July 26, 2015 - Shelley

July 26, 2015

It’s a holiday weekend at home.  I hope everyone enjoyed the fun!

We are practicing patience (again!) as we wait for slow-moving cogs to start turning.  Our big water project with Regideso was approved on May 7, but has yet to actually START!!!!  Everything on our end has been in place for weeks, but the local entity is stuck in the details of buying materials or something.  Hopefully soon . . .

We made an appearance at Daniel’s alphabetization class to distribute notebooks, pens, and syllabuses – syllabi?  These beautiful ladies are

crammed like sardines into a hot, unlit classroom for a few hours each week to try to learn to read.  They haven’t had the privilege of attending school before now.  I think their faces show such hope.

There are always people who want to pose in pictures with “muzungus” – white people.  Of course, they want us to bring them a copy, which sometimes we do – but usually not.  It will be quite the let-down for me to return home and to not be considered a rock star because I will look like everyone else!  haha

Guess what we found at the newest grocery store in town?  For a mere $8.00

we bought BACON – you heard me – real smoked bacon!!!  It was cut into teensy strips and this pan is half of what we bought.  Probably about three strips of meat if they were glued together.  It was a delicious extravagance!!

We heard a loud disturbance the other night.  It was like a huge party with hoots and whistles and shouting.  This is in our quiet little neighborhood, so we took note.  The music lasted until after 10:00, which is very late around here.  We found out the next day that it was high school graduation and families were celebrating.  One tradition is to have the graduate and his/her family members cover their heads and faces with powder or flour.  We ran into some ladies at the lumberyard the next day who were still celebrating.  This gal below had a child who graduated.  

And I think the lady in the next picture must have been drinking some of the local hooch because that whistle was still causing quite a bit of sound pollution!  It’s been interesting to see people “powdered up” around town and to understand why.  Education is hard to come by for so many people because all schools charge tuition and many families are very large.  Out in the villages, their opportunities are even more limited because the schools are few and far between.

We had an interesting experience when we took Marcel, our translator, to his “other” job.  Here is Marcel and my

able companion standing outside his “call box” (the little house behind them).  When he is not with us, Marcel sells phone minutes.  He has been at this location for a several years and has quite a clientele built up.  From what I can figure out, people belong to a phone carrier but they don’t pay by the month like we do at home.  They buy minutes.  It causes all kinds of problems and most people have more than one carrier because sometimes one carrier will shut down or have troubles – then you just use your other one.  Here is

Marcel inside his 10’ by 10’ “office”.  One of his biggest problems is undependable electricity.  But he’s happy!

Right outside the door to his office is the neighborhood 7-11.  The guy next to him sells beans, eggs, corn and cassava flour, tomatoes, onions, palm oil, and vegetable oil (in the blue and green buckets).  People bring their own containers and get the oil scooped into them from the bucket.  I don’t know why I have such a big hang-up about eggs, but my mother always told me to put them in the refrigerator as soon as you got home from the store so they didn’t go bad.  And I always have.  BUT

we see eggs like this everywhere.  The stack on the right is hard boiled, and the others aren’t.  They sit out in the sun like this –and no one seems too worried about them going bad.  But it was when I saw these pans of rocks that I

really started to wonder.  The pink pan has rocks that are salty and the rocks in the gray pan are plain.  When I asked what they were for, Marcel told me that they were for pregnant women.  I thought he was kidding until two pregnant gals strolled up and each bought one – and promptly ate them!!  He explained that they are made of clay that is mixed with water in a flat pan and then dried.  They are then cut up like brownies!  I have actually heard of pregnant women eating dirt because they craved certain minerals in the soil – but I didn’t truly believe it.  I think Cheetos were the only thing I craved when I was pregnant!  Anyway, it was a touch of local culture.  ☺

I just have to show another hair picture!  Rosie works for her father at a hardware store called Africa Business.  We’ve gotten lots of pump parts there.  Anyway, Rosie’s hair is about one inch long all over and she wears it brushed back into a kind of ducktail.  It’s really cute on her.  Well, we saw her at the grocery store the other day – and look

at her hair!!!!  It’s not a wig.  She had extensions woven onto her one-inch hair!  It really was attractive, but I can’t imagine how much time it took or how expensive it was!!!  Amazing!!!

Yesterday we had the second of two sessions with the Katuba Stake Relief Society ladies making maturation kits.

Most of these gals are whizzes on their hand-cranked sewing machines. But,

of course, there are always some who struggle even cutting out the pattern.  They are so good to help each other

and have fun doing it.  And let me tell you, they can really “chat it up” while

working together!!  The other senior sisters and I couldn’t understand a single word, but the face on this cute gal above tells it all.

Well, one last picture.  As I’ve mentioned, we’re in the dry season.  There are basically two seasons:  rainy and dry.  It hasn’t rained since April and isn’t expected to rain again until October/November.  There is a layer of dust on everything and fires are burning garbage even right on a busy corner in

the middle of downtown.  Even with that said, the weather is beautiful!!!  The climate and temperature couldn’t be more perfect!

Our missionary grandson, Elder Joshua Chamberlain, will celebrate his birthday in the McAllen Texas Mission this week!

We love you all!  --Mom/G-ma D./Soeur Davis

July 26, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, July 26, 2015

This past week marked my 68th birthday and one of my activities was completing a questionnaire for our 50th high school reunion.  Some of the questions were: (1) interesting places you have traveled and (2) retirement projects.  I told them it was just a sabbatical but our missionary experience dominated the answer sheet.  For me Box Elder High School and Brigham City were just the perfect place to grow up.  I felt valued, recognized and accountable.  You couldn’t get into trouble without your mother knowing about it before you got home.  When I walked down the street people knew me by my first name and they also knew how many times I had missed a block, fumbled the ball or thrown an interception in Friday night’s game.  I delivered the Salt lake Tribune from the time I was 8-14.  The First Ward was our coverage area (from Forest Street to Third South and from Main Street to the mountains) and even after we had established Davis and Bott, people in the community remembered me as the local paperboy.  I suppose I was known for good and evil but I was definitely known.  My Grandmother, Ruby Davis, died when she was 89.  I remember her saying that she felt like a 15 year girl trapped in an 80 year old body.  We’ve been remarkably healthy during our mission and I share my Grandma Ruby’s sentiment.  Oh to be 18 again, but I would never go back, the future has too much promise.

Shelley and I were in charge of family home evening this past week.  The lesson was #28, “We Are Witnesses” taken from the first five chapters of Acts.  I especially enjoyed the verse from Act 1:8, “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”  It just struck me that we are those witnesses and Lubumbashi, DR Congo, certainly has to qualify as the uttermost part of the earth.  We have really enjoyed our family home evening gatherings.  It is the only church meeting we attend all week long where we understand more than a few phrases.  It has brought the senior missionaries much closer and has helped us form a common bond.  These are people who will be lifetime friends but we may never have sought one another out but for serving in the same mission.  Neil and Glenda Draper, Vaun and Renee Mikesell, Heather Vance, Janet Cook, Brent and Carolyn Thomas and previously Claudine Riendeau, Emma Anthony, Brent and Celeste Atkinson, Kevan and Teri Clawson.  We couldn’t be more different but now “We Are Witnesses” serving in the uttermost part of the earth.

To celebrate my birthday on Tuesday, I spent the day shopping for nails and lumber for the Kamweneja School roofing project.  Pierre is the installer and he has a helper, Pascal and his grandson, Andre who are working on the roofing project together.  Pierre had a granddaughter die on Monday and he went shopping for roofing materials Tuesday.  He has taken such pride in his work and wherever we go he makes sure the shop owners know he has brought them this newfound business.  The lumberyard is owned by sisters from the same family.  The fourth sister, Lydee, is the president of the association.  They are Muslim and we have had some interesting conversations.  She suggested that next time I could just call ahead and come by to pick up the lumber after it had been selected, cut and loaded.  I told her I enjoyed being at the lumberyard and wouldn’t think of calling in our order.  Not to mention that Pierre inspects every single piece of lumber before selection.  We spent the entire afternoon together.  The reason we return to the lumberyard often is that none of the lumberyard operators are what are referred to as authorized vendors and our cash working fund is limited to $1,500.  We will end up purchasing over $10,000 worth of lumber for this project;   thus the frequent and enjoyable trips to the lumberyard.

The Church makes a lot of assumptions and takes a lot of risks in having senior couples serve as humanitarian missionaries.  I say that because they send you to a week of training where you see videos and do some role playing and then send you to your assigned location to be the local expert.  Let me share just such an experience as it relates to the wheelchair and vision projects we have coming the first 10 days of September.  The church has shipped by boat from China to Tanzania over $100,000 worth of wheelchairs.  We are responsible for obtaining an exemption certificate from all taxes and duties imposed on importing goods into the country.  No training in protocol or process.  We started in February and are still uncertain if everything will come together.  There are 14 hospitals involved who have to send one technician and one clinician to the training.  The Katanga Province is being broken into 4 smaller provinces and no single existing governmental entity can correspond with all 14 hospitals, wish us luck.    The vision project has air-freighted their equipment to the Lubumbashi airport but no one has picked it up because they need the exemption certificate.  We’ll see if the work we have been doing since February pays off and they come through.  It should not be this difficult to give away hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment.  

Probably the most tangible evidence that we are doing some good came in the form of a visit to the Trinity School where 600 women are receiving literacy training.  We had purchased pens, notebooks and paid for the reproduction of the syllabus and training booklet.  When we arrived, we were given a royal welcome in each classroom we visited.  They had us speak as visiting dignitaries and then used this as a photo opportunity to promote their program.  Shelley did a wonderful job both as an educator and as a mother.  They frequently refer to the phrase, “If you educate a mother, you education the world”.  I’m certainly happy that our daughters and daughters-in-law have valued education and are educating their families.  When you think about it, who would you prefer to have as your nurse, your teacher, your friend?  Your mother of course!

This is a sensitive time being separated by so many miles from Shelley’s mother.  Thank you all of you for looking after her in ways that we can’t.  We appreciate her example as an educator, mother and teacher of life’s lessons.  

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)  

July 19, 2015 - Shelley

July 19, 2015

While most of you are enjoying the warm summer months, we are in winter.  Well, if you can all 70 degrees “winter”.  It’s the dry season – almost a 100% chance of no rain for about 6 months.  It’s a time when a lot of burning takes place because that’s difficult to do in the rainy season (summer).  That means

burning of the garbage build-up and burning of wood to make charbon.  The smoky air makes for beautiful sunsets!  This is a street near our house.

We have a new statue in town.  The  

president of the Congo (who lives in Kinshasa) has decided to divide the Katanga Province into 4 smaller provinces.  We don’t understand the local politics really, but we’ve been told he’s doing it so that this province isn’t as powerful as it is now.  He wants to run for a third term next year – and we think that the governor of the Katanga Province, who is very popular, is a political threat.  Anyway, this statue “says” that even though the province is divided into 4 parts, they will stand united.  At the Operation Smile banquet last week, the governor said as much.  So we’ll have to see.  The elections in Burundi have caused such chaos over the same issue (third term for the president) that foreigners have fled from the country and the church has no current plans for sending missionaries back there anytime soon.  Let’s hope that the DRC doesn’t have the same problems next year.

We visited all five of the neighborhoods in our Regideso water project this week to tell them that the work will begin in the next two weeks or so.  They were all happy except one neighborhood that is still fighting over who gets to have the water taps in their yard.  Regideso will make that call.  We always see things

of interest when we go visiting.  This is a train made out of sardine cans, bottle caps, nails, and string.  An adorable ittle boy pulled this all around while we visited.  It’s kind of hard to see in this

picture.  When I think of all the money we have spent on toys . . . haha!  Who knew that sardines could be this fun?!!

Another interesting site was a family who dug up their yard to use the dirt in making bricks for a new addition.  The

men are shoveling the dirt into a rectangular press, adding a bit of oil and water and squeezing it with a presser handle.  The bricks will then be fired and used for building.  I’m not quite sure what the plan is for filling in the hole!  ☺  Clark and I were quite taken back when Marcel, our translator, asked us if our house at home was made of bricks.  Then he asked if we had made the bricks ourselves.  It’s what everyone does here – and it seems to work very well.  This is a picture

of Marcel’s home.  It is also made of bricks but they are covered with some kind of stucco.  There are actually 4 homes here – his is the green door on the right.  He pays $30 per month.  We haven’t seen inside, but I think he’s paying too much!!!  I wouldn’t dare show him a picture of our home that’s made of “store-bought” bricks!  We are so SPOILED!!!!!

We also took Daniel shopping this week.

He’s on the left in a pink tuxedo shirt.  He is a chief of one of the areas and runs a literacy program for women who haven’t attended school.  We bought school supplies for his program.  The man on the right is a printer who is preparing some written materials for him.  If I said the printer’s shop was “bare bones”, it would be an understatement – but he’s employed and is working hard.

We also went fabric shopping with the Drapers for Sister Draper’s birthday.  Her husband hates to shop, so Clark went along for moral support.  He captured

a picture of two other shoppers.  The one in the middle has a wig on and the one on the right has a fancy “do” using hair extensions.  It’s amazing what the local gals do with their hair!!!  We all

celebrated her birthday and my companion’s birthday (next week) with a dinner at Lattélicious!

Yesterday was a big day for me.  We finally had the first of six training days for the Days for Girls (maturation) project.  There are 3 stakes here, and it will take 2 days in each stake.  These cute ladies

from the Katuba Stake sewed all afternoon.  They are such hard workers -

some with babies on their backs even!!!  The other senior sister missionaries helped me, and I think it was a real success.  About 35 ladies were there.  They are so amazing to me because they sew on hand-run and treadle sewing machines – and their work is beautiful!

Last night we attended another wedding.  Gires, one of the Operation Smile volunteers, married Arlette.  We

took all of the other senior missionaries with us except President and Sister Thomas, who are touring in the Kasai Province this week.  The reception followed about the same format as the others we’ve been to except that there was more dancing and hooting!!  Sister Vance is from Canada but was born in London and has the cutest accent.  And she is a DANCER!!!!  This was her first local reception, and she really got into the spirit of things!  Of course, all of the local people just loved it!  Here is a picture of her after she had joined in with a crowd of dancers.  She’s on the

right.  Super fun gal!  We all thought this

cute lady was fun to watch, too.  And even Clark got “persuaded” to join in the festivities.  It was funny because some man who had been at the reception talked to Clark at church today and said in broken English that he had found joy in Clark’s dancing last night!  I feel pretty shy about doing

things like that, so I’m glad it wasn’t me!  I figure that someone has to be on the sidelines cheering, so I’m okay with it!

Well, we attended church today in a ward we had never been to – the Bongonga Ward.  They had a choir of Primary kids (about 25 senior Primary children) who sat up in front alone on their little plastic chairs.  There was no adult supervision needed – they sang prelude for about 30 minutes – with no accompaniment.  And they remained sitting together for the whole Sacrament Meeting – no little squabbles or issues of “who is bothering who”.   I just don’t know how they do it!  Aren’t

they adorable!!!

Well, even though I’ve been retired from teaching for two years now, I had my annual “nervous for school” dream the other night.  Usually I dream that it’s Back-to-School Night, and I’m talking to parents with only my slip on.  But this time, I dreamed that I couldn’t find my classroom, I hadn’t prepared anything for the first day, and the bell was about to ring!!!  I just want to remind all of my wonderful school-teaching friends that you still have plenty of summertime left and don’t start worrying about school yet!!!

Happy Birthday this coming week to our son-in-law David Chamberlain – and to the best companion in the world - Clark!

Love,  Mom/G-ma/Soeur Davis

July 19, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, July 19, 2015

We attended the Bongonga Ward Conference today.  The best part of the conference was the primary choir that sang prelude songs in preparation for the beginning of sacrament meeting.  They sang several primary songs without a text or notes or charts and they all seemed to know the words.  It was even more remarkable that when we started singing the hymns in sacrament meeting, they still knew the words to every verse and they had even memorized the page numbers in the hymnal so they could help senior missionaries find the page.  It reminded me of President Robert Steed and his wife Debbie who seldom carry a hymn book and know every word.  President Steed said it is important to learn the words before he loses his sight with old age.  In priesthood meeting the high priests group questioned whether they were teaching their children the gospel well enough.  I shared my observation with them and told them “what better way to teach gospel principles than teaching their children the words of the hymns”.    

Another thing that strikes me is their attitude towards children.  The average family seems to have lots of children; it is not uncommon to meet members who come from families of 10-14 children from a single mother.  We were a little concerned as we attended a USAID seminar this past week that one of their redeeming programs is family planning to limit family size.  These people give little thought to everything they need to provide a new baby other than love.  The family is of premier importance and children are valued as an heritage of the Lord.  I realize as a grandparent it is easier to give advice about family planning than as a newly-wed, but my advice would be to plan your family and plan on welcoming as many children as the Lord will send you.  The Congolese people are exemplary in family planning.

This week was very rewarding for our ongoing and future projects:

1. Regideso is finally getting underway and we spent the entire day visiting all five neighborhoods to announce the start of the project and determine the exact location for the placement of the water stations.  As we have visited these neighborhoods several times, the people recognize us and welcome us.  It’s hard to blend in but as a white person, we are either singled out as “muzunga” or we are idolized because every white person is rich and has money they want to give.  We are asked for money daily in every situation imaginable.  You would like to give more but there is no end of need and yet giving only creates more dependency and so we avoid it.  It is nice to be able to give in the name of the church.  60% of Lubumbashi’s residents do not have access to clean drinking water, so clean water really is the gift of life.  
2. Kafubu Health Zone is still repairing wells.  Leon is the representative from the Ministry of Health with whom we work in coordinating the repairs and arrangements with the villages.  He is an employee of the MOH but has no vehicle and they do not pay for his transportation.  We end up paying his transportation so he will visit the villages.  Somehow we got this backwards.  It seems so difficult to push, push, push to give away money.  We gave him $20 to visit three villages that are 30 miles away and he has to stay overnight away from home to assist in their repair projects; still a small price to pay.  
3. Trinity School Literacy Program (Daniel).  This is a program organized by Daniel, a chef de quartier (chief of the quarter section) who envisioned teaching 600 women to read and write French.  He asked us for help but started 2 months ago without us.  We were so happy that Johannesburg approved helping with school supplies like notebooks, pens and a syllabus for each student.  We went shopping on Friday and had to negotiate the price of reproducing the syllabus with the local one-man service provider across the street from Daniel’s office that is housed at the Kisanga General Hospital.  We used Marcel’s advice to offer one third of their asking price.  They asked for $5 for a 27 page bound syllabus.  Sister Davis beat them down to 1,800 francs or about $2.  Who said Shelley was a soft touch?
4. Kisanga General Hospital is a project that literally fell into our laps. I’ll attach a copy of the letter I sent to President and Sister Thomas describing the background.  We have worked on some projects for over a year now and they still have no traction, but this one has been discovered, presented, designed and funded all since June 10th, a record for us.  We received Phillip’s phone call on Wednesday saying we have to green light to build a water storage facility that will provide clean water to this general hospital that serves 233,000 residents. (see attachment)
5. Kamweneja is a Catholic School that anywhere else in the world would have been condemned.  The roof and ceiling leaked like a sieve, yet they asked for new desks.  Phillip Moatlhodi said we couldn’t be involved in construction but we could provide construction supplies if they would provide the installation.  Our proposal was cut in half last February due to budget restrictions.  We are nearing completion of 6 class rooms where the roof and ceiling have been replaced and had lobbied to extend the project to complete 3 additional class rooms.  Approval was received on Thursday.  

We have adopted a phrase attributed to Elder Packer, “You get what you go for”.  Three weeks ago, Phillip asked us to write a list of potential 2016 local area initiatives.  We included 10 projects and told Phillip, we would love to take on as many as we could before we leave.  We listed them in order of priority.  Of the first five, one was for a feasibility study for replacing a washed-out bridge; a project that the Katanga Province Governor has adopted, the other four have all been approved:

1. Kisanga General Hospital Water Storage
2. Maturation program for 3 stake relief societies in Lubumbashi
3. Literacy program for 600 adult women
4. Kamweneja roofing project completion

We feel so blessed to have these projects approved within the cutoff deadline.  The guideline is not to approve any new projects within the last three months of your release.  I suspect there are budget funds that were not spent in the other 20 countries in the Southeast Africa Area but we have had more projects approved in the last two weeks than we did in the previous six months.  You know how I enjoy being busy.  We have not taken a P-day in months and I’m so happy to be up to our eyeball in projects.  In addition to those listed, we will have visitors from the US for two weeks in August and September with wheelchairs and vision equipment and training.  Phillip and Kenneth are also coming to visit, so the calendar is full.

We did have time for some fun Friday and Saturday.   Friday we ate out at Lattelicious, the best local restaurant, in celebration of Sister Draper’s birthday and Saturday we attended another wedding reception.  Gires is one of our volunteers from Operation Smile and Steve’s best friend.  We obtained permission to bring the other 6 senior missionaries and a good time was had by all.  This is the 4th reception we have attended but the other seniors had never been.  

Odette asked us a difficult question this past week, “when you return home will you ever return to the Congo”?  I told her we came on a mission because we were called by a prophet to come to the Congo and we’re sure happy we did.  We have made many treasured friends who will be our friends regardless of where we are in the world.  We miss you, our family and friends, but we are happy in our calling and life is good.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

July 16, 2015 - Kisanga General Hospital

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Dear President and Sister Thomas,

You both understand how difficult our humanitarian assignment has been at times.  It’s amazing that some projects we work at developing for months never seem to work out and others just come to us out of the blue.  I wanted to share one such experience with you.

We were happy to accompany Sister Thomas and Zack when he came to visit.  Dr. Mikesell had the responsibility of scheduling the major hospitals and we had the pleasure of scheduling some smaller locations.  We looked at it as a diversion day but thoroughly enjoyed it.  Well, during our arranged visit to Kisanga General Hospital, we had an opportunity to visit with Dr. Kyky about their most pressing capital development needs.  He listed three: (1) water storage, (2) electricity to be run to the coolers that store the corpses and (3) the new TB center.  

We took an interest in the water storage issue.  The hospital receives water from Regideso during the morning hours but they have no clean water during the afternoons or at night.  For water needs including maternity, surgery and toilets, they use the water from the shallow hand-dug well which is contaminated.  Our area welfare manager around the same time asked us to project local projects we would consider for the 2016 budget year.  We included the Kisanga General Hospital Water Storage proposal in a two page listing of potential projects.

The same evening that Phillip Moatlhodi, our area welfare manager received our email response, he called and asked if he could find the money, could we develop the documentation on this project?  From that unexpected beginning during the past month we have been obtaining engineering estimates, testing the water pressure, and securing contractors’ bids before submitting the project proposal.  Yesterday we received approval for a $19,000 project that will benefit 233,000 residents who live in the Kisanga Health Zone.

We anticipate using Brother Mwamba as a site monitor on this project which will provide him work for about two months while he is out of school.  Tell Zack we enjoyed his visit and his involvement is visiting hospitals has helped us and the people of Lubumbashi.  We’ll attach a copy of the project development worksheet (PDW) so you can read a little more about the background.  Isn’t it amazing how we receive help when we least expect it.  

Elder and Sister Davis

July 12, 2015 - Shelley

July 12, 2015

I have spent much of this week “observing” from the “comfort” of a plastic chair.  Our well repair project in the Kafubu Health Zone finally got underway.  The requirement was that any village whose well was broken needed to put about $300 into a bank account for future repairs – and we would repair it the first time for free.  They will then charge for water and put the money in the bank account.  This concept has been more than tough to implement, but finally there were two villages ready.  Pita Village had built a

nice hand-dug well to use while the other was broken.  As I have explained before, it is HARD WORK to pull water from a well and then carry it home in

20-liter containers.  This next gal still had

a smile on her face – plus she was carrying a large baby on her back!  These gals are simply amazing!

And there’s always a crowd of darling helpers!!

We’re hoping that this is another step in helping the villages to become self-reliant.

Imagine any kind of program you have attended where you knew none of the participants.  And it was in a foreign language.  Times the length of that program by five.  And crank up the sound!  That was where we were yesterday!

Odette, the owner of the Peage School (where the church donated sewing machines, etc.) invited us to her end-of-the year awards program where high-achieving students were going to receive certificates.  So the invitation said it started at 9:00 a.m.  Here’s Odette and some of the faculty.  We

politely watched students perform little plays, dancing, poems, fashion shows, etc. – and finally at 2:00 (I’m serious!!!) – after 5 HOURS – we said we had to go.  AND It was just when they started to hand out awards!  Odette was crushed!

If I said it was a torturous event, I would be being kind.  Of course, the children are so cute and so patient.  We were under a tarp, but most of them had been sitting out in the sun the whole time.  There were about 300 people there – mostly students and a few parents.  Of course, we were happy to see that the machines had been well-used and appreciated.  Odette and her students have made hundreds of school uniforms with them.

We had wangled Marcel and Gracia (our translator and his new wife) into going with us, so at least we weren’t alone.  Fortunately, Marcel had to be at his other job at 2:00.  This photo shows Gracia and a cutie that was sitting by her.  I hated to make Odette feel bad,

but this picture shows how we all felt!

The last 10 days or so has been another Operation Smile campaign here.  Once again, they were repairing cleft lips and palates and had flown in patients from distant villages.  I can’t say enough good about the organization.  As in the

other campaigns, the LDS involvement was to have volunteers deliver food to the patients and their families and to help with transporting patients after surgery.  The volunteer in the photo is handing out bukari (fufu) and sombe in one of the rooms.

There was a team of about a dozen LDS young men and women – most returned missionaries – who were the volunteers.  Clark and Dr. Mikesell sat in on several operations and we did some organizing, but the work was done by the volunteers.  It takes such courage

for these mothers to get on a plane for the first time and to fly to a large city where their language isn’t spoken!!!  The photo above shows a mom and baby before surgery.  The boy below has had his lip repaired and is with one of our volunteers.

There was a banquet held last night at the Grand Karavia Hotel for everyone involved.  The Governor of the Katanga Province where we live made some wonderful remarks.  He reminded us

that not long ago, babies like these weren’t allowed to live because it was felt that witchcraft had caused this trouble.  He also said that blame for any deformity was placed on the mother – and this was a large contributor to divorce.  He thanked everyone involved with Operation Smile for changing the lives of 96 children this week.  Just a sidenote:  He left his son’s wedding party to attend this event for a few minutes and shook everyone’s hand before he left.  He is loved by many people here – and it’s easy to see why.

One of our missionaries has a bad case of malaria and parasites.  Malaria is quite common, but it is usually very treatable.  But apparently, the combination was too much and Elder Vutulu has been in the hospital for a few days.  It’s quite different to be in the hospital here.  Dr. Mikesell has had to bring food to him everyday because the hospital doesn’t provide food.  If there is laundry to be done, the family (or companion) has to do it.  You will often see drying laundry spread out all along the bushes at the hospitals.  Elder Vutulu has stayed fully dressed in his street clothes because his room has both men and women patients.  And his companion has had to stay with him the entire time – acting as his nurse.  He

looks pretty chipper in this picture and will hopefully be sent home today.

In closing I wanted to mention about Relief Society today.  The lesson was about temples. I was so impressed with the teacher.  Even though I didn’t understand what she was saying in words, I could absolutely tell how she FELT about going to the temple.  She radiated in everything she said.  Our nearest temple here is in Johannesburg.  Since it is out of the country, a visa is required and the cost is prohibitive to most people.  A few years ago it was announced that a temple would be built in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC.  This will be such a blessing because a visa won’t be required.  Below is the

RS teacher.  Isn’t she beautiful?!!!

We wish a Happy Birthday this week to our equally beautiful and radiant granddaughter, Elizabeth Chamberlain!

I can’t remember a time in my life when I have been more aware of my blessings!  Love,  Mom/G-ma/ Soeur Davis