March 8, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, March 08, 2015

Greetings from Lubumbashi,

The previous week was with Kenneth and may have been the busiest we have had.  This past week was an emotional downer because despite the intense time with Kenneth, once he had returned to Johannesburg, we didn’t hear a word about our water projects.  To add insult to injury, the single major project we had had approved with a short-term specialist being assigned was cancelled.  Let me explain.  Elder Lee and Sister Karen Kimball were scheduled to come and stay with us for 16 days beginning March 22nd.  We had SLC approval, Johannesburg approval, we had conducted and organized meetings, conducted training, completed surveys and questionnaires and visited farms and families in preparation.  The Kimballs had already left for Africa on Monday with the intent to visit three countries.  On Wednesday, we received a letter from the Kimballs saying they were sorry to have received a phone call from Phillip Moatlhodi requesting that they not come to the DRC.  He told them he was visiting the country and trying to make a better assessment before having them visit, which was a smokescreen.  

We had David Frischknecht, the Director of Temporal Affairs visit a few days prior to Kenneth.  He was uninformed about the Kimball’s visit and visibly putout that he had been left out of the loop.  We still can’t decide what the loop is, but the DTA wanted to know of any short-term specialist visiting his area.  What’s more is that Brother Frischknecht had visited, heard a complaint from President Kongolo that his stake had not been considered for a self-reliance project, and he felt left out in that Mbidi Ilunga had been approved.  It’s unfortunate because Phillip is who we worked with during the entire 3-4 moth approval process time and he shares the same office as David Frischknecht and had failed to inform him.  President Kongolo has been the least supportive of humanitarian efforts and at his own hospital, Sendwe, he is the only one of the stake presidents who failed to provide volunteers for Operation Smile.  These petty jealousies were the reason for the cancellation.  So many false starts and stops and it affects your morale when you’re on the ground and can see the benefit these programs could provide.  Such a frustration.  We’re expected to be compliant and we’ll continue to try.  It’s good I don’t base my testimony on such events, I’d hate to go inactive while serving a mission.

We had a fun experience teaching English this past week.  We all arrived at the building to find out it was locked and so we held our English class in the parking lot.  I spoke with a set of Sisters, Sister Mbale and Sister Kavula.  I asked if they had any investigators and they told me they had very few; only 5.  Then they told me they had had eight investigators baptized last Saturday.  Both numbers sounded fabulous for a former German missionary.  I also asked Elder Vatulu if he had any investigators who attended sacrament meeting.  He said only 24.  The people here are ready to hear the gospel and are so open to religious discussion.  They genuinely are a believing people and many regularly attend church.  I believe family is central to their society which may be another reason they are so receptive.  We love being able to openly mention references to deity, scriptures, prophets, spiritual experiences in the normal course of conversation.

We do have some small local projects that we are able to focus on.  They are two orphanages and two schools.  We are providing bunk beds, sewing machines, fabric, roofing supplies including tin, tiles and lumber.  This past week we acted as purchasing agents and did some shopping.  We have come to rely on Felly Bukasa, who is the full-time purchasing agent for the Church here in Lubumbashi.  Felly knows where to shop and who the approved vendors are.  The preferred purchase mechanism is to make electronic payments rather than pay in cash.  Credit is totally unavailable.  To become an approved vendor, the merchant has to provide bank account information which is traceable by the government for tax reporting purposes, so they are reluctant. Cash works best but we have limitations because our cash working fund is limited to $1,500.  We are regularly financing projects with our own float money while waiting for the 30-day clearance time for reimbursements to be wired from Kinshasa to our local Standard Bank.  Felly helps us avoid all of these headaches and so we need to take care of him.  Shelley has used his wife, Annacette, for sewing projects.

Yesterday we attended a Women’s Day celebration at the Peage School.  They are a small school to whom we are providing sewing machines and fabric for making school uniforms. We asked if we could bring 6 other senior missionaries.  What we didn’t realize was that we were the honored guests who received front row seating, a covered bowery with plastic chairs and soda pop served regularly.  I’m not sure I have the quote accurately stated, but they say Americans have clocks and watches and Africans have time.  To me this has become evident in the lack of urgency, lack of punctuality but the feeling that it will still happen.  I’ve found that a 9:00 appointment means morning and a 14:00 appointment means afternoon.    

All 8 seniors showed up on time at 9:30 expecting maybe an hour or an hour and a half program.  I promised them nothing other than another journal entry.  The program started on time but five hours later, we had a larger than expected journal entry.  They treated us as the guests of honor and they spent the entire time entertaining us.  As the program ended about 3 hours later, we thought we were on our way home but they invited us to stay for lunch for another hour.  They had purchased fish, chicken, rice, fries and drinks to care for us.  I took 147 pictures as did most of the others.  I danced with both the school directors, one a woman and the other a man.  I drank some sodas and exercised extraordinary bladder control and even cleaned my plate of the local faire, which was heroic.  They treated us like royalty and were so gracious.  It was definitely a unique experience.  I keep wondering what we’re going to do for an encore when we come home.

Lest you think we sitting at home sulking, we have made contact with two additional potential projects,  We contacted Operation Smile who is returning to Lubumbashi on March 20th to the 29th.  They are operating on facial fistulas.  Last time Operation Smile came was an inspiration to all involved.  The local church members spent their own money for transport and volunteered days of time in translating, feeding, registering and caring for the families of over 200 families.  We look forward to providing another volunteering effort that will bless the lives of our members as they provide service to others.  I also found this to be so rewarding because it revealed much about the generosity of a people  who have 90% unemployment, have the lowest per capita income of any LDS mission and yet find a way to give both time and money to those in need.  

We also contacted Dr. Jesse Hunsaker who is the vision short-term specialist who has been assigned to Lubumbashi.  According to Dr.  Hunsaker, the ophthalmologists here are well trained but lack proper equipment and supplies.  He has given us directions on who to contact to make a request for both.  They include St. Yvonnes, University Ophthalmologist Clinic and Sendwe Hospital.  We have worked with all of them and will have a busy week making arrangements.  Usually one of the difficulties is obtaining an exemption from duties and taxes for donated goods.  Enoch and Dr. Kitopi at the Ministry of Health should be able to help us.  It’s nice to have established relationships with institutions and decision makers.  We’re still praying for a replacement couple so these relationships can be preserved.  

The best day of or week was Friday.  We made some friendship visits.  First we started with Therese Ndaya, owner and operator of the Notre Dame School for Girls.   We call her our Congolese Oprah.  She teaches sewing to 350 students.  We asked her advice on our two sewing projects and she provided us prices and stores where we can purchase the needed materials and equipment.  She also provided insight on how to work with the beneficiaries so they have a buy-in to their project.

We next visited Serge Kyungu, the lead engineer with Regideso who has designed our water line extension project.  We visited with him and the technical director to encourage them to share their master planning with us.  Kenneth was very excited about the opportunity to work with the country’s water utility.  He asked about any plans for a major reservoir and I shared that with the two of them.  I asked that they share their 12-month, 36-month and 60-month plans with us.  They are always underfunded to the point where they don’t seem to have any form of long-term plan.  Perhaps this will encourage them to once again revisit their vision of the future possibilities.  

The last visit was with Immaculee and her husband who is a doctor who had a stroke on December 4th and has been recovering through therapy ever since.  He feels fortunate to be alive and yet his working career may be over.  He has recovered the use of the paralyzed side of his body and his speech is much improved.  Immaculee has been our champion for small village water projects and we still hope to work together in restoring broken pumps to many abandoned wells in the Kafubu Health zone.  They were genuinely pleased to see we took an interest in them as people and were concerned for his health and future.  We enjoyed an hour-long visit with refreshments and took pictures of their beautiful home.

I’ve recorded these names because I want to be able to recall them.  These people have made our experiences memorable and the progress of the work so much more meaningful.  They are all champions in their own right for the cause of bettering the quality of life here.  It’s a privilege to call them friends.  We don’t see black and white any longer, it’s entirely black.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)