Sunday, September 06, 2015
Updating news first. Our sacrament meeting report will be October 18th and we need to check with Bishop Taylor on the current meeting schedule. Steve is working on arrangements to attend the Johannesburg Temple before we leave. He is trying to make arrangements for the week of October 5th. If that happens, we will attend, but whatever happens we will be leaving no later than October 8th in order to clear out our home for the arrival of the Bennetts on the 11th. Stay tuned for additional details next week.
This past week has been most exhausting with the wheelchair project. The Dows (the short-term specialists who travel Africa and Brazil and South America on this assignment) arrived on the 28th and we have been going early and late every day through Friday the 4th. We received 216 wheelchairs, placed 15 during the week. There were 24 clinicians and technicians trained Monday thru Wednesday. We had 4 additional trainers come from Utah: Steve Clark, Coleman Christensen, Tyler Huish, and Phil Arnold. On Thursday they trained another 14 representatives from the handicapped association in wheelchair repair. Each participant received their own set of tools at the end of the training.
One of the low spots of our mission occurred on Tuesday, September 1st. Shelley took her Apple computer to the stake center where the training was being conducted to work on the mission history. During the day, her computer was stolen and with it all of our pictures, our photo documentation of our projects, our French audio of Le Livre De Mormon and our directory of contacts. All gone and they don’t have the charging cord and they are not available in the DRC, so it will be of little value to the thief. We were devastated but late that night we received another blow. All of our wheelchairs were stored at Sendwe Hospital. We received a text from Marcel that there was a fire at Sendwe and we needed to pray for the wheelchairs. We went the next morning to find all of our wheelchairs had been thrown out of the storage rooms onto an open lawn area. There was some damage from this treatment but none from the fire. All in all no one was injured and things can be replaced, so we move on.
Shelley is preparing for a talk in the Katuba Stake Conference on September 19th. I have enjoyed her sharing ideas for her talk. One came from Sharon Eubank, worldwide director of LDS Charities. She starts with a famous quote from Joseph Smith, “Brethren, I’ve been energized by the testimonies that I’ve heard, but you no more understand the destiny of this Church than a little baby upon its mother’s lap.” And I think that that’s true about us too. But isn’t it exciting to live in a time when we are trying to understand and live our doctrine? And interpret it and ask the questions? Of course the Lord could just give it to us. But I work in welfare, and welfare says you have got to be self-reliant. You have to do the work yourself or you don’t value it, you are not ready for it. The Lord is waiting for us to interact with each other and with our doctrine and find out new things. And when we are ready for it, He will give it to us.”
This principle of self-reliance is difficult to teach. We have learned this lesson as parents and here as humanitarian missionaries. You know I have always believed the doctrine but this missionary experience has given me a chance to live it full-time. Ownership comes from investing your own sweat equity in the project. We have found those beneficiaries who do the work value the project and take ownership and pride in maintaining it. Parenting is much the same. In most instances we were not wealthy enough to give our children all we would have wished, but looking back if we made any mistakes it was to error on the side of giving too much rather than too little. Enough philosophy; back to the boring details of the week.
We have worked so hard on getting the vision equipment here. The microscope for Sendwe Hospital came July 17th and the second shipment was postponed until Sept. 5th, less than 48 hours before the beginning of the training. We visited the shipper, the customs offices downtown and at the airport, the consignee at the Minister of Health, the customs accommodator and multiple others several times in the past two weeks. We have worked our tails off trying to make sure this all came together. We took the customs clearance agent and the Ministry of Health Executive secretary with us to the airport yesterday to wait for the flight to arrive. We waited for over 3 hours after spending 4 hours in the morning to obtain the final Director’s signature. In the end the shipment did not come and the only explanation we received was “maybe on Monday”.
By all accounts we should have been totally devastated, but it was so unusual because we both felt a great peace of mind, knowing we had done all within our power to make it happen and it didn’t. We can live with temporary failure so long as we have given it our all. David Chamberlain shared a thought from President Hinckley, “It will all work out in the end and if it doesn’t work out, it isn’t the end” I remember Spencer’s homecoming talk where he compared his missionary experience to the man who had been asked to “push against the rock”. He pushed against the rock day after day and the rock never moved but the man became stronger and was obedient. We feel much the same, we’re becoming stronger and are trying to be obedient.
We picked up Jesse and Diane Hunsaker from the airport today. He is an ophthalmologist from American Fork who practices with one of the grandsons of my mission president, Orville Gunther. Tomorrow they will assemble the microscope and do some training. We are hopeful that the second vision shipment will come tomorrow, but if it doesn’t, Dr. Hunsaker will go to Kinshasa for the week and return next week in hopes that the shipment will arrive by then. Keep us in your prayers.
We have been in awe this week of volunteers who spend their vacation and free time to travel the world as volunteers to perform humanitarian service. The wheelchair trainers and the specialist, the ophthalmologist and his wife who have made 8 trips to Africa this year while still running his own practice at home. We had no idea of the breadth of the welfare or humanitarian program. We’re happy to be a small part of it during this period of our lives and we have been happy to share these experiences with you, our dear family and friends. Have a great week. The adventure continues.
Love, Dad (Elder Davis)
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