May 10, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Mothers’ Day and Golden Spike Day.  Friday, May 8th will be a red letter day for us in our missionary journal because we received notification that Regideso, our largest water project had been approved.  Up until Friday, we felt like we were just going through the motions because our local projects are nearly complete and we had no funding approved for additional work.  Steve commented that the hardest work is trying to stay busy when there is no work.   We are grateful for this approval and it should keep us busy for at least a few months.   We will be constructing water stations in 5 different neighborhoods in cooperation with Regideso, the public utility company over water for DRC.

We also returned to visit with Immaculee at the Ministry of Health.  For our Kafubu Health Zone pump repair project we are having difficulty because there are four villages who are ready to start but they don’t trust the Health Zone and Dr.  Claude (Health Zone Director) to manage their money.  A  long story short, Immaculee’s boss, Dr. Hugues just happened to be in her office (first time ever), and he helped us devise a plan to provide village representation in accounting for the money and structured the compensation of the well-repair technician.  Everything works so much better if it is their program rather than ours.  He also directed Immaculee to organize a meeting next week with the representatives from the four villages to calm their fears and orchestrate the well repairs for their villages.

Since we had available time before the approval came, we attended Sister Janet Cook’s English classes at the Katuba Stake Center.  She is a single sister who is divorced and taught school in Lehi before her mission.  She grew up in Tremonton and is Doug Thompson’s older sister.  She sees her mission responsibilities as teaching English to members and non-members.  She doesn’t know that much French but she is fearless.  She drives on her own but President Thomas requires she have a Congolese couple with her when she is driving and at her classes.  She had divided her class into beginners and more advanced.  The first class had about 85 people and the second 55.  She is an excellent teacher and we gained some pointers on how to improve our own English instruction to missionaries.  

One thing we did complete this week was to gather all three vision contracts from Sainte Yvonne, University Ophthalmology Center and Sendwe Hospital.  You wouldn’t think it would be that difficult to give away $150,000 worth of equipment and training.  It required multiple visits to finally obtain the signatures.  Email is infrequently used locally and you always have to get the number one person’s sign off.  Authority is centralized and not shared or delegated effectively.   Dr. Jesse Hunsaker is the short-term specialist assigned to work with us from church headquarters.  He will visit in August or September.  He is the younger brother of Hedy Hunsaker Eyer (Chris).  We were close friends to the Eyre’s in San Francisco and at Utah State.  Dr. H,. as he refers to himself, is great to work with.  

On this Mother’s Day I wanted to record some of my reflections about my mother.  From my earliest recollections, she was always there for me.  She didn’t work outside the home and was always a ready companion.  My early childhood memories are from the American Legion War memorial Building on Forest Street between first and second East.  We lived there from the age of 3-5.  We lived in an upstairs apartment with a back entrance.  Dad always seemed to be gone but mom was always home.  She played with us and involved us in her life.  She cleaned the dance hall downstairs.  We lived at the Bushnell Apartments next from age 6-8 before moving to 119 S. 4th West.  

I remember my mother enjoying simple flowers in the back yard.  She particularly like 4 o’clocks.  Their blossoms would open and close depending on light and heat.  When I was involved in little league sports, she was at every game.  She was definitely my number one cheerleader; a position she later gladly shared with my sister, Cathy.  During my youth I was often suffering from an injury: frost bitten toes from Pioneer Park pond skating that required toenail removal, cut neck from barb wire fence while chasing in her parents’ yard in Corinne, broken index finger on my right hand (twice) splitting logs with Grandpa George H. Davis and playing catcher for Mendenhall little league baseball team, just to name a few. I had multiple broken bones and a few surgeries along the way.   I’m sure every boy loves to be pampered and nursed by his mother but my mother had a lot of practice and she was the best.  She always seemed to take my side and was my advocate.

In that advocacy role, she only wanted the best for her children and yet we had a meager income.  I never felt poor or deprived.  She kept a little cash stash in the cabinet in the hallway and I recall on multiple occasions when she would dole out a little candy money to the kids from her reserves.  Before leaving home, I can’t recall my mother ever having new clothes and I thought my dad had no taste at all.  Little did I realize until later that they were spending it all on their children and just eking out an existence.  She always conned me into going to Smiths to shop for groceries with her and I’d con her into buying just one more new record album.  This accounts for my love of popular music and my aversion to shopping for groceries.

She often helped me with my English homework.  I particularly remember that I had to write a poem for Jordan Larsen’s English class.  I couldn’t think of a thing, so mom sat with me on my bed and quizzed me about what I enjoyed.  I reminisced with her about one of our favorite TV shows, The Andy Griffith Show. His chief deputy was Barney Fife who had a girlfriend, Thelma Lou.  We laughed together as we (mom) penned the words to the infamous “Barney at the Duck Pond” poem.  It was a favorite parking spot for lovers.  She worked in all the quiz questions about who was my Thelma Lou and where are the Brigham City Duck Pond locations.  She never missed an opportunity for interrogation and you hardly noticed it.

During my teenage years my mother was always there.  She would wait up for me at night whenever I was out late.  I thought she liked those late night movies but she was just biding her time until I returned.  I always knew I would be required to give an accounting of where I had been, with whom, doing what and had I had a good time.  I wasn’t always as talkative as she was but her consistency in waiting for me saved me in so many ways.  When I was the high school quarterback my senior year, she would attend all of the games but couldn’t bear all of the criticism on poor performance or missed assignments or any number of crowd comments about the game, so she would spend time either in the car or behind the stands, but she was always there.  The crowd was often right but in my mother’s eyes I could do no wrong.  As a consequence I was motivated to try to live up to her expectations.  

She had the softest hands and gave the best tickles.  It always felt like she was totally focused on you when you were in her presence.  She had time to listen and to console and counsel.  She was mainly a listener and allowed you to make your own decisions.  After marrying and having our own family, I loved going back home because it allowed me even for just an hour to be the little boy again and enjoy that motherly influence.  

As a missionary in the Congo all these years later, I never cease to be amazed at how much influence my parents continue to have upon me.  I think of them often and the many life lessons I learned from both of them.  It is difficult to speak of one without the other, but today I want to pay tribute to the goodness of my mother, Jean Christensen Davis.  I love you mom.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)