December 14, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, December 14, 2014

Can you believe it’s the 14th of December?  Here it is about 90 degrees, partly cloudy and rains most every day.  Mom is really going through withdrawal without Christmas pressures to keep her awake at night.  She wishes she was in her sewing room knocking out grandchildren and neighbor gifts.  It has been murder but I am surviving just fine.  It hasn’t disrupted my Christmas preparation routine all that much.  I’ll start by telling you about some of our Christmas activities.  

Yesterday we had the first of 3 stake choir performances.  It was an hour and a half program completely in French with the exception of a single verse in “Away in a Manger” We were the token whites in the missionary choir.  Sister Draper is the director and does a fabulous job.  She practices organ and piano 4 hours a day when she is at home in Calgary, but she has really gone through withdrawal here.  The music regardless of the language really gets you into the spirit.  Sister Draper had combined narrative, a children’s choir, a stake choir, the missionary choir, soloist for organ and voice as well as audience participation songs.  The audience clapped after several numbers and it was a festive environment.  We have two performances remaining next Saturday and Sunday.

For a service project for Christmas we have adopted two orphanages.  The first is Katimel, an all girl’s orphanage that currently only has 13 residents.  They have placed many of their number in foster care before Christmas.  We are planning on painting the 4 bedrooms with the girls, giving them clothes from two clothing bundles and bringing pizza.  In addition, there is an orphanage in Ruashi with 52 children where we will deliver clothing and food on Christmas Eve.  Flavien is in charge of the second activity.  He plans on purchasing fou-fou flour, oil, rice and 5 live chickens.  The kids at the orphanage are planning a program of poems and singing.  We will be sorting clothes tomorrow for FHE and organizing them next Saturday with Flavien’s family in their home.  We don’t often get invited to homes, so we’re looking forward to that.

We had an enjoyable evening last night.  We were invited to the dinner for 10 at the Grand Karavia.  This is a public relations event where the Public Affairs representative from the Kisanga Stake recognizes people in the community who have helped the community.  We were invited along with Charles, Catholic director of physical facilities and a friend and partner on previous projects, and the burgermeister of commune Annexe and his wife.  The Grand Karavia is known as the nicest hotel in Lubumbashi.  The church members present were President Tshibanda and his wife, President Mwali and his wife, Mbidi Ilunga and his wife, our translator Steve and the stake PR person, Solange.  Everyone spoke twice, once to introduce themselves and secondly to talk about their family.  A very nice affair and we felt special because the events discussed were the projects we have been a part of.  A side note was that Charles ordered two bottles of Simba beer; about 48 ounces each.  That charge may be hard to explain on the church billing.

We began the week trying to recover from last week.  Monday we spent the entire day in the office documenting the potential projects we had discussed with Phillip during his visit.  We submitted three draft proposals for new or expanded projects.  It felt like we were restarting our efforts again after closing 3 of our projects the previous week.  I’ll bore you with two of the project visits we made during the week:

1. Regideso is the government water utility company.  World Bank is currently making a multi-million dollar investment in installing water lines in Lubumbashi.  Their plan is for main lines only and doesn’t include many line extensions to neighborhoods.  Regideso has identified 5 neighborhoods where they are suggesting we extend the water lines and create water points for the general public.  This is an attractive option to drilling because we are dealing with an established utility where the water resources have already been developed and we wouldn’t have much training of residents.  We visited two of the five sites and plan to visit the other three on Tuesday.  We are visiting chiefs of neighborhoods who organize public meetings in an attempt to secure the written approval of the people.  Their buy-in is to dig the trenches to install the new piping.  The trenches are one meter square and we figure they will represent about 10% of the project cost.  One problem is with government entities, you never know who to trust.  There seems to be extensive corruption at almost all levels of government.
2. The Ministry of Health organized a fieldtrip with a company owned by Eastern Indians by the name of Shazia.  Their name is on almost every business in town.  Shelley commented that the Indians seem to control everything, similar to the Jewish control of business in many US locations.  They took us to a drilling site near Bukanda School where the local Rotary Club is drilling a well for a future hospital.  We are interested in meeting the Rotary representatives and the Indian contractor will make those connections.  They are drilling several “free” wells based on input from ministry office in an effort to buy influence.  They call it humanitarian work for the community but they’re suspect.  You never know who to trust.

One fun thing we did this past week was to respond to an invitation from the Chief of the Kisanga Quarter, Daniel. He assisted us with the bridge project by being a peacemaker with representatives from both sides of the river.   He invited us to his home and introduced us to his parents who live with him.  We were telling them about the size of our family but felt like we were almost childless when his father said they had 70 grandchildren.  Daniel and his wife had 9 children so far and his parents had 11.  They had a fuzzy TV on in the background, a sign of prosperity.  The room was about 10 feet square, dirt floors but homey.  They served us Fanta orange while they all drank coke.  If they only knew.  We were honored to be invited.  Steve teased us that we needed to prepare our stomachs for what he would feed us, but we escaped with only the Fanta challenge.  

While we were at the chief’s house, Phillip and Elder and Sister Lee called from Johannesburg.  They wanted some pictures of the bridge for a public relations story the church is preparing where bridges have been built to unite people.  We have hundreds of pictures of the bridge under construction, but almost none of it in use.  We returned the following day.  It is very difficult to get natural pictures because we stand out and always attract a crowd.  Anyone allowing their picture to be taken wants to pose and see the results of the photo.  Most of our pictures look like a flash mob.  

Yesterday, we were invited to the coordinating council.  This is a meeting of the 3 stake presidents, 2 district presidents and an area 70 from Kinshasa.  Previously we had been instructed to conduct our humanitarian work independent of the local priesthood direction.  President McMullen said that was crazy and introduced us the very first week to these priesthood leaders.  I’m certainly happy he did.  They are invaluable when it comes to identifying welfare needs.  Phillip, our Area Welfare Manager now agrees.  

We received good news from our friends, Terri and Kevan Clawson.  She was our mission medical advisor and they have been called on another mission to the West Indies, the Guyana Region, as the mission medical advisor.  We’re amazed at the dedication of so many of these senior missionaries.  They returned home from Lubumbashi less than 3 months ago.  

Shelley commented just this last week, “I don’t know why we’re in such a hurry to get home”.  It takes you a while to find your grove or discover your call.   Just a note to President Ferry.  Someone knew where we could be used.  We meet with government leaders, church leaders and community leaders in trying to identify humanitarian projects that will benefit humanity.  It’s really a pretty good match with our prior experience.  We are feeling more and more comfortable here.  I wouldn’t exactly call it being at home but we’ve made many good friends.  The people are very engaging and the needs are endless.  We just hope we’re making a difference.  I know this mission is changing us but will we leave a mark?  We’re hoping to develop programs that are repeatable.  We’re also starting to worry about having a humanitarian couple to replace us.  Any takers out there?

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)