February 22, 2015 - Shelley

February 22, 2015

It’s rainy season!  With it comes seriously LOUD thunder, absolute TORRENTS of rain, and foliage growing like crazy.  I love the energy of the storms – they’re exhilarating!   Unfortunately, here the rainy season also brings illness – mostly malaria and typhoid.  Many of our young missionaries are ill.  Our translator, Steve, has typhoid.  He went to the hospital for diagnosis and treatment.  As you can see, he has a port in his arm.

His treatment is to go to the hospital twice a day for injections – for 7 days.  

(Don’t worry about us.  Not that we couldn’t get one of these diseases, but we had “beaucoup” shots before we came and take doxycycline everyday.)

As a result of one especially big storm, we had one of our more harrowing experiences.  The storm started about 3:00 Wednesday afternoon.  At 4:30 we left the mission office for a meeting at the Kisanga Stake Center – about 10 miles from here.  But the road that leads there is the main road to Zambia, and there are always many big trucks carrying goods.  Also, the road goes through the Gecamine market – a very busy area.

The storm had subsided, but the results were still very much evident.  This photo

is from the window of the car.  You can see vendors trying to salvage their goods and keep their markets open while the rainwater rushes past.

Actually, the mood along the road was quite festive.  Traffic was in total gridlock.  To add to the chaos, it was the end of the day, and many people were returning home in transports that were packed to the brim.  After about an hour of making no progress, many of the transport passengers just hopped out and started walking, even when it started to rain again.  It looked like a parade passing us on both sides.  Generally speaking, people had smiles on their faces and were just trying to make the best of it.  When the storm

picked up, they just ducked under a nearby porch.  We thought this car

wash sign was especially funny!

After two hours of moving no more than a few car lengths, we decided to turn around and go home – we had missed the meeting by that time.  The traffic was moving a little bit in the other direction.  I won’t be able to give all of the details, but I’ll just say that we were being watched over!  Fortunately, Steve was with us.  He at least could communicate with the passersby (Swahili speakers).  He and a tall, African “angel” who appeared out of nowhere were able to get us out of a very sticky situation.  By then it was dark and people were upset with the inconvenience of having to walk home in the rain.  The festive parade atmosphere had vanished.  Here we were – even though we were as stuck as anyone – we were sitting in a dry car with protection from the elements.  It is always expected that white people are rich – so it made it even worse that we were white people in a car.  The mood was grim.

Steve and this unknown angel held off traffic so that we could get turned around and through a very narrow, precarious space in the road, and on our way home.  We got home at 8:00 – very thankful that we didn’t have to spend the night in the car!  Steve is so great!!  We gave him a generous amount of money to get home on a motorcycle (he lives near where the meeting was held, so he had to go the other direction).  He uses a funny little phrase often – “Oo lah lah lah lah!”. Then he said, “I have enough money to FLY home!”  He also got home about 8:00 after walking much of the way in the water and mud.  He found out later that a tree had fallen across a car and killed some passengers up ahead of us, causing the delays.  So very sad!!!!

We’ve had visitors this week from Kinshasa and Johannesburg.  Tommy Muhemedi is a finance person from Kinshasa, and Rolf Randall is from Johannesburg. They spent the whole week with the office staff – and Elder Davis – going over the books and training our new senior sisters.  Then David Frischknecht came from Johannesburg.  He’s the Director of Temporal Affairs.  He is over all of the

physical facilities in Southeast Africa – a very big job!  Here he is on the right, with Steve and the chief of one neighborhood we were visiting.  We were able to spend an afternoon showing him some potential projects and getting his feedback.  It was almost like having a visitor from home, as David is the brother of Roger (Lori) Frischknecht from Brigham City.  I’ve had the privilege of teaching Roger and Lori’s children at Lake View and love every one of them – and their parents!  We also took David to see a

few local church buildings, like this tent building above.  Clark is standing with Elder Eboule, an AP from Cameroon.  It is such a creative solution to the need for a building.

We’re slowly moving into the next phase of our work here.  One of the four local initiatives that was approved is to provide desks in four new rooms of a school that is operated by the Tumaini Orphanage.  The problem is that the classrooms aren’t finished yet.  Below is

me standing with Esther, who is one of the orphanage directors, in one of the “almost finished” classrooms.  Tumaini has been waiting for two years to have Ruashi Mining Company do the finish work on the classrooms.  Well, another miracle!  After two years, they showed up to do the work!  Not that things are perfect, however.  We stopped by to see the progress so we’ll know when to have the desks delivered.  We found

workers sitting around under the trees having a chit-chat.  They informed us that there was no water (or electricity) in the neighborhood that day and they were waiting for another worker to come with some water so that they could do some work!  Slowly, but surely, it will get done!!!   We’re hoping to deliver desks in two weeks.  Tumaini is one of the orphanages we visited at Christmastime.  They receive money to operate this home for 56 children by running the school.  Neighborhood children pay tuition to attend, but the orphans go for free.

Well, enough!  It’s been kind of a different week for us.  Clark has almost felt like it’s tax season again with all of the time he has spent pouring over numbers in the office.  I’m proud of his knowledge and his willingness to share it.  The office gals like having him around – who wouldn’t?!  BUT next week we’ll be back to a more regular routine.  Kenneth Mofokeng arrived from Johannesburg this morning.  He’ll spend the week with us planning our water projects.  Wish us luck!

We’ve had some great connections with home this week.  So nice to have the internet working again.  We love hearing from you – it keeps us going!  Have a great week!   Love,  Mom/Soeur Davis

February 22, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Dear Friends and Family,

This was a very different week for me.  Our mission president, President Thomas, asked me to help with the transition of the finance function.  He had requested the area auditors come to do some training.  Rolf Randall from Johannesburg and Tommy Muhemedi from Kinshasa came on Monday and spent the week doing training and auditing the work of Sister Anthony.  From Monday thru Friday noon, I spent with the auditors and the sisters involved in the accounting function change.  It began to feel much more like my old work and a job rather than a calling.  I was glad to see Friday come.

On Friday we were able to spend the afternoon with David Frischknecht, the Director of Temporal Affairs from Johannesburg.  This is the equivalent of the church’s full-time position that works with the Presiding Bishopric’s Office.  We visited Enoch from the Ministry of Health and Serge and Peter from Regideso.  These are people with whom we have been developing water Projects.  We also visited the market rebuild site where the construction department of the church was involved in building new shelters from displaced vendors from a fire near the Lubumbashi Stake Center.  

Our time together with Brother Frischknecht also included a trip to the Quartier Congo, a neighborhood, where we are proposing a water line extension with Regideso, the local water utility.  The neighborhood is extremely poor and we had to transverse a very muddy and wet road in order to arrive at the neighborhood safely.  Following these events, we had dinner with President and Sister Thomas.

Speaking of wet and muddy roads, we had a memorable and nerve racking experience on Wednesday.  We were schedule to attend a meeting at the Kisanga Stake Center to talk about our member self-reliance project with Elder and Sister Lee Kimball.  This is the farming project we have been working with Mbidi Ilunga on.  We left the mission home around 4:30 and return home around 8:00 and traveled no further than 5 miles but never reached the meeting.  There was a powerful thunderstorm that created washed out roads and snarled traffic.  We ended up in a virtual parking lot.  The traffic was in the Gegamine Market area and we felt fine until the daylight started to disappear.  All the passengers from other vehicles had gotten out and started walking when the traffic didn’t move.  We were surrounded by a mass of humanity and the traffic was locked solid.  The black face that seemed friendly in the daylight looked much more foreboding in the dark.  We were also concerned when Mbidi Ilunga called about our safety 4 or 5 times while we were stranded.  With the help of our translator, Steve, we were eventually freed from our trail but even if it was only in our minds, it was a hair-raising experience.  Three and a half hours later we returned home exhausted and emotionally spent.

Saturday was spent as a working day with Steve.  We spent the morning in Ruashi.  We first visited Tumaini Orphanage.  This is a real success story.  We had 100 desks left from our Maisha Karavia Institut project because the Director, Peter Kandall, didn’t keep promises made to match our desk contribution.  We decided to give the 100 desks to Tumaini but required some participation on their part.  They had secured a verbal promise from Ruashi Mining to finish their new classrooms so they would be available for new students.  The promise was made 2 years ago and had gone unfulfilled.  We told Tumaini that they needed to contact Ruashi Mining and collect on their promise before we would deliver the desks.  Miracle of miracles, Ruashi Mining responded and we went to inspect their progress.  They will be done in another week to 10 days.  We then went to Maison  des Jeunes, the manufacturers of the desks to check on their delivery schedule.  Everything is coming together perfectly regarding the timing.  Last stop was to make contact with the welder who makes bunk beds which we did.  Mission accomplished, and mom got to stop at a souvenir stand in Ruashi where local artisans display their wares.  Big mistake! All that pent up demand for mother and grandmother was released and price was no object.  I’m half teasing, but for those who know Shelley, she would never negotiate and once she finds something of interest, price doesn’t matter.  The perfect prospect for local vendors, who always expect to dicker and start high (much higher if you are white).  We did have fun and will have some shopping stories to share.  

Today we took David Frischknecht to church with us.  Our objective was to show him some church buildings that need consideration for replacement or upgrade.  We attended Nyashi 2nd and Kutuba 2nd wards.  The Nyashi building is unique in that they have a tent where sacrament meeting is held.  We’ll send photos with mom’s email.  Kutuba 2nd is Flavien’s ward and is just an older building with no power and a generator running in the background.  David also visited with us about member self-reliance projects.  We enjoyed our time together before dropping him off at the Lubumbashi Stake Center on the way to the airport to pick up Kenneth Mofokeng.  Kenneth is the water specialist we have been waiting for in order to move ahead on our water projects.  Wish us luck.

We’ll have both David and Kenneth for dinner before rushing over to the mission home to watch Music and the Spoken Word; A Sunday tradition here in the Congo.

Observations from the week are:

1. Finance training was familiar and comfortable, but more like a job, more like administration and less like true ministering.  
2. Humanitarian service feels like ministering but we wish we could do so much more.  We’re hoping some hurdles are cleared this week that will allow us to accelerate our involvement.
3. Working separately as we did much of the week wasn’t nearly as enjoyable or rewarding.  Even though not perfect, we enjoy being full-time companions.

I’m back on my Sunday sweet roll routine.  I take some to Mikesells every week and then other guest recipients as the mood strikes me.  Last week it was President and Sister Thomas and three new sister missionaries who have moved into our apartment complex.  Well, duty calls, see you next week.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

February 15, 2015 - Shelley

February 15, 2015

I’m going to start this letter off with something beautiful.  We think this is a

variety of canna lily and there are several of these in bloom around our house.  So cheerful!

It has been a busy week in some ways.  We’ve spent quite a bit of office time trying to get all of the “i’s” dotted and “t’s” crossed on our projects – do I say that every week?  We have some “big wigs” coming to visit in the next few weeks, so we want to have everything ready.  This next week, however, most of the time will be spent in the office while the Area Auditor goes over the office books.  Even though we have nothing to do with this, President Thomas has asked my able companion to sit in on the audit and to help out.  Perhaps the president has heard about my check balancing skills – and he has asked me to do nothing!  ☺  Just another hood ornament!  Haha

We’ve spent two entire days this week driving around looking at potential water sites with water engineers and contractors.  I told Clark I feel like I could write a book entitled, “Twelve Black Men, One White Man, and Me.”

There is such a pressing need for clean water everywhere that it feels like this is where our emphasis should be right now.  Kenneth Mofokeng, the Area Water Specialist, will be visiting at the end of the month, so we are hoping that we’ve done the necessary leg work to get the projects approved.

The pipe above is a sample of one laid by World Bank.  The contractors hope to tie into that line to bring water to neighborhoods that are too far away from the main line.

While we were looking at water lines, I was able to get a few good pictures of people.  This is a bustling market, full of

local produce.  Below is a gal in that

same area.

Also, in that market, and all around town, there are people selling corn on the cob.  It’s not like the corn we eat in the US – more like Indian corn.  It’s cooked and then you just break off the kernels with your hand.  No butter and salt!  You’d break a tooth if you tried to bite into it!  But it’s the season, and people everywhere are eating it like candy.  We tried it – it tastes good – just super chewy – a cob could take all day to eat!  This vendor  is roasting her corn

over a charbon fire.

I saw this darling young woman stirring up a batch of foo foo in another market.  She was gracious enough to let

me take her picture.  That doesn’t always happen – and her friend looks a bit cranky about it!

We continue to teach English once a week to the missionaries.  This is really

a nice bunch!  It’s encouraging to have some of them catch the vision that they will be able to get better jobs when they get home if they can speak English.  Many of them already speak several languages.  Anyway, teaching continues to be one of my favorite things to do.

This is probably totally inappropriate, but I took this picture during Sunday

School.  This cute guy is sitting on his mother’s lap eating a cookie that is passed out to every child each week during the Sunday School block.  It has happened in every ward we’ve been to.  I don’t know why, but the kids like it, of course.  It’s always this same kind of cookie.  As soon as I figure out how to ask about it in French, I’ll report back.  They could be on to something we’ll want to adopt in the US!

Last night, on Valentines Day, the senior missionaries all went out to eat at Latte Licious.    These great people have come to be our family away from

home.  An amazing thing happened before our meal was served, however.  Our daughter Lindsay called on Face Time from our granddaughter Reese’s singing group recital!  We were able to be “in the audience” and see her performance in Texas while standing in the parking lot of a restaurant in Africa -10,000 miles away!  What a thrill!!!

One unexpected joy of being on a mission has been sharing experiences with friends who are also serving senior missions around the world.  Even though the countries, language, assignments, etc., are different – it feels so wonderful to share that common bond.  We are so proud of their dedication and feel it a blessing to be serving along side them.  Our good friends from home, E/S Cannon, have been serving in New Zealand and will be heading home in just a few weeks after serving faithfully for 23 months!  Well done, Cannons!

We wish “Happy Birthday” to our daughter-in-law Laci this week!  And a good week to all!  Love,  Mom/Soeur Davis

P.S.  Friday the 13th was lucky this year!  Late in the day we received an email from Johannesburg that our four area projects were approved!!!!  Wahoo!

February 15, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, February 15, 2015

We continued our farming interest this week with a visit to President Mwinkieu’s farm.  He is a counselor in the mission presidency and is a farmer by training.  He works for the Ministry of Agriculture in training farming skills and techniques to villages.  He also owns a farm about 20 miles outside of the city.  He raises corn, soybeans, and potatoes among other things.   He is married to Matild’s older sister and has not been supportive of Steve and Matild’s engagement.  I felt it would be good for him to see how competent Steve is as our translator and I also though President Mwinkieu could help us in preparing for the visit of our short-term specialists in agriculture, the Kimballs.  Right on both accounts.  A very productive visit.  President Mwinkieu has installed irrigation ditches with the assistance of a grant and can teach us about local crops, irrigation, work force and assistance in training from the Ministry of Agriculture; a great local resource.

We have spent quite a bit of time corresponding with the Kimballs regarding our self-reliance project.  First of all it sounds like they spend most of their time in training the priesthood leaders rather than teaching farming techniques.  They have provided several forms which will help us conduct surveys of needs and resources before they arrive at the end of March.  The commitment of the local people is tremendous.  The farm property is 14 kilometers away from where the members live.  The last three kilometers you walk on foot.  Next to no one has a vehicle and so you need to take a transport van each way that costs 500 francs or about 50 cents.  There are no food, restroom or water resources once you reach the farm and generally they stay at least a day and sometimes several in the fields, doing everything by hand.  No tractors, no electricity, no gas powered tools, etc.  Pretty amazing.  There are currently 15 families from Kisanga 2nd Ward, 15 families from Upemba, 10 from the local electrical committee and 6 families from the nearby village who participate at the farm.  Every ward and stake is now interested in participating.  I’m sure it is for the free tools, seed, fertilizer, etc.  We hope to focus on training and sustainability and not just a give away program.

I mentioned last week about the request that I help with the upcoming audit and “steering the ship” during a transition period.  Well in one week that concept has moved from oversight to a suggestion by David Bowman that Shelley and I be reassigned as the office couple.  David Bowman is the chief financial officer for the area and he has rose colored glasses with his primary concern being only finance.  Mom and I seriously thought about it especially in light of the continued frustration we have encountered in obtain funding and approval for our projects.  After a sleepless night we wrote back and told him we felt it would irresponsible to abandon our humanitarian calling.  We have seen what happens when a humanitarian couple is reassigned.  The Bowers were here in 2012 and were reassigned to Zambia for the last 7 months of their mission.  All the projects they had in progress were difficult to complete satisfactorily and no one replaced them.  We pray for our replacements regularly because we desire to see the humanitarian commitment to the Lubumbashi Mission be continued.  It takes so much time and effort to start everything from scratch.  We have some well-established contacts that are prepared to work with the Church.  We hope that connection and momentum can be maintained.  We’ll still help out with the training from the auditors this coming week.  President Thomas really needs an office couple to take over finances, any takers out there?

We had some valuable contact with Regideso this past week.  They are the monopoly in water.  We are working with them to extend existing water lines from the main lines to local neighborhoods.  The locals will dig all of the trenches as their contribution and Regideso will supervise construction and operations and maintenance after completion.  We were required to get 3 competitive bids on work, so Regideso drew up the specifications and we invited contractors to a pre-bid meeting and a tour of the five sites selected for development.  It was fun to caravan around the community and visit with the local neighborhoods.  It has been helpful to have some exposure to the construction industry in our accounting practice.  Kenneth Mofokeng comes February 23-26th to review and amend or approve of what we’ve done.  There is considerable frustration with this process because Kenneth has too much territory to cover and too much power of approval.  We start feeling like gofers with no authority.

We received a call from Sheree Clarke on Thursday asking for our input regarding frustrations encountered by senior humanitarian couples.  It seems as though our concerns are universal throughout the area and she was commissioned to conduct interviews, receive input and prepare a report of common concerns for the Area Presidency.  It was nice to have an opportunity to vent and realize others were experiencing similar frustrations:

1. No car for the first five months
2. No new projects approved since September 9, 2014
3. Our 2014 budget was spent by other missions in the Congo
4. Constant change in policies and program guidelines; no continuity, consistency or momentum
5. Shift to major initiatives away from local initiatives where we have no discretion or control over the project scope or timing.  We are becoming gofers for the short-term specialists who have 100% control over budget, approval, timing and scope of the project

This is just a sampling without me including my litany of concerns.  All that said, we love the work, we just feel like we could do so much more.  We’re not looking for a change in assignment, just an opportunity to do what we were called to do.  

We did have a nice Valentine’s celebration with a night out with all the seniors at Latte Licious, a local restaurant.  

I need to end with the best news of the week.  Friday the 13th was not unlucky for us.  We received notification from Sister Kinghorn that the Area Presidency had approved all four of the local initiatives we have been working on.  It was a long time in coming which made it all the sweeter when we received word.  We have a busy period upcoming:

• February 16-19 Rolf Randall Area Auditor training
• February 20-22 David Frischknecht-Director of Temporal Affairs, hosting
• February 23-26 Kenneth Mofokeng-Area Water Specialist-seeking water  project approvals which may carry us through the completion of our mission (pray for us)

Our connectivity was better this week and we were able to face time with some of our family members.  We hope to do more this coming week.  

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

February 8, 2015 - Shelley

February 8, 2015

In my letter last week, I gave fair warning that I still had pictures to share from our trip to Luputa, Mwene Ditu, and Mbuji-Mayi.  So here goes:

This is the famous bamboo grove in Tshitenge (a short distance from Mbuji-Mayi).  Church services were held here in this beautiful spot for many years, but it was a problem when it rained. The yellow building on the right is the home

of the village chief, who is a church member.  He built a different home and gave that one to use as a church building, but its use is limited because of the small size.  The chief has recently made several  improvements.  The bowery in the center of the photo is where church meetings are now held.  To sit on the benches and look out is like looking into a gorgeous jungle.  But the offices are what I consider to be clearly ingenious!

This view was taken from the back of the bowery, looking toward the “offices”.  As you can see, they are train boxcars!  A partition down the center of each car separates the car into two offices each, complete with desks, computers, and everything you would expect to find in a bishop’s office.  However, I can really tell that this man knows what he is doing because you can see the new latrines beyond the offices – AND there are two spots for men and THREE spots for women!  Now that’s a man with some vision!!!!

I just love this photo that was taken out the car window as we drove along.  It totally reminds me of a scene from “Where the Wild Things Are” (sans monsters!).

While in Luputa, we saw this young woman crushing leaves to make a

spinach-like sauce that is eaten with foo foo.  Other things can be added to it like dried fish, onions, and other veggies.  It’s healthy and the ingredients are abundant.  I’m fuzzy on what the name of the sauce is, but will try to find out.  Anyway, this is a standard, if not daily, dish even in Lubumbashi.  I tried a teeny taste – and that’s all I’ll say.  ☺

And speaking of food, Emmanuel went “shopping” while we were in Luputa.  He and our driver, Godefroid, came back with some yummy local cuisine.

Here is Godefroid diving into a big, delicious bowl of live termites!  I had to draw the line on taking even a teeny taste of that!!

Well, this week has had much less excitement.  We’re still trying to put together our future projects.  We made another visit to two of the orphanages we hope to help.  The one that really tugs at my heart – and yet, I hate to go visit – is the one that is run by Muslims.  I dislike going there because it is so filthy and stinky – but, of course, it’s not the fault of the children.  Our proposal is to provide bunk beds, mattresses, and paint.  The buy-in for the directors of the home is that they will do the painting.

This is the only bed in the whole house – and there are 30 children!

Here are three of the girls preparing fish on the back porch.

Another situation is one where we don’t quite know how to help.  It’s with the  handicapped community.  We made friends with Tabu Farrah.  Until recently,

he was employed by the Ministry of Social Affairs as a liason with the several handicapped communities within Lubumbashi.  He has helped us in organizing the wheelchair project, which will be in June or so.  I’m not sure but it appears that Tabu was born with legs that don’t function or else maybe he had polio.  Anyway, he has been able to walk with braces and crutches, but recently he fell and now is in a wheelchair.  We visited him in his home.  The photo shows him with his wife and four children.  He’s such a smart, wonderful man!  When we asked him what he needed most, he said that the Handicapped Association office needs office furniture – however, they don’t need it yet because there are currently four families living in the office!   Here’s a man who is out of work, he’s disabled, he has five mouths other than his own to feed – and he is still only thinking of the needs of others.

Well, there is no shortage of courageous, wonderful people here.  Most of them are living with very little in the way of earthly comforts.  I cannot complain.  

I want to end with a missionary story.

We call these gals the “banana ladies” because they sell bananas and other fruit on a street near us.  They’re cute and give us special treatment when we come.  Lately they have expressed an interest in our church – so Dr. Mikesell gave them Books of Mormon.  Then they wanted more for their friends.  And then more.  So Clark arranged for the full-time missionaries to pay them a visit.  He and I are not supposed to do any proselyting because it might look like we were providing humanitarian help in order to get church members.  But Dr. Mikesell, the mission doctor, is under no such restriction.  I don’t know how many Books of Mormon he has given out – but it’s a lot!  Well, we’ll see what happens.

Happy Birthday to our daughter-in-law, Kristen, this week on the 10th.   And Happy Valentines Day!  Be kinder than necessary to everyone this week – you never know what burdens they may be carrying.  Much love,  Mom/Soeur Davis

P.S.  After nearly a month, the internet and texting are back on!  Wahoo!