A progress report has arrived from the pastor of the Messama church in Rio Muni, West Africa, where the Chapel of Hope is to be erected. This is the chapel for which you readers contributed some $1,500 in the spring of 1963, under the leadership of Lucy Bonnett and "Busy Gopher" of Minnesota.
The pastor says:
"Things do not move fast in Africa... So far there are 2,000 building blocks made, plus several truckloads of sand and rocks hauled to the site. The church members have also gotten together $500 of their own, which is a very large sum in an economy where the average yearly cash income is under $60. They are very sturdy and self-reliant people. Your gift was most generous and our people are deeply grateful.
"We hope things will move along more swiftly now. We are currently in need of a mason to start pouring the foundation. So far the available ones are not willing to come and spend a long period of time in a small village so out of the way.
"We will try to send you some snapshots of the site and the accumulated materials. -- Roy P. Strange, Pastor of Messama Church, Rio Muni, West Africa."
To us, in the midst of machinery and facilities, it sounds odd to speak of "a long period of time" to pour a foundation. We need to go back in imagination to the days when our farms and villages were being established, and think how much slower it was then to collect materials and perform the work. In Rio Muni a lot of time and patience takes the place of a lot of money. The Chapel will mean more to them than if some philanthropist had come in and built it for them overnight. They can savor the joy of watching it grow under their own efforts. -- Hope.