June 6, 2015 - Clark

Saturday, June 06, 2015

The days seem to run together but yesterday had to be one of the top 5 days we have had as missionaries.  It usually takes forever to get things accomplished.  No effective email correspondence and appointments don’t mean the exact time but they mean morning or afternoon when I get around to it.   Well yesterday was amazing from beginning to end.  We had two scheduled appointments; one at Regideso at 8:00 a.m. and the other at 3:00 p.m with nothing scheduled in between.  Marcel, our translator said at the day’s end, “we were really helped by the invisible hand today”.  It was so obvious that it wasn’t invisible.  Let me recount just a few of the events:

1. Regideso appointment allowed us to see the Director for an update on the contract process; the attorney, Philippe greeted us and made sure we had both the English and French copies of the contract sent to Kinshasa and then took us upstairs to introduce us to the Finance Director to set up electronic payments by becoming an approved vendor.  All this in about an hour and was more than we have accomplished with Regideso partners for the past two weeks.
2. Immunizations-Dr. Guy had ignored us on Thursday after waiting for him for over an hour, but today he greeted us with two others, one of which was the finance director.  We were there to determine how they would be paid for the polio campaign advertising budget of $3,400 and the transportation of the vaccine and supplies to Kamina and Kolwezi for $17,000.  They arranged to have the independent contractor over transportation come to the office immediately.  They signed the contracts for transportation and had a proforma invoice prepared for us to send to Johannesburg.  They also spent the day working with radio and TV stations to provide proforma invoice for the advertising and delivered it to us before the end of the day.  Rolf Randall in Johannesburg made arrangements for a direct electronic transfer to the central bank for the MOH overriding the normal vendor approval process that usually takes 3-4 weeks for processing the first payment.  This was all critical because the project starts on Tuesday and is directed at providing polio vaccinations for 420,000 children in the Katanga Province.  Two weeks’ worth of work was completed before the end of the day on this emergency response project.
3. Wheelchairs and Vision-Dr. Eric is the one in charge of securing all exemption certificates for charitable gifts such as wheelchairs and eye surgical equipment to be donated without import fees, duties and taxes.  He has been absent or elusive for over three weeks now.  We stopped by his secretary’s office and told him we were looking for him.  An hour later, the secretary came looking for us while we were meeting with Dr. Guy and told us Dr. Eric was in and would see us.  He told us he had processed  our applications yesterday and had forwarded them to the Minister’s office.  I told him that our shipping department in SLC had not received his permission to ship the vision equipment. He told me, “tell me what needs to be said and I will send Greg  Buttars an email as we speak.  He took me to his desk and I dictated his email with shipping document references.  By the time we had returned to the office at the mission compound, Greg Buttars had emailed me saying he had all that was needed and the shipment would be sent.  
4. Even our diversion activities had a silver lining.  Shelley had Eugenie (kind of like Virginia) do some sewing for her and we stopped by to pick it up.  While visiting we asked if she would be available to teach some sewing classes to the orphans at Katimel Orphanage.  They received 5 treadle machines over two months ago and they are still in the boxes.  She was delighted to be asked and we said we would need first of all to hire a technician to setup the machines.  Her husband, Andre, replied that he was a repair technician and could set up the machines for us.  
5. Our afternoon meeting with Enoch Ilunga regarding drilling 3 water wells in Tabacongo went well but the best part of the meeting again wasn’t planned.  Dr. Kabila who is another chief deputy stopped by to see Enoch and spoke with us.  He said we were involved in many projects and suggested that we come and see the Minister of Health directly to give him a progress report on Tuesday.  I should have been surprised when we just happened to run into the executive secretary for the minister in the parking lot as we were leaving and he reserved a 10:00 appointment with the minister for Tuesday morning.  

I take no personal credit for the volume of work that was accomplished on Friday because we encountered one tender mercy after another.  I’ve only highlighted some of the most memorable.   These were not merely coincidences.  The invisible hand was definitely at work on Friday and we were the beneficiaries.  It was undeniable.  I remember meeting with Farrell and Marilyn Barlow, a couple who had served 3 African missions, before we left and they said, “be careful what you pray for as a missionary because it can happen with such speed,   it is almost frightening”.  Friday was just such a day!

Tuesday evening we had a seniors’ dinner with Elder Hamilton of the Area Presidency.  He and his wife had just returned from a tour of the church units in the Kasai Province.  Elder Hamilton said he wanted to confirm that ours is the most difficult mission in the church.  I believe he was referring to the assignment of the mission president.  This is one of only a handful of missions in the church where the mission president’s tenure is only 2 instead of 3 years.  Mom was in charge of the dinner and we had sweet and sour chicken.  She practiced the recipe a couple of times on me to get it just perfect.  She had made enough  that we had an encore meal the following evening with the same menu.

Today we had a couple of memorable events.  We accompanied the sister missionaries, Nzweme and Wamalwa in teaching Euphrasie, the referral we mentioned in previous weeks.  When we met with her in her home, her mother, her brother and her uncle also joined in the missionary lesson.  We had good discussion and her brother, Alfred, said the closing prayer.  We’re picking all four up for church in the morning.   I think the mother, Yvonne, got the wrong idea when we told her we were humanitarian missionaries.  At the end of the lesson, her brother asked me for my Bible, which I gave to Euphrasie, but the mother asked for help with her eyes and her teeth.  When I said the best I could do was to find her a Swahili copy of the Book of Mormon, they asked for drinks.  We are still not sure if they are really interested in the missionary message or if we are just a novelty act.  I’ll keep you posted.

Sunday, June 07, 2015

Steve also invited us to him home for dinner on Saturday afternoon and we drove directly there after the missionary discussion with Euphrasie’s family.  Our invitation was for 4:00 because they don’t have reliable electricity and we needed to finish before it was dark.  We thought we were going to have dinner with his family.   His father greeted  us and we met his older sister Hugette and  his mother who were preparing the food but to our surprise it was a dinner only for Steve and Matild and the office men Steve had invited: Felly, Flavien and Mbidi without their wives.  Felly is visiting from  Kinsahsa to train Steve in his new job responsibilities and we felt privileged to be included.  Steve’s  mother, his sister and Matild had prepared the meal of tilapia, chicken, potatoes, rice and spaghetti, apples and oranges.  Matild served everyone drinks and acted as the hostess while everyone else in the family made themselves scarce.  We were served in the room that is usually the master bedroom that had been prepared for the meal.  They had a black felt wall hanging of Heidelberg, Germany on the Rhine.  I told them to story of Heidelberg that was right on the border of my mission.  We also found out from Steve and Matild that their civil marriage is scheduled for October 17th.  We had previously thought that was their day to be married in the Johannesburg Temple.  This coming Saturday is their final dote meeting where Steve presents all of the items requested by Matild’s family as his obligation to meet the bride price.  Included are suits, dresses, fabric, shoes, goats, palm oil, and of course money.  The church is trying to do away with the bride price and have preached a need to follow the gospel culture and not the local culture.  Matild’s family are not members of the church and he has no choice.  They money portion can delay marriages or make them impossible.  The average annual income is less than $400 and his bride price is $2,000 plus the other items.   

Today is Sunday and we used the mission van to take Mikesells and the four adults from Euphrasie’s family to church in the Lubumbashi First Ward where Desire Ilunga is the bishop.  The members this time were so welcoming.  The sister missionaries were there on time and sat with them in sacrament meeting. I was worried about sacrament being fast and testimony meeting but everyone was exemplary.  There were three new members who were confirmed members of the church following their baptism from yesterday.  I was worried about the investigator’s class that was so ill prepared the prior week.  Different story this week and Euphrasie’s brother, Alfred, asked several good questions and was fellowshipped by several local members including the new mechanic at FM.  I believe his name is Venir.  During priesthood we went to the High Priest’s meeting and Euphrasie’s uncle, Asan, followed us.  I had him sit next to the member of the bishopric who had a tablet and showed him the entire text of the lesson that was from the handbook of instructions, second chapter on priesthood principles.

Mbidi Ilunga is the Bishop in his ward and they do some wonderful things as a ward.  They wear yellow shirts that are identified as “helping hands” This summer for 3 months, each Saturday they are cleaning the Kisanga General Hospital.  It takes them about three hours each Saturday and they have 30 plus members show up every Saturday.  It makes our church cleaning assignment every six months seem pretty puny.   Unemployment is as high as 90% here and yet the spirit of volunteerism is alive and well.  Shelley is going to include a picture of part of their group in her letter.

This afternoon we have been invited to visit Brother Mwamba’s home.  He was one of the unsuccessful candidates who interviewed to be our new translator.  His wife has a new baby and we have befriended him.  We asked him to be the translator for Zack, President Thomas’ son, who is a medical student and will be visiting here for 10 days starting this Thursday.  Shelley has knitted some booties and is taking two pair so we are prepared regardless of the baby’s gender.

We have had such a full week, that I begin worrying about what we will do for meaningful involvement once we return home from our mission.  President Ferry and Bishop Taylor, I hope you’re reading this and pondering on how we can keep them engaged full-time in church service.  It has been very rewarding this past week.  

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)