June 22, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, June 22, 2014

We’re sitting in the Mbjuji-Mayi airport awaiting our flight.  You have to come 2 hours early and go through endless processing to be approved.  We have attended District conference today.  They are still a district because they have 1,700 members and 1,900  is the magic number to be made a stake.  They changed the District Presidency today.  Elder Luno, from Kinshasa is a new area authority seventy and he presided at the meeting.  The old District President was very disappointed to be released and let President McMullin know he was responsible and would someday ask his forgiveness.  The 2nd counselor in the new presidency said these callings and releases are not promotions and demotions but opportunities for service regardless of where we serve.  I’m not sure the old president was buying it.

Since Thursday we have been working on a potential water project in Tshitenge.  It is a village outside of Mbuji-Mayi.  We would probably consider it a suburb about 15 miles away.  This village is legendary here in the mission because the local tribal chief is also the branch president.  Several general authorities have visited and they have been promised a chapel in the past.  The membership has grown and the branch president donated his own home to the church to be used as the local meetinghouse.  The membership has outgrown the meetinghouse and have all their meetings in a bamboo grove in the open air.  

The church had previously approved the construction of a meetinghouse but had designed it as a Bountiful type chapel that was totally impractical for the location.  That was two years ago and now they have reconsidered and are building an open air gathering spot near the bamboo grove.   It will probably be another several months but it is good to see the groundwork and that progress is finally being made.  They have a lake about 2 miles from the church site but women from the village have to carry water every day.  

President McMullin worked through Serge and Emmanuel with FM to invite 3 separate contractors to visit the site.  We met the branch president, visited with the engineers from the construction companies and made a visit to the lake.  A brewery is located right on the lake and originally the thought was to partner with the brewery to pipe water to a gravity fed cistern, but the branch president said it would be better to locate closer to the church property for fear of vandalism and security.  

Friday we asked the contractors to go on a two-hour field trip with each representative to see successful projects they had already completed.  The most experienced representative took us to a well-managed water development that feeds 32 water stations and was developed by a Belgium NGO.  It was a very enjoyable field trip and we were able to meet Co de Froid’s wife.  He has been our driver and is a very good person. They should be members of the church.

The second representative had little experience in water but instead had much more experience in building construction.  He brought a power point presentation but we will only remember the first slide which was his screen saver.  It was of a white woman partially clad in a white flowing garment.  We didn’t hear much else from his presentation.

The third presenter was quite personable and said his only water experience was further away and the only thing he could show us was a 2005 project where the site had been vandalized and everything stolen.  We decided to go on the field trip and really enjoyed seeing the site.  We met an older man in tattered clothing at the destination and he took us on a walk through some tall grasses to find the site.  The older gentleman was worth the trip.  He carried a machete, a grubbing hoe and a sack with a bottle of water.  He would have reminded you of the guy in “the Gods must be crazy”.  

The difficulty in inviting contractors was that we had no specifications for them to consider.  We asked them to come Saturday morning to discuss the potential project.  We met at the District Center and serge and Emmuel came from FM.  We emphasized this was a small project for a small village and not a grand project like Luputa.  Every engineer, architect  and contractor wants to build something grand to put their name on rather than analyzing what the needs are.  (Sorry Scott)  

We concluded that we need a feasibility study.  FM gave us the name of a consultant out of Kinshasa by the name of Augustine.  We called him and discovered he is currently in Kolwezi and will be available near the end of the week to meet with us in Lubumbashi.  It is amazing how windows are often opened to allow these projects to proceed.  You don’t understand the geography of these locations until you are here, but this is extremely fortuitous to be able to meet face to face within such a short period of time and allow this project to proceed.

We will contact Johannesburg tomorrow to authorize the feasibility study and coordinate with Serge for arrangements for Augustine to visit Tshitenge.  Presidnet McMullin has been very insightful in allowing us to accompany him on this trip and get so many potential projects lined up.  

Tshitenge seemed like such a peaceful site.  The branch president has a commanding presence.  The location seemed like it could have been a location similar to the sacred grove; peaceful, remote, secluded and inspiring.  We hope we are able to finally deliver on so many previous promises that have been made to this village of assistance.  

We are fortunate to be returning 2 days early to Lubumbashi.  We have had an exhausting trip but are in awe of the mission president and his wife.  Anyone who ever aspires to be a mission president has no idea.  We have been busy every day but always start later and finish earlier than the mission president.  We have been blessed to have Sister Riendeau with us on this trip.  She works in the office with Sister Anthony.  She is from France and has served as our translator.  We wish we spoke the language but feel we have been ale to do this humanitarian work with the help of others.  

We just arrived home from our flight from Mbuji-Mayi.  The airport is always traumatic but we arrived home to potato soup and fresh baked bread from Sister Clawson and Brother Clawson had replaced all the burned out florescent bulbs in our home.  We now have light and it is so much more enjoyable not living in a dark dingy dungeon.  We also arrived home to neighbors.  Celeste Jensen Atkinson and Brent Atkinson are our new neighbors.  We invited them over to visit and again tomorrow night for FHE games.  They could become our newest BFFL.

We had a miracle happen while on our trip.  We had a 30 day travel visa that was issued May 23rd and expired today, June 22nd.  Our original flight plans had us coming home Tuesday instead of today.  Had our flight plans not been changed to today, we would not have been allowed to leave Mbuji-Mayi.  We feel blessed to watched over and this is just a small example of the Lord being mindful of us.  We are similar to Alma and his people who although under Lamanite rule, they were strengthened that their burdens were made lighter and easier to bear.  We are being strengthened especially by the example of other senior missionaries.