May 10, 2015 - Shelley

May 10, 2015

Well, we’ve been here long enough that the word is spreading and we’ve had many visitors this week – all asking for various and sundry amounts of help.

One of those for this week was a health center.  I’m not quite sure what prompts people to open a health center.  There is definitely a need, but most of them have nothing much to offer.  Below, the

owner is showing us the sum total of “the pharmacy”.

These are people in the observation room – just four beds with people looking very sick.  The center was tiny – only four rooms that were separated with cardboard that was painted white.  However, it was very clean.  The scariest room to me was the “birthing” room.

That’s it!  The new mother under the

       

mosquito net has been here for three weeks waiting for her husband to come and pay the bill - $15.00!  She won’t be released until it’s paid.  This center

serves 24,000 people, has no electricity and no water – and no doctor -  just a man who called himself the nurse.  The list of “wants” that they gave us included enough supplies to outfit the Mayo Clinic.  It’s heartbreaking, especially since we really can’t help them.

Well, on to happier thoughts.  One of our biggest water projects was approved!  The project is to extend water lines from existing pipes to five neighborhoods.  The people in these neighborhoods will be required to dig the trenches for the pipes.  We hope that it all comes together because clean water is such a great need.

In another project, Kamweneja School

is replacing the roof and ceilings over  part of their school.  It will make six classrooms usable that have heretofore been unusable for several years because of leakage damages.  It’s been an education for us to buy the supplies – my last letter showed the lumber being delivered to this school.

We have three single senior sisters serving with us.  It’s difficult for them to do much exploring around town as the rules say that they shouldn’t be out alone.  So Clark has done a very good job of including them in our “P” day activities.  This week we went to a fabric store.  Beautiful fabric is in abundance

here and they had a good time picking some out.

There has been a polio immunization campaign going on in Lubumbashi for the past two weeks.  Because so many babies are born in health centers and at home, it’s difficult for the government to keep track of the number of births.  Most places don’t have the internet – even many hospitals.  So the government hires people to go door

       

to door to see if there are any new babies.  This photo shows a circle written in chalk on the door of the mission property to show that it’s the 8th house on the street and that there are no babies in any of the homes.  If there were, the vaccine would be given on the spot.

There’s a beautiful door to a compound in the mission home neighborhood.

It is painted with the “Big Five” game animals in Africa.  Alas, we have only seen these in the zoo.  Our Lubumbashi Zoo has two lions and a few monkeys – and that’s about all.  No need at all to worry about being eaten by wild animals here!  They have been eaten!

To my family, I will say that I made a great discovery at the grocery store : genuine Baker’s coconut!  It’s amazing but random familiar products show up occasionally at the store– Skippy Peanut Butter, Crisco, Bounty towels (those, however, were $50/12 rolls!  I didn’t get them!).  I don’t know if a single box falls out of a passing airplane or exactly what happens, but whatever we see is short-lived, so you have to jump on it while you can.

Our family has a tradition of making “Conference Cookies” at our house but of course, I’ve haven’t made them here.  With my wonderful discovery of real coconut, I decided to make some local adjustments and try to make them.  The “Eet-Sum-Mor Biscuits” became the graham cracker crust,

and the “Mister Sweet Yumallows” substituted for our usual Kraft marshmallows.  I just took them out of the oven and they look about the same

as our usual cookies – I’ll let you know if they taste the same!  ☺ ( I forgot to mention the chocolate chips – I already had those, as they are a staple in any good household!).

Not many of our US holidays carry over to the DR Congo.  Even Christmas was on a very different scale here – probably better in some ways without the extreme commercialism we see at home.  So Mother’s Day is here.  I have been able to cope pretty well with the holidays so far, but this one has me feeling a pretty tender.

My mother will be 88 years old at the end of this month.  She has been living at the Apple Village retirement home for the last two years.  She is pictured

below a few years ago.  It was very difficult for me to decide to leave her and go on a mission, knowing that she might not live until I returned.   My wise Stake President told me that our whole family would all be blessed if we went – and his words couldn’t have been more true.  Our children have stepped in to nurture and care for Mother – and it has been a blessing to all of us.

I am so thankful on this Mother’s Day – not only for my wonderful mother and children – but for the privilege of being a mother.  Clark and I often say that nothing else has helped us better understand our Heavenly Father’s unconditional love for us, as being parents.  We have been blessed!

Happy Birthday this week to grandson Rex Muhlestein who will reach the ripe old age of eleven on the May 11th!!!!  Don’t they call that your “golden birthday”?  (Same birthday as the date – ie. 11 on the 11th or 19 on the 19th).  Have a great week!   Love,  Mom/Soeur Davis