May 17, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, May 17, 2015

This is our one year anniversary of arrival in Lubumbashi.  It is a national holiday; liberation day.   In prior emails I have expressed frustration with church bureaucracy and all the delays in the approval of our projects, but this week I will turn my focus to the local delays.  I must admit it feels much better to wrestle with our local partners rather than with the humanitarian hierarchy and the approval process. Once approved, it seems every level of government wants money or a piece of the action.  Case in point is Regideso, a $150,000 project to extend water distribution lines to highly populated poorer neighborhoods.  When we attempted to get contract approval from the local director, he told us his authorization limit is $10,000 and it will have to go to the capital, Kinshasa.

The project requires a separate partner organization since Regideso cannot serve as the partner and the contractor.  The partner organization is the Ministry of Energy.  While visiting their director, he said he couldn’t sign our memorandum of understanding until he received a copy of the contract and could determine how much the project would cost (so they could extract a cut). He offered to have some of their personnel supervise Regideso construction for a fee and we declined.  It’s probably not so much different from planning commissions and building permits at home but here there is so much corruption, you have to constantly be mindful of who and how you are being cheated.   You can’t always choose your bed fellows, so we’ll persevere for the benefit of the people.   Bribes are a fact of life here and the church refuses to pay them.  It’s my belief that this is the reason the announced temple in Kinshasa has not been started.  Honesty is the number one principle consistently taught to our missionaries with varied success.

Elder Steve Bailey, a water short term specialist who has worked with us on Regideso warned us about the dancing they like to do here in Africa.  The project is constantly changing because no one seems to honor their work, contract or commitment.  Another example is Kamweneja School where we are replacing the roof and ceiling tiles.  The beneficiary school agreed to pay for the installation of roofing materials if the church would supply all construction materials.  We have and they haven’t.  This past we discovered the installer’s crew has only been paid $400 on a promised $3,200 commitment.  The installer is half done and said he will not proceed until he is paid.  We said we will take the uninstalled materials and give them to local orphanages if the school (Catholic) failed to honor their agreement.  We are currently at an impasse and hope to appeal to Charles, the physical facilities director for all Catholic Schools in Lubumbashi.  

We have felt like we have been living on borrowed time with our translator, Steve Mutombo.  He interviewed for Felly Bukasa’s position when Felly was promoted and moved to Kinshasa.  On Thursday he finally received word of his job offer, over three weeks after his interview.  He will start on June 1st and we have to find his replacement in less than two weeks.  There is so much unemployment here that there is considerable interest in our position especially since the last two have been hired full-time by the church.  The problem is there aren’t a lot of people who speak good English and fewer still who can meet with government officials and business leaders.  We have certainly been blessed with Flavian and Steve.  We feel like they have been our most successful humanitarian projects rather than brick and mortar.  

We have spent the past two Sundays attending wards where potential translators reside.  One is Marcel, a missionary friend of Steve’s and the other is Mwanda, the stake young men’s president.  We need to schedule and conduct interviews this next week of probably four candidates.  It is only a part-time position paying $5 per hour and limited to 20 hours per week and it feels like it is one of the most sought after positions available.  This is an indicator of how desperate the employment situation is here.

The sale of mission home property scheduled for April 1st was finally completed this past week when the last tenant moved out.  This is the home we will occupy once all of the repairs, painting and cleaning are completed.  Shelley is anxious to be closer to the other senior missionaries and I’m not in a hurry to give up our privacy.  In any event, we’ll be moving within the next week.   Connectivity is such an important issue here and the mission home has better internet, so we will enjoy that improvement. Our phones are both on the blink and provide us limited service.  It isn’t the phones, but the local service provider, Vodacom.  

You may have heard news of a military coup in Burundi.  This is part of our mission and there were 4 Elders, 4 Sisters and 2 senior couples in Bujumbura.  The church monitors these things closely and sent the sisters to Lubumbashi and the young elders to Uvira the very day of the coup. The senior couples were scheduled to fly out the next day, but they closed down the airport and they are currently staying at a hotel close to the airport so they can leave at the earliest convenience.  The president of the country has served 2 terms and wants to serve an illegal 3rd term.  The contention within the country is over those who want him to continue and those who want him to step down.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing exactly the same issue in 2016 and the entire time we have been here there has been an undercurrent of unrest over this very issue.  We’re happy we won’t be here in 2016.

Being this far away from home, we are missing some fun activities such as John’s baptism, Charlie’s arrival and Laci and Nate’s new baby, the Davis and Bott after tax season party and just yesterday, Matt and Ashley participating in the Ironman Triathlon in Houston, Texas.  I can’t imagine doing any of these ironman events, yet alone all of them consecutively.  Swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles.  We applaud their preparation and dedication and hope they take time to celebrate before scheduling their next competition.  There isn’t a day we don’t speak of you and pray for you collectively and individually.  We know you are being blessed because of our missionary service as are we, yet we do have October marked on our calendar.  

Sister Emma Anthony is returning home a week from tomorrow. She is from Richland, Washington and she is here because Sister Claudine Riendeau, with whom she worked in the temple felt inspired to ask her to be her companion. She decided within a matter of a couple of weeks and I believe they were the first single sisters to ever serve in the Congo.   Sister Anthony grew up as Emma Smith in Tremonton as a Bear River Bear, so it was doubly difficult for me to like her, but she has rescued us from the office.  She is a BYU accounting graduate and has served in the finance office of the mission making it possible for mom and I to serve as humanitarian missionaries. I have been grateful to serve in the community and to associate with the local people, all made possible because of Sister Anthony.  We will miss her but she may not be done serving missions. She talks of Brazzaville and President Mongo; we shall see.  

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)