August 31, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Week 19.  Every day feels like ground hog day in that the weather is quite constant and the routine is similar but the contacts and people we are meeting daily changes and adds to our experiences.  This past week we spent a great deal of time trying to organize the projects that have already been approved.  We purchased painting supplies for Bukanda School.  This is a small village school and we requested that they spray for termites and paint all of the classrooms before we deliver new school desks for six classrooms.  This is their sweat equity buy-in and we plan on attending their workday tomorrow with the senior sisters to take pictures and assist.  The trick is they want you to take over their project but we need to let them take the lead.

We also spent a significant amount of time trying to line up the money for the market fire rebuilding project.  This is an emergency response program and we need the money now but the system is cumbersome.  We received 5 different sets of instructions trying to streamline the process of forwarding the cash and making it available before we settled on a satisfactory solution.  In the Congo, cash is king, no credit cards, not checks and most of their businesses are small and they don’t understand and or don’t trust electronic payments.  The final solution was to electronically transfer the full funding request to the mission bank account and allow us to draw on it immediately.  South Africa is listening.

Much of the week was spent in preparing for the arrival of the Drapers, a senior couple from Calgary, Canada.  We cleaned their apartment, shopped for basic grocery supplies and readied their apartment for arrival on Friday.  Unfortunately their flight from London was delayed and they missed their connecting flight in Johannesburg to Lubumbashi.  Instead they had to fly to Nairobi and experience another layover and then fly to Lubumbashi a day later.  They arrived 65 hours after leaving Salt Lake City.  Their story will require more than a single journal entry but they were in good spirits and very friendly.  This is their second mission; they served as MLS missionaries in Florida and were home for two years before being drafted by President Thomas after he was called to DRC.  We’re happy to have them and look forward to establishing a rich and enduring friendship.  P.S. Draper’s luggage hasn’t arrived yet!

We have been amazed at how many of these senior have served multiple missions.  The Wrights, the Clawsons, the Atkinsons, Sister Riendeau and now the Drapers.  I’m hoping for a single honorable release but I am in awe of the dedication of so many faithful seniors.   Once you’re here you can see the dire need for additional senior couples.  They allow the mission president to focus on missionary work when he is assisted with all the temporal planning and logistics.  We had a fun activity last night at the Mission President’s home where all the senior couples and the two full-time Congolese employees and their wives had a Mexican potluck dinner.  Elder Ellis of the Seventy was visiting and each couple shared the story of how they met and had to remember the first thing they bought together.  Most of the sisters took the lead and it was enjoyable and humorous.  We would have taken pictures to send but the power went out for the night in the middle of dinner!  Candlelight dinner was fun!

Along with Elder Atkinson, we organized another pump refurbishment trip on Wednesday and Friday.  We hired a local returned missionary, Steve, who is 24 years old and engaged, to be our trainee in pump repair.  We worked through the Ministry of Health in identifying high priority wells for refurbishment.  We pulled the piping and analyzed the malfunction problems on Wednesday, purchased replacement parts on Thursday and repaired four wells on Friday.  Elder Atkinson is the brains behind this effort and coordinated all the activities.  We hired two local village technicians to assist.  I’ll send you a copy of the report summarizing this week’s pump work.  I presented it to Elder Ellis from the Area Presidency during our interview.  It sounds like a no-brainer but water project approvals are very difficult to come by.  

French continues to be a challenge.  I’m understanding more but whenever they don’t want you to know what’s going on, they switch to Swahili.  I can’t speak much French but our translator is great and I feel like we are able to connect in meetings with government and organizational officials.  I hope to begin speaking more with the members and the locals.  

We do have some good news about the wheelchair project.  Elder Dow is the worldwide specialist and is coming to Lubumbashi the end of September to assist us in organizing a wheelchair project for the 2014 year.  This has been a long time coming and there have been many tender mercies to bring it about.  We can definitely see the Lord’s hand in our work.  You can’t explain the timing, the contacts and the “chance” meetings any other way.  We continue to try to find the projects the Lord would have us pay attention to.  It is amazing how some of them develop and how others just fade away.  We appreciate your prayers in our behalf.  We want to follow President Hinckley’s example of being optimistic and hopeful at all times.  We’re happy in our work and happy together.  

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

Saturday, August 30, 2014

Pump Restoration Project

Our objective was to gather test data to determine if refurbishing wells from existing boreholes could be an effective way to teach principles of self-reliance and provide water to small villages.  Before we could develop the training model and submit a PDW, we needed to know more about the anticipated costs of refurbishing wells.  Elder Brent Atkinson and I have repaired five wells in the past two weeks and wish to make some conclusions.  Most repairs were replacing leaking sections of pipe and gaskets.  One well was a simple repair requiring replacement of the pump handle and has been excluded from the average cost results.

Lubumbashi, Katanga, DRCongo
Humanitarian
Pump Refurbishing Project
Date	Description		Tools	Labor	Material
Aug 15	Pump Lubumbashi (2 PVC Pipes)				160
	Rod and gasket o-ring				100
Aug 15	Emmanuel-Urashi sector			85
Aug 16	Tools for pulling up pump & delivery pipe		590
Aug 26	Coupling grease				8
Aug 27	Steve , transport technician			40
Aug 28	Pipes, seals and rod repair				720
Aug 29	3 technicians, Steve, transport			120
	Totals		590	245	988	1823
	Wells					4
	Cost per well					455.75
	Cost per well without tools					308.25

Summary of Findings and Observations:

1. The Ministry of Health has already developed a small village water program that provides for:
1. Water committee creation, training and monthly meetings
2. Modest fees are established for pump repair in the committee training
3. Technicians are trained in local well repair
4. Local villages maintain a well history, depth, dates, production
5. Water committee establishes well schedule and sets security policy

2. Elder Brent Atkinson has the technical skills to train others in well restoration and has done so in this project.  His mission release date is December 7, 2014.  President Brent Thomas is supportive of using Elder Atkinson’s skills in this training program.
3. Local technicians have previously been trained and are available at a modest fee to assist in well restoration.
4. No financial participation has been required by village residents for the first 4 wells as we were developing a baseline with the assistance of the Ministry of Health officials who helped identify the wells we have worked on.
5. Refurbishing wells provides the same benefit as a new borehole and at a fraction of the price.  We have been told that new boreholes in our area cost between $15,000-17,000, whereas our average refurbishment cost was approximately $300 per well.

Proposal points:

1. Village requirements:
1. Functioning water committee who has been trained by MOH under LDS model
2. Establish methodology for collection of funds for future maintenance
2. Village required to deposit $150 in bank account as seed money for maintenance fund for future repairs (this is 50% of the average repair cost; Humanitarian will cover any cost in excess)  This is a much more affordable option for the villages over providing 10% for a new borehole estimated to be 10% times $15,000=$1,500.
3. Humanitarian will decide on the materials and the scope of the repair.  We will start small with a request for $25,000 which we believe will be enough money to refurbish an estimated 50 existing boreholes.  The scope of the project will be limited to 4 health zones on the Kasenga Road which is just outside Lubumbashi.
4. We will partner with the MOH small village water program in establishing a model program that can eventually be considered for more health zones.  There are 62 health zones in Katanga Province.   We already have a good working relationship with the program director and some of her assistants.

August 25, 2014 - Letter to Kids

Dear Ones,

I know that I just wrote yesterday but I wanted to say something to just you.  I want you to know how proud I am of Dad.  You should see him when he is meeting with government officials – it’s like he is sitting in his Brigham City mayor’s office wheeling and dealing again.  He doesn’t let language get in his way.  Of course, Flavien has totally saved us and he is wonderful, too.  We have had several “encounters” within the last week or so with different government groups – mostly trying to iron out a difficulty.  Dad is poised and able to come across as being totally in command of the situation.  And he’s had good results, too.  We had to tell one of our favorite principals that we couldn’t order his desks until he came up with his portion of the money – and it was devastating for him because he has done everything but go door to door to get the money and it hasn’t worked out yet.  But Dad did it.  Another part of what he has done is to stand up to the bureaucracy we are facing from South Africa.  He hasn’t made enemies – just stated our position.

Another thing I’ve appreciated about him is the kind way he has treated the senior sisters in our office.  These gals are friends from Washington state who had the courage to come here together– quite a stretch for both of them.  They are in their 70’s and we have come to really love them.  In a way, they don’t fit in because they aren’t a “couple” and are a bit older in their ways.  But Dad has been their champion.  Before we came, they had lived here six months and had never gone downtown or to any store other than the “safe” corner grocery.  It’s not really safe for two women to go alone – so Dad invited them over to walk downtown with us on a Saturday.  We’ve done it several times since and they just love it.

Before we leave any place we visit, Dad compliments the person we have dealt with on what a good job they are doing.  Many/most of these people are underpaid, if paid at all.  And they deal with very difficult situations – many out of the goodness of their heart.  Dad always tries to built them up and comment on the noble work they are doing.  I’m always so proud to be with him.

Well, there aren’t too many people I can brag to – but I figure that we’re all on the same team and you love him, too.   And you know that we both love you all.  We think about you, worry about you, pray for you, and brag about you.  It is so gratifying to see you taking care of each other.  Many, many hugs and kisses - Mom

August 24, 2014 - Shelley

August 24, 2014

For the first time since we arrived, we actually had COMPANY!!!  We played host and hostess this week to Elder and Sister Kinghorn from South Africa.  They are the Area Welfare Specialists and are the people we report to – kind of like our bosses.  A really nice thing about them is that they had our calling as missionaries a few years ago in Ukraine, so they were very helpful and understanding of our situation.

The purpose of their visit was to see the projects we’re working on and to see the country.

They were great to be with!  Sister Kinghorn is a natural with children and really enjoyed being around the kids at this orphanage.

We got the good news this week that five of our projects have been approved, so that was encouraging.  We took the Kinghorns to see all of them and they had good tips for us to aid in getting the projects done well.

Flavien Kot, our translator traveled with us everywhere and was invaluable, especially since none of us speak French or Swahili – and he speaks both.  We took Flavien and his wife, Crystal, out to dinner with us one night at Planet Holly Bum – very fun!!

In addition to orphanages, we took our visitors to see our school desk projects.  Bukanda School is in a village about 15 miles out of town.  My letter showed pictures not long ago of Clark sitting on a brick in a classroom like the kids do.  Anyway, I thought I’d like my grandchildren to see Bukanda’s lunchroom since most of them are starting school this week.

Everyday a group from the World Health Organization serves a nutritious cereal for lunch at the Bukanda School.  I’m not too sympathetic to complaints of barfy school lunch after seeing this!

In truth, I hated school lunch – so don’t think I’m criticizing you!!!  Haha

Humanitarian work is vey hard to under-stand sometimes.  One African leader said that his country has been ruined by well-meaning people from the rest of the world who want to be helpful.  They see the great needs but instead of teaching someone to fish, they simply give them a fish.  In the Church’s Welfare System, we can see that “giving” without an expectation is usually not a good idea.  That principle is the same whether one is in Utah or in Africa.  Our whole emphasis here is to transfer knowledge so that the people can be self-reliant after we leave.

Even in our limited missionary experience so far, we have seen way too many dreadful living conditions and poverty everywhere.  It’s almost too much to soak in.  In a way it doesn’t seem fair that even people in respected positions in the community have run down offices that usually operate in the dark because the electricity is often off.  University professors are using outside latrines that we would consider our worst camping nightmare.  90% of the population squeezes into dilapidated old vans that are used for public transportation because they don’t own a car.

With that said, we are finding ourselves in a balancing act to help the poorest of the poor without making it a handout.  With an undeniable prompting, we were able to see how two of our projects might be able to help each other after receiving some assistance from the Church.  We are helping a vocational girls’ school get equipment for a cooking lab.  A few years ago they received sewing machines from the Church, also.  One girls’ orphanage we are working with is trying to help girls learn skills to help themselves.  So, with the Kinghorns, we took Therese (head of the school) to meet Sister Philomina (Fifi) (head of the orphanage).

In the photo, Fifi (on the right) is showing Therese some things her girls already know how to do.  Therese is going to bring her best students to Fifi’s orphanage to teach them some hand sewing skills.  If it works out, we can provide the orphanage with some sewing machines.  This is the plan.  Wish us LUCK!!!  These are both wonderful women who can hopefully help each other.

Thank you for your emails and encouragement!  Our connectivity is so unpredictable that Face Time and Skype don’t always work – well, okay, they SELDOM work like we want them to.  BUT we have had a few miracles with communicating, though, so let’s not stop trying.  We love you so much!  Learn to recognize the miracles in your lives.  The Church is true – no doubt about it!  Much love,  Mom/Sister Davis

August 24, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Week 18, but who’s counting?  We are becoming better adapted each week.  This past week saw us in a role reversal.  When we left Johannesburg, we were so nervous that our hosting couple, Bruce and Melinda Kinghorn stayed with us at the airport for an additional two hours getting us checked in, bags checked, fed us breakfast and held our hands pretty much until departure.  This week the Kinghorns visited us in Lubumbashi.  They are the couple we report to and are called area welfare specialists.  When they arrived, we worked with a facilitator, Tom, to help them with the check-in process in navigating their way through the airport.  We drove the mission van in traffic chaos and visited several of our projects throughout Lubumbashi.  I would never have though this possible a short three months ago when we arrived.

We received good news from the area office following their approval process for the week.  We had previously had two school desk projects approved (Bunkanda and Maisha Karavia), but this week they approved:

1. Ultra sound equipment for Luputa
2. Construction materials to rebuild the market booths following a local fire
3. Mapendano School latrines where we are building 32 latrines for a student body of 3,000 students from 2 secondary and one elementary school.  They currently have 4 operating toilets.  This was our highest priority project.

There are two other projects that weren’t reviewed by the committee: Notre Dame Girl’s School and Katuba Bridge.  We’re still hoping for their approval.  

With the Kinghorn visit came more bureaucratic red tape and bad news.   I’ve mentioned in the past our disappointment when our major projects have been shelved for the year, so we turned our attention to smaller projects called local area initiatives (less than $25,000).  Elder Hamilton of the Area Presidency said we should put a string of these together to take up the void.  Well it appears others have had the same experience and now the area office is overwhelmed with the number of small projects to the point where they are limiting the number of “open” small projects to 5 per couple.  We have nearly 40 in some stage of development.  We have 5 already approved and two in for approval that likely will have to wait.

The Kinghorns served a humanitarian mission in Ukraine and their limit was no more than $5,000 per project and no more than $30,000 per year.  This is a far cry from our original budget for Lubumbashi Mission of $665,000.  We’re trying to be compliant but it seems we are stymied at every turn.  One mission couple said just give us the money and let us manage our own projects.  You really feel that way.  We’ll now try to focus on what we have approved and hope the area becomes easier to work with over time; no promises.

Today in Priesthood we studied “The Gospel Culture” address from Elder Oaks from 2012.  He refers to the plot of the movie, “The African Queen” where two refugees from World War I violence in East Africa are trying to reach the relative safety of Lake Victoria.  After surviving many near disasters, their boat, “The African Queen”, is stranded in a marsh.  Unable to   way the current is flowing and surrounded by high growth, the two refugees become disoriented and discouraged.  At the end of their energy and faith, they are about to give up and die.  Then, in a moment of high drama, the camera through which we are viewing their peril rises, and with new perspective we see their true location.  Out of sight to them, but just a few meters away, are the long-sought liberating waters of Lake Victoria.  

Elder Oaks says we often lose sight of our destination and become discouraged but if we could only see above our current circumstances and know our true location on our journey to eternal life, we would realize what great progress we are making.  I take hope in this analogy, we are going through those experiences but it feels like we are making progress ever so slowly.  We continue to pray for insight and revelation regarding our assignment and purpose here.  

This much I do know, these experiences are changing us and although we have yet to spend a single dollar on a specific project, we have made many friends and establishing working relationships with government and organization officials.  This past week we felt like we were following the admonition found in James 1:27 “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and keep himself unspotted from the world”.  We visited three orphanages this past week and a school for disadvantaged girls.  Your heart and disposition are changed when you see the care givers and mentors who are the true champions in these institutions.  You go with the desire to bring hope and you leave with renewed faith in the divine nature of the individual.  

I have adopted a new hobby of mom’s.  Since I have no flower gardens to attend to, I have taken up baking.  I have enjoyed baking bread, brownies, sweet rolls and cookies.  Another secret I hadn’t identified with is that mom always gives away a portion of whatever she bakes.  That has been a powerful example to me and it has brought new-found satisfaction to share the end product with our landlord, the guards, other senior couples, our translator and the office staff.  This program is probably not weight-watcher approved but it has been a fun activity.

This next week we will serve as the host couple to receive, orient and assist a new couple arriving from Calgary, Canada.  They are the Drapers and come from President Thomas’s stake.  It’s amazing how quickly you turn from student to trainer.  Our most experienced couple, the Clawsons, are going home in just a few weeks and everyone else is scrambling to fill in for everything they do.  Although the humanitarian program is designed to function independently from the mission office functions, we are happy President McMullin and President Thomas have included us.  We feel needed and more a part of a team.  The other senior missionaries help us a great deal with our projects as well.  

Our testimony of the gospel is strengthened every day by the examples of service and sacrifice we see in the lives of the members and the missionaries.  Language limits our communication but there is so much communication that is non-verbal and spirit to spirit.  The people we work with and are meeting are wonderful.  The Congolese people value family, modesty and religion permeates their lives.  The organizations we meet with regularly speak of God and faith openly.  They express gratitude to God for bringing us to them.  Unlike the USA where talk of religion is almost suppressed as unacceptable public behavior, here it is embraced.  We love you and look forward to hearing from you.  Our connectivity continues to be a shortcoming but we do receive emails and check on them regularly.  Thanks to all who have written.  Have a wonderful week.

Love, Dad

August 17, 2014 - Shelley

August 17, 2014

It’s been a very busy week – it seems like things are speeding up.  We started our mission thinking, “What am I going to do for 18 WHOLE months?”  This week we’ve been saying, “I hope we can get all of this done in ONLY 18 months!!!”  I guess this is good!

About two weeks ago, there was a big fire during the night that destroyed a market near the Lubumbashi Stake Center.  Actually, the market was a big problem for the church because it was set up by squatters who used the church fence as a backdrop for their businesses.  Anyway, we were called to see if we could lend assistance to those vendors who are now without a place to sell their wares.  We’ve met with church officials and government officials, trying to find a way to help in relocating them.  For most of the 250 vendors, it is a hand-to-mouth life.  The money they make in a day, feeds their family that night.

This shows a very small portion of the debris left from the fire, but you can see the church in the background.  More to come on the progress.

We visited Lubumbashi University.  They have a need of latrines.  It was a real eye-opening experience!  We met some wonderful people who are trying to educate these fine youth without the resources we would totally take for granted on a university level.

These are the latrines for the College of Economics.  I will never, never whine about the bathrooms at USU’s football stadium again!!!  Well, maybe . . .

I thought this was a cute picture from a room in the girls’ dorm.  These shoes are high up on a shelf above the window.

Sister Riendeau and I met again with the Stake Relief Society President and her team who are making maturation kits.  I am teaching them how to make the kit, then they will teach the RS sisters and YW in the wards in their stake.  It was a pretty fun “gab fest” – except that neither S. Riendeau nor I knew what they were chatting about because it was in Swahili.  But it sounded interesting!!!

This gal is a non-member who came along to help – and she was a whiz on this hand-cranked sewing machine!

Clark and I were invited to a wedding reception for a returned missionary that Clark met in Priesthood Meeting one Sunday.  Although we didn’t really know the couple, we went – and we were well-rewarded.  I felt a little bad because I just wore my regular missionary attire, and the gals there were fancy wancy!  The reception was at the Lubumbashi Stake Center.  After the guests were seated, the couple danced into the room following a dance group who kind of sashayed (sp?)  in a double line.  After the couple was seated, a floor show with break dancers and the dance team put on a program.  Soda in bottles and popcorn was served to each guest.  When it was present time, the guests had to dance their way up to the couple with their gifts.  Well, Clark really showed them his moves and everyone clapped.  It was cute!!!

Here’s a fancy couple who sat by us.

This is the newly-married couple.

As I’ve mentioned before, our Sunday church attendance can be a little frustrating because we can’t under-

stand what’s being said.  Well, today, instead of going to Sunday School, I went to Primary.  And I felt at home!!  It was absolutely wonderful!  The class was all of the senior primary – about 30 children.  Their instructor was Solange’s husband (she’s the housekeeper at the mission home).  He has only been a member of the church for a year or so – but he was a FABULOUS teacher!!!  For 45 minutes, he taught a lesson on David and Bathsheba – in French.  The kids were totally engaged and didn’t make a peep!  And the scary thing is, I think I understand almost all of it!!!  

Here’s another cute little Primary face – I just couldn’t get a smile from her, but I love her hair!

Clark and I are almost afraid to say our prayers at night because it feels like Heavenly Father has been listening a little too carefully to us.  This week has been full of promptings and help, mainly through other people, in the most unexpected ways.  We love you all and feel that you are also an answer to our prayers.  Be grateful and have a wonderful week!

    Much love,  Mom/Sister Davis

August 17, 2014 - Clark

Sunday, August 17, 2014

This week won’t be a travel log of events and dates but there was one common theme which comes from 1Nephi 4:6; “And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do”.  We have had so many undeniable experiences of this during the current week that I just have to share a few examples.  

We usually try to schedule out our day but appointments get cancelled and moved and we always have to have a backup plan.  Such was the case several times this week with the outcome almost like someone else was in charge of our schedule.  We went to the Ministry of Health to visit with the director of immunizations to apologize because the church had already spent the DRCongo money in Kinshasa on a measles campaign, but he referred us to the Ministry of Home Affairs who are conducting a door to door registration campaign for immunizations September 25-27.  We had the approval of Justin Kabala who works in the mission office and is a stake president to volunteer the membership of the 3 stakes here to assist with the registration as a service project.  This will impact the members and probably accomplish much more than the original $35,000 that was allocated for the measles campaign.

We have been working on the Katuba bridge project for 3 months and everything that could go wrong, has.  Imagine our surprise when in a single day after our schedule was completely rearranged that we gathered all final quotations, met with the architect, visited his completed jobs, had a conference with the church director of construction who approved the awarding of the contract to our preferred contractor and provided us 100% of the materials necessary to submit our proposal.  We went in on Saturday and completed the proposal.

There was a wheelchair project planned for Lubumbashi for 2014 in the amount of $240,000 but it has been rough sledding.  The Ministry of Health had partnered with the church in 2012 on a similar project and had yet to complete the reporting required under their original contract.  We have spent over 2 months attempting to gather the reports and have yet been unsuccessful.  Elder Dow is the church-wide specialist in wheelchairs and had told us we could not work with the ministry of health on another wheelchair project and he thought it was probably out of the question for 2014.  Imagine our surprise when we were visiting the Ministry of Social Affairs when the Director introduced us to not only the director of orphanages but also the director of handicapped services.   I may have mentioned this before but the long and short of it is that his department can be a possible partner for the wheelchair project.  Elder Dow has approved this affiliation and we meet with the director tomorrow to review possible arrangements.  We may yet pull off the wheelchair project in 2014.

Mom has had several experiences with her maturation project from local involvement to help from complete strangers, but I’ll let her tell those stories.

We felt fortunate but frustrated with the bureaucracy of project approval this past week.  There are 8 countries in our sector and each has a missionary couple and in some cases two who have submitted proposal requests over the past month with a backlog of probably 30-40 projects.  We have a new member of our Area Presidency, Elder Ellis who has single-handedly brought the entire process to almost a complete standstill.  He was initially alone because the other two were traveling and he put everything on hold until they returned and when they did he wanted to revise the approval process.  They only approved 4 proposals this past week.   One of them was ours but we have three others that haven’t seen the light of day.  Elder Ellis is coming to Lubumbashi this week and it will difficult not to give him a piece of our mind.

We are also involved in an emergency response incident.  It’s important to understand a little about open marketplaces here in DRCongo.  They are like a massive flea market where anything goes and there are masses of people who frequent these markets.  There is a road to the Lubumbashi Stake Center that originally attracted a few vendors but it grew like wildfire over the past few years because it bordered on a major paved road with lots of traffic and lots of potential shoppers.  The Church approached the municipality a few years ago with a request to relocate the market.  The municipality came back with a $39,000 price tag and the Church said no.  This past week there was a fire in this marketplace that spread and destroyed the entire market.  The municipality is in the process of cleaning up the fire and relocating the 250-300 vendors who are out of business.  The municipality sent a letter of request for help from the church.

This request is being watched by Johannesburg, Kinshasa and the Area Presidency.  Some vendors feel the Church may have in some way been responsible for their displacement.  The most common theory on the fire is that it started from large pots containing beans that were cooking overnight and unattended.  We read the letter of request and met on Thursday with Desire Ilunga, Lubumbashi Director of Facilities Management (FM) and Mbidi Ilunga, Lubumbashi Director of Public Affairs in formulating a plan for contacting the municipality on Friday.  Thursday night I was impressed to met with Elder Brent Atkinson, who has been an instructor in the church construction training program.  I thought we could potentially hire graduates from the program to assist in rebuilding the vendors’ booths.  He had a better idea; he said a new group of 10 trainees and 2 instructors are starting a program this next week where they receive classroom instruction 1 hour and work on an approved construction job for 3 hours in order to obtain training for their certification.  They work for free and he said their project is not ready to go and he thought the rebuilding of the booths would meet the certification requirements.  The bottom line is we have recommended that we supply all materials requested by the municipality and our own labor force who would control the issuance and utilization of the materials.  Another coincidence.  (Not approved yet but looks like a “no-brainer")

I want to conclude with the best story of the week.  I told you last week about Elder Atkinson volunteering to pay for all materials for pump repairs if the mission president would approve our proposed project.  Well the president’s response was “make it so”.  We organized a well repair project on Friday.  The stake center pump was supposedly broken.  Elder Atkinson hired two repairmen to teach him how to repair these pumps; he has one of his own at home and feels he can do it on his own but wanted to see the local process and discover where the materials can be purchased for repair.  He asked me if I knew of any returned missionaries who he could employ to be trained in pump repair.  I mentioned that I was impressed with a young RM by the name of Steve who had been the chairman for the Kisanga Stake Center open house last Saturday.  I had asked Steve for his contact information a week ago before this project ever materialized.  I told him that I might be able to give him a referral in the future.  He is a returned missionary, second counselor in the Bishopric, a university graduate in network engineering and can’t find a job.  (a very common story here in DRCongo)  

When Elder Atkinson visited the Kisanga Stake Center on Friday, he found the pump was working just fine.  The reason they said it was broken was that when they began pumping, they saw some rust in the water.  He didn’t find a pump to repair at the Stake Center but Steve was there.  Elder Atkinson visited with him and felt impressed to employ him as his first pump repair trainee.  Elder Atkinson did find another broken pump to repair and I was able to participate in the repair.  Finding parts is the most challenging problem but these two repairmen showed us around.  The main supply shop is 3-4 miles from our home in a rough part of town.  We spent the entire day repairing the pump.  We had been quoted $100-150 for pump repair before but didn’t realize that didn’t include the cost of materials which in this case were almost $400.  There are also specialized tools required to lift both plastic and metal piping out of the bore hole.  They usually range in the neighborhood of 100-120 feet deep.  Best of all the pump actually worked when we were finished.

Elder Atkinson is fairly short and quiet and unassuming but in his past he was a green beret.  Imagine my surprise when on Saturday when we returned home from the mission home with the mission president to visit our apartment complex, I saw Elder Atkinson hauling 3 large wrenches (2-3 feet long) and the vice to hold the pipe, all in his backpack.  These items had to weigh 125-150 pounds and he had walked to the supply store (3 miles +) away, paid over $500 of his own money, and carried all these specialized tools back home in his hands and in his backpack.  What a stud!  The mission president asked Elder Atkinson who was financing this project.  I told him it was not yet approved as a humanitarian project and Elder Atkinson said he would pay for the materials if the cost of labor was covered by someone else.  The mission president said he had a nice Catholic lady back home that had asked if she could send $5,000 for a worthy cause.  He said he thought he had found one.  I’m sure the mission or humanitarian would probably eventually have been able to reimburse Elder Atkinson but he did all this on his own with no expectation of reimbursement.  

By the way we attend a different ward every week of the 25+ wards in the area.  It was not by design and yet I believe it was no accident that the ward we attended was the ward where Mbidi Ilunga is the Bishop and Steve is his second counselor.  Steve was overjoyed at our attendance and Elder Atkinson was asked to bear his testimony.  I don’t know what he said, but I know what he does.  He is a saint in my book and we’re so fortunate to work with so many of these wonderful people.

Elder Davis (Dad)