November 23, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, November 23, 2014

Reporting back on continuing contacts from last week.  Monday was an outing with Immaculee visiting the villages where Elder Atkinson had repaired pumps.  The purpose was to meet with village leaders to determine what progress they had made in establishing water committees and determine the success of the well repairs.  Three of four pumps were no longer working, so only 1 or four was still in service.  We met with the village leaders and we were well received by one and not the other.  Immaculee is a great leader and directed the meetings.  We will continue to work with the village where they accepted our input.  She invited us to accompany her again on Wednesday when she hosted “National Latrine Day Celebrations” in Kipushi.  This community had developed a model program we hope to duplicate in other health zones.  Shelley will include some photos from the celebration.

Tuesday we attended a trade school called “Able and Willing”.  It is a foundation developed by a Congolese man who lives in both the US and DRC during the year.  Originally it was 8 months in the US and 4 in the Congo, now it has reversed.  He has raised money through his foundation and built a trade school that teaches electrician skills, woodworking, metal fabrication, sewing and the regular curriculum.  The director spoke the best English we have heard from a Congolese.  He was just a little too smooth, but has been successful in applying self-reliance principles.  Two employees from the Church accompanied us; Mbidi over public affairs and Narci over CES.  Narci used to be the director of the school before being employed by the church.  They actually had a computer lab.  They were old model dell computers but none the less, a computer lab that we have never seen in DRC.

We’re trying to arrange for a Christmas service project at an all-girls orphanage.  It is called Katimel and is run by Fifi, a Catholic nun.  They have anywhere from 17-29 girls and their goal is to reunite the girls with their families.  This orphanage is in the neighborhood of Flavien’s church and we have visited here several times.  We asked Immaculee for suggestions on what to buy for the girls and she suggested that buying single items at stores downtown would be very expensive and we would be better served buying clothing bundles.  Steve’s mother used to buy clothing bundles and sell in the Kenya street market.  Steve showed us a couple of locations and we went shopping for clothing bundles.  They come in different sorted groupings, girls, boys, mixed, ages, clothing type (bottoms, tops, sweaters, etc.)  We plan on presenting our ideas to the other senior couples and deciding on how much to spend.  The bundles cost anywhere from $85-$210 each.  We also intend on painting the girls rooms with them and then having lunch before giving our gifts.

English class this week was enjoyable.  We feel this is our chance to establish a relationship with the missionaries.  It has helped to memorize the names of those in our zone.  They are very accepting of our language limitations if we can only remember their name.  Shelley has really taken the lead in teaching an organizing our lessons.  She is an excellent teacher and she applies the second grade approach which is just about the right level of difficulty.  This week we handed out a copy of the Liahona and reviewed an article of a youth group from Zimbabwe who attended the Johannesburg Temple.  We asked the missionaries to share in English their remembrances of attending the temple.  It was especially touching to hear from our AP’s.  Elder Lono recalled being sealed to his parents and having a proxy participant stand in for his sister who had died.  There is a high infant mortality rate and many families have lost children.  The second was Elder Tshimpe who told of being sealed to his parents who are both deceased.  He has been raised by his grandmother.  These Elders both bore a powerful witness of the sealing power and they did it in English.

Phillip Moatlhodi, the Area Welfare Manager, is going to visit us December 3-7.  We have been concentrating on making arrangements to finalize our projects so we can have the closing ceremonies with the beneficiaries while Phillip is here.  Those activities include: finalizing contracts, processing payment requests, preparing an invitation and a program outline, ordering a recognition plaque, ordering refreshments, and meeting with the beneficiaries of 3 separate projects.  Doesn’t sound too bad until you remember this is in a different language and a different culture.  Steve continues to be indispensable and is starting to understand our humor.  He had symptoms of malaria this week and Elder Mikesell provided some medication.  He seems like part of the family.

The Mikesells have become close friends in our missionary service.  We had a late meeting on Friday night and didn’t arrive home until almost 8:00.  Elder Mikesell met us as we parked the truck and invited us in for pancakes.  He had made dinner for us and was waiting for us to arrive home.  The next day Sister Mikesell spent the better part of the morning fine-tuning Shelley’s new treadle sewing machine while Shelley held the light for her.  You become very close to these couples you serve with regardless of differing backgrounds and interests.  Shared service and experiences bind you together.

The rains have started to come.  It has brought a welcome break in the 90 degree plus temperatures.  Mud is the downside of rain but for now we’ll take it over the dust.  We had been concerned for two of our construction projects that needed to be completed before the rains came in earnest.  The bridge construction and the Mapendano school septic and latrine projects should both be finished this week.  The rains seem to come in waves where it rains really hard and then just stops.  There doesn’t seem to be a drizzle-type faucet here; it’s either on or off.  When it’s on, you don’t want to be out in the open.  

Mom and I have had another good week and yet it doesn’t seem at all like fall or Thanksgiving time.  This seems like endless summer and to think that it is November just doesn’t match-up.  We do plan on having a Thanksgiving dinner on Friday with the other senior couples.  I guess in Canada, Thanksgiving is celebrated in October.  We have two Canadian couples who will lower their standards and celebrate US Thanksgiving with us.  Food that we recognize is expensive and scarce.  Sister Mikesell bought a 9-pound turkey for just under $40 on Saturday.  I can’t believe the number of 30-pound turkeys we have bought for less than that.  

Have a great week and we’ll do the same.  We are truly grateful for our friends and family.  Our lives have definitely been blessed by the gospel and are happy to be sharing that joy with the Congolese people.  They are generally extremely warm and receptive.  We have made several friends even if we need a translator to communicate, we still connect spirit to spirit.  We attended stake conference today and the best part of the meeting was the 45 minutes we spent after the meeting greeting the members and missionaries and exchanging handshakes and embraces where appropriate.  We’ll send you some photos on the photo stream.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)