Saturday, November 01, 2014
We were worried about what to do, but soon found other areas to take our focus after the close of Operation Smile. We had one last hurrah with the volunteers from Operation Smile at the Gecamine 2 chapel. I prepared an Apple slide show where we used two hymns: Called to Serve and I am a child of God. Both seemed to fit the activity. Steve handed out certificates to all volunteers. I had to read all of their names and I felt like I was in primary all over again, with helpers whispering the correct pronunciation in my ear.
Another fun activity from this week was to have our closing ceremony for the delivery of 125 desks at Bukanda School. This is the poorest of the poor and they were so grateful to have desks. Before they have been sitting on bricks for desks and their parents would complain because they came home dirty from sitting on the floor at school. We had purchased cookies and soda pop for the occasion and the entire village came to the event. There were skits and songs and prayers and everyone stayed for refreshments. We purchased the drinks from a local brewery who told us if we gave them 3 weeks’ notice next time, they would provide the drinks free.
This is our last week with our translator, Flavien Kot. He has been wonderful and we will definitely be lost without him. Our thought is that his work with us made him more valuable as an employee for the Church, who is his new employer. He will work with facilities management and I think his English is better than anyone who works for the church in Lubumbashi. I suspect he will go far. We attempted to close all projects that we had started together, but the hands of progress move slowly. Our wheelchair project is simply waiting for a couple of signatures but they never came. Dr. Kitopi from the Ministry of Health has been difficult to deal with.
WE have been in charge of things here at the mission office this week while President Thomas, the Drapers and the Mikesells have been traveling to the cities up north. We invited the sisters to the Bukanda closing ceremony and took them to dinner at late-licious for dinner. Sister Reindeau had decided to go home a month early so she could see her sister who has terminal cancer. Friday morning at 2:30 her sister Dominque passed away. At least she will be there in time for the funeral. She has been in shock for the past couple of days.
Today, I have been the designated chauffer for two brethren from Kinshasa. Felly was supposed to take them but he has had malaria. One is Brother Lunda who is the director of the Distribution Center in Kinshasa and the other is a government official who is reviewing the church’s exempt status. It has to be renewed every two years. To qualify for exemption from taxes, the church has to conduct humanitarian projects and activities other than strictly religious and the church members cannot be the primary beneficiaries. We visited our current and finished projects that were close: market fire rebuild project where we constructed boweries, the Mapendano School latrine project, the Katuba Bridge project and Notre Dame School for Girls. It was a busy day of driving and yet satisfying to know that our activities are allowing the church to maintain their tax exempt status.
Sunday, November 02, 2014
Time seems to be of no consequence here in Africa. Let me explain an event with travel. The mission president and 2 other couples traveled to the cities in the north of the mission and were scheduled to return on Friday evening. Their flight was coming from Kinshasa with a scheduled stop in Mbuji-Mayi which is maybe halfway in between Kinshasa and Lubumbashi. Well there was a thunder storm under way as the flight approached Mbuji-Mayi and so they just decided not to stop, leaving our traveling party stranded. The next day there was an unscheduled flight from Johannesburg to Kinshasa that stopped in Mbuji-Mayi and picked up passengers on the flight to Kinshasa where they stayed on the plane to fly to Lubumbashi and arrived at the airport at 12:30 am. We were glad to be the chauffeurs. We arrived home at 1:30 and were fortunate to awake Sunday morning at 9:13 just in time to attend our 10:00 block of meetings.
While at church we saw Elder Mvutul`u. We couldn’t believe there were so many in the audience not singing the hymns until we visited with the Elders after the meeting to find out they had 28 investigators in sacrament meeting. I’m sure I didn’t have 28 investigators in 2 years while serving in Germany. The work here is incredible and we hardly recognize the impact because we don’t know members from investigators. We have arranged to attend their next baptism which is on November 15th. I imagine there will be more than a few.
We have had a weeklong of activities recognizing Sister Riendeau. She has worked tirelessly in her calling to serve the women of the church. She has taught 3 separate French language classes to the women of the three stakes here. Many of the woman don’t finish school and don’t have an opportunity to learn French. About 60 percent of the population only speak Swahili. This past week she had graduation ceremonies for all the women in her three classes. For graduation she gave them all a pair of reading glasses. Glasses are a status symbol here and they were forever borrowing her glasses to read in her classroom.
We were the beneficiaries of her kindness. On Monday evening President Tshibanda invited her and her guests to his home for FHE. His son, Jonathan, who is preparing for a mission gave an excellent lesson. He and his wife gave Sister Riendeau a plaque with the map of the African continent on it. They also served “take away” dinner to everyone. They had purchased items they though Americans would enjoy such as fries, coleslaw, macaroni salad, etc. I hope it didn’t cost them a fortune but it was very generous of them to invite and include us in there recognition of Sister Riendeau. We also took her to dinner on Thursday, had birthday cake together on Friday celebrating Sister Anthony’s birthday and again on Saturday we had her farewell dinner. Six of the office were stranded in Mbuji-Mayi so we perservered without them.
The power was out at this mission home and the generator was not working, so we made other plans and went to dinner at the Bougain Ville. It was a nice and peaceful setting, but unfortunately Sister Riendeau was sick. She has not been sick a single day of her mission but the events of her sister’s passing I’m sure affected her. We had a nice evening and Elder Cook, our Area President joined us at dinner. He was in Lubumbashi to talk to the members of the Lubumbashi Stake about the culture of the gospel address from Elder Oaks. It is a talk about the cultural practice of paying a “bride price” to the family in securing the parents approval of the engagement of their daughter. It can be devastating and delays many marriages and creates an atmosphere for disobeying the law of chastity. All in all a bad custom but one that is difficult to overcome. We had an enjoyable evening visiting with Elder Cook and the two Congolese couples who were there Emanual and Justin told their stories of courtship and marriage and then we all paid tribute to Sister Riendeau.
We had a faith-promoting experience this past week. We had worried about what we would do next with all of our projects coming to a close and no new projects allowed except for water projects under the newer more restrictive guidelines. We prayed for guidance and it came almost immediately. The answer was to work on water projects and the following events during the week confirmed that:
- Monday morning completely out of the blue, Kenneth Mofokeng, the area office director over water projects called me and asked if there was anything he could do to help us develop some water proposals. We have been here over 5 months and this is the first call of this nature. We discussed several possibilities and he was very supportive.
- Immaculee, director of small village water projects, had called the previous week and asked us to return and work with her office.
- Leon, a subordinate of Immaculee, called our translator Steve, separately and requested we return to work with them.
- Jim Bullock, who is an area welfare specialist in Ghana and a friend of President Thomas wrote us an email asking if we needed any help with water projects. He is the water specialist in Western Africa area.
- When we had our correlation meeting on Monday with our translators, I had asked them to come with suggestions for new projects. Flavien said he felt we needed to concentrate on water development in Lubumbashi. He said that nearly 60% of the city is without access to the City’s water system. We identified sectors and created a plan of action.
- There were other incidentals such as President Binene from Luputa asking about latrine projects, Johm from FM Kinshasa updating me on water development in Tshitenge and the fact that the church does not own the property there and it is only under lease, preventing water development by the FM group at the site.
Sorry to bore you with all the details, but this is my mission journal as well and I want to remember that these were not coincidental, but a flood of new ideas and sources to help us in our next venture, water development. I’ll keep you posted.
Love, Dad (Elder Davis)
October Photos from Lubumbashi
WE14COD011 – KATUBA BRIDGE. Included in this photo are the two neighborhood chiefs, the contractor, the Stake President, director of Public Affairs, the humanitarian couple, and others. It was taken at the conclusion of one of our meetings to unify the neighborhoods and inform them about the bridge.
The construction company has begun working on the bridge in hopes of completing it before the rains begin.
WE14COD005 – BUKANDA SCHOOL DESK PROJECT. Sister Davis, Bukanda School principal, and Elder Davis are sitting at one of the new desks. Standing behind are the director of physical facilities for the Catholic Diocese and the contractor who made the desks.
These children were participants in the hand-over celebration for the desks at Bukanda School.
These are part of the new desks for Bukanda School.
WE2014 0440 – MAPENDANO SCHOOL. Workers are clearing out the old latrine area.
This is a sample of one new latrine. It is not completed.
WE14COD012 – NOTRE DAME SCHOOL FOR GIRLS. Therese, Sister Riendeau (our interpreter for the day), and Elder Davis look at kitchen utensils.
Sister Davis, Therese, and Sister Riendeau are shoppers!
WE2014 0416 – MARCHE FIRE. The students from the church’s construction department are painting the new marche with termite protectant and paint.
A large crowd turned out at the “hand-over” of the market to the Commune Kampemba.
Church employees representing Public Affairs, Facilities Management, and President Kongolo are greeting the mayor (in the black suit).
Group photo.
OPERATION SMILE. We were contacted by Operation Smile to see if we could provide volunteers to help with their cleft lip/cleft palette campaign. We contacted the three stake presidents in our area and developed sign-up sheets. The response was overwhelming!!! About 100 church members from two of the three stakes have worked together for 10 days in the month of October along side the Operation Smile personnel. They helped register patients, assisted in moving patients in and out of surgery, acted as interpreters, and served food to the patients. Their help was invaluable! The following pictures show a small portion of what happened. We had a small celebration for the volunteers at one of the church buildings. We heard testimonies, had a slide show of photos depicting patients and volunteers, and had refreshments. There was a great turnout!
OPERATION SMILE. Elder Davis and Dr. Mikesell (our mission doctor) were able to observe during several operations.
The church volunteer on the right is acting as an interpreter to help register patients.
Sister Davis and Sister Mikesell helped the photographer take pictures of the potential patients.
A picture is worth a thousand words! And so is a smile!
These people represent part of the group of volunteers who came to celebrate their participation in Operation Smile.
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