainage. We planned to cover over 120 kms. before returning to Lusekele.

By 8 am we had arrived at Milundu.The morning sun shone through wisps of fog as we hiked down the 2 kilometers down to the nursery site next to the local stream.Since our last visit here at the end of February the farmers' group had built a fence.But the one time the gate was left open their cattle decided that palm leaves would be a dandy appetizer to the day's grazing.Many of the young palms had truncated leaves.A few of the young palms have aphid infestations.

Philippe suggested a traditional insecticide made from crushed papaya leaves.He also reminded the gathered farmers that the coming dry season will be a critical time for their nursery.Someone must water the young palms every couple of days to ensure maximum growth. Timothée brought the visit to a close with a circle of prayer, thanking God for His gracious gifts -- the palm trees, health and strength, the land, intelligence, and the will to work -- and for His daily sustaining presence.

The Madimba nursery is just a couple of hundred yards on the other side of the stream.I stripped off my boots and waded across, meandered through a large manioc field, and entered a clearing with three houses.The patriarch of the family that takes care of the nursery for the group greeted us warmly.Philo introduced us to the matriarch and the other members of their extended family before we moved to the nursery clearing behind the compound garden.The young palms were stunted.The Madimba farmers' group hadn't paid close attention to preparing fertile potting mix and they had been slow to move the young palms from the shade house into full sun. The 4-month dose of supplemental fertilizer had been applied only during Philippe's last visit in late March, two months late.He said the palms looked much better than they did before, but they were still stunted.He and Philo insisted that the group erect a fence to protect the palms against goats – any additional setback would be very discouraging perhaps fatal to the Madimba plantation project.

We pressed on to our next appointment: the Luniungu Fishfarmers' Association group near Wamba.They had a superb nursery.Obviously they are serious about their agricultural activities.Fish ponds, palm oil extraction, and the nursery all showed signs of diligent care and attention to detail.That eased Timothée's mind.The group had requested manioc cuttings for rapid multiplication during the dry season -- the most complicated and risky multiplication project that Lusekele would oversee. Dry-season irrigation is very often neglected by indifferent gardeners, but this groups looks like it will take the multiplication project seriously.

Returning to the farmstead arbor, Timothée told them that Lusekele would broker the disease-free manioc cuttings, but the group had to select and prepare fields within 3 weeks.The group assured us that they would prepare the fields.

It was pushing 2:30 pm by the time the group finished serving lunch.We still had to visit another nursery, check the location of a health center and return 60 kilometers to Lusekele.Up past Wamba, over a rough road to Makoso, down off the ridge into the basin of Kamba where we left the motorcycles.Another kilometer down to the nursery next to well-kept fishponds.The Kamba farmers' group showed us a well-tended nursery and bragged of almost no plants loss since the initial planting in September. Another success.

At 3:30 we ended our nursery visits and debated whether to leave the road mapping to another day.I pushed for the long road home in order to complete missing map data and to get some idea of the state of the road in the Luniungu basin.So off we pressed into the westering sun.At Kisia, site of a former Unilever palm oil factory, we saw another example of how rural people extract palm oil in crude grinders made of tree trunks and an old fuel barrel.In the picture below you can see the waste pile of palm nut kernels dropping into the river -- considered a waste product because extracting the kernel meat takes so much effort.

Past the old workers' camps at Kisia, on to the Mopulu crossroads, up and over the hill to Mukoko, down a deep erosion cut road and along the long grade up to the Mabaya crossroad.The motorcycles ate up the kilometers. At the Mabaya crossroads we decided to split up -- Timothée, Philo and Philippe would head back to Lusekele by the direct road.I would take the road back through Kilusu to Vanga and home to Lusekele.This would permit me to map a section of road that we didn't have yet.And it was only 5 pm. I would be able to make it back to Lusekele before dark without much trouble.

Someone had been working on the road between Mabaya and Kimanu.That pleased me.Well-maintained rural roads help trade and communication and generally make for more prosperous villages.I donate 5 - 10 hours a week to maintaining the roads around Lusekele as a means to encourage local villagers to do the same.The GPS was logging the points along the road and I was enjoying the view: blue sky with a few clouds blushing in the lowering sun, grass-covered hills, stream drainages to the north and south.I may have been thinking about how people use the land more intensively each year, about strategies farmers might use to conserve land and still produce adequate yields.I may have been thinking about how big God's creation is, how complex, and how many solutions are locked up in that complexity for us to discover.

I don't remember the impact, the gully yawning right in the middle of the road, the spray of grainy sand over the clay road surface.Just a sense of beauty and well-being and anticipation of arriving home after a long day ... then sitting on the side of the road in a haze, battered and wobbly, with people around my motorcycle on the road, the gully to my right and the sun almost to the horizon, my helmet still on my head and knapsack on my back. My right foot would hold some weight, but no sideways motion.My right chest ached. My right hand ached but could grip.The haze cleared slowly as the sun set.I knew I might be badly hurt.Vanga was only 5 or 6 miles away and the best thing was to get there as soon as possible.Surrounded by strangers, most of them trying to figure out how they could profit from this accident, I refused offers for someone to take the motorcycle to get help in Vanga.As darkness closed in I climbed on the motorcycle, gave in to one guy who insisted on going with me and took off at a snail's pace to Vanga.

The rest of that Wednesday evening is a montage of explanations, x-rays, lying on a table, our missionary doctors, George and Friedhelm, looking into my eyes with flashlights and trying to avoid annoying the screaming pain in my ribs, but never losing consciousness or even fading out.By midnight George was enough at ease to release the nurse tasked to watch me.While sleeping without rolling on my side or moving was difficult, no other complications cropped up.But the doctor consensus by Thursday night was that I should fly into Kinshasa for a CAT scan to make sure that no small hemorrhages or punctures to the vital plumbing remained undetected.Friday morning Mission Aviation Fellowship opened seats on the Kinshasa plane for me and Dr. George. Dr. Bill Clemmer arranged for tests in Kinshasa and by Saturday morning we all learned that I was one VERY blessed man – no obvious damage to brain or internal organs.Go home, rest, and allow that marvelous, divinely created healing process to work.Friday morning, May 9th, George and I flew back to Vanga.

That Wednesday, April 30th, was a day of miracles.We saw the miracles of 4 groups making new starts on a shattered rural economy, neglected and abused for 30 years.We could hold up two of the groups as examples of what dedicated people can do with minimum resources and a bit of hope.Two other groups struggle against more difficult circumstances, but advance none the less.Believers have made this change possible -- believers inspired and empowered by God, for whom every person is precious, worthy of His intervention.And I can testify further that I am living only by the grace of God.I don't know how I ended up in a gully in the middle of an eroded road, but I do know that God makes it possible for me the sit on my bed, writing this note, with a clear head, only a sore side and twisted ankle, thinking about the miracle of being able to serve Him in Congo.Thanks to all for your intercession for ministry here and for our protection.

God Bless you All,

Ed