August 24, 2014 - Shelley

August 24, 2014

For the first time since we arrived, we actually had COMPANY!!!  We played host and hostess this week to Elder and Sister Kinghorn from South Africa.  They are the Area Welfare Specialists and are the people we report to – kind of like our bosses.  A really nice thing about them is that they had our calling as missionaries a few years ago in Ukraine, so they were very helpful and understanding of our situation.

The purpose of their visit was to see the projects we’re working on and to see the country.

They were great to be with!  Sister Kinghorn is a natural with children and really enjoyed being around the kids at this orphanage.

We got the good news this week that five of our projects have been approved, so that was encouraging.  We took the Kinghorns to see all of them and they had good tips for us to aid in getting the projects done well.

Flavien Kot, our translator traveled with us everywhere and was invaluable, especially since none of us speak French or Swahili – and he speaks both.  We took Flavien and his wife, Crystal, out to dinner with us one night at Planet Holly Bum – very fun!!

In addition to orphanages, we took our visitors to see our school desk projects.  Bukanda School is in a village about 15 miles out of town.  My letter showed pictures not long ago of Clark sitting on a brick in a classroom like the kids do.  Anyway, I thought I’d like my grandchildren to see Bukanda’s lunchroom since most of them are starting school this week.

Everyday a group from the World Health Organization serves a nutritious cereal for lunch at the Bukanda School.  I’m not too sympathetic to complaints of barfy school lunch after seeing this!

In truth, I hated school lunch – so don’t think I’m criticizing you!!!  Haha

Humanitarian work is vey hard to under-stand sometimes.  One African leader said that his country has been ruined by well-meaning people from the rest of the world who want to be helpful.  They see the great needs but instead of teaching someone to fish, they simply give them a fish.  In the Church’s Welfare System, we can see that “giving” without an expectation is usually not a good idea.  That principle is the same whether one is in Utah or in Africa.  Our whole emphasis here is to transfer knowledge so that the people can be self-reliant after we leave.

Even in our limited missionary experience so far, we have seen way too many dreadful living conditions and poverty everywhere.  It’s almost too much to soak in.  In a way it doesn’t seem fair that even people in respected positions in the community have run down offices that usually operate in the dark because the electricity is often off.  University professors are using outside latrines that we would consider our worst camping nightmare.  90% of the population squeezes into dilapidated old vans that are used for public transportation because they don’t own a car.

With that said, we are finding ourselves in a balancing act to help the poorest of the poor without making it a handout.  With an undeniable prompting, we were able to see how two of our projects might be able to help each other after receiving some assistance from the Church.  We are helping a vocational girls’ school get equipment for a cooking lab.  A few years ago they received sewing machines from the Church, also.  One girls’ orphanage we are working with is trying to help girls learn skills to help themselves.  So, with the Kinghorns, we took Therese (head of the school) to meet Sister Philomina (Fifi) (head of the orphanage).

In the photo, Fifi (on the right) is showing Therese some things her girls already know how to do.  Therese is going to bring her best students to Fifi’s orphanage to teach them some hand sewing skills.  If it works out, we can provide the orphanage with some sewing machines.  This is the plan.  Wish us LUCK!!!  These are both wonderful women who can hopefully help each other.

Thank you for your emails and encouragement!  Our connectivity is so unpredictable that Face Time and Skype don’t always work – well, okay, they SELDOM work like we want them to.  BUT we have had a few miracles with communicating, though, so let’s not stop trying.  We love you so much!  Learn to recognize the miracles in your lives.  The Church is true – no doubt about it!  Much love,  Mom/Sister Davis