May 17, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, May 17, 2015

This is our one year anniversary of arrival in Lubumbashi.  It is a national holiday; liberation day.   In prior emails I have expressed frustration with church bureaucracy and all the delays in the approval of our projects, but this week I will turn my focus to the local delays.  I must admit it feels much better to wrestle with our local partners rather than with the humanitarian hierarchy and the approval process. Once approved, it seems every level of government wants money or a piece of the action.  Case in point is Regideso, a $150,000 project to extend water distribution lines to highly populated poorer neighborhoods.  When we attempted to get contract approval from the local director, he told us his authorization limit is $10,000 and it will have to go to the capital, Kinshasa.

The project requires a separate partner organization since Regideso cannot serve as the partner and the contractor.  The partner organization is the Ministry of Energy.  While visiting their director, he said he couldn’t sign our memorandum of understanding until he received a copy of the contract and could determine how much the project would cost (so they could extract a cut). He offered to have some of their personnel supervise Regideso construction for a fee and we declined.  It’s probably not so much different from planning commissions and building permits at home but here there is so much corruption, you have to constantly be mindful of who and how you are being cheated.   You can’t always choose your bed fellows, so we’ll persevere for the benefit of the people.   Bribes are a fact of life here and the church refuses to pay them.  It’s my belief that this is the reason the announced temple in Kinshasa has not been started.  Honesty is the number one principle consistently taught to our missionaries with varied success.

Elder Steve Bailey, a water short term specialist who has worked with us on Regideso warned us about the dancing they like to do here in Africa.  The project is constantly changing because no one seems to honor their work, contract or commitment.  Another example is Kamweneja School where we are replacing the roof and ceiling tiles.  The beneficiary school agreed to pay for the installation of roofing materials if the church would supply all construction materials.  We have and they haven’t.  This past we discovered the installer’s crew has only been paid $400 on a promised $3,200 commitment.  The installer is half done and said he will not proceed until he is paid.  We said we will take the uninstalled materials and give them to local orphanages if the school (Catholic) failed to honor their agreement.  We are currently at an impasse and hope to appeal to Charles, the physical facilities director for all Catholic Schools in Lubumbashi.  

We have felt like we have been living on borrowed time with our translator, Steve Mutombo.  He interviewed for Felly Bukasa’s position when Felly was promoted and moved to Kinshasa.  On Thursday he finally received word of his job offer, over three weeks after his interview.  He will start on June 1st and we have to find his replacement in less than two weeks.  There is so much unemployment here that there is considerable interest in our position especially since the last two have been hired full-time by the church.  The problem is there aren’t a lot of people who speak good English and fewer still who can meet with government officials and business leaders.  We have certainly been blessed with Flavian and Steve.  We feel like they have been our most successful humanitarian projects rather than brick and mortar.  

We have spent the past two Sundays attending wards where potential translators reside.  One is Marcel, a missionary friend of Steve’s and the other is Mwanda, the stake young men’s president.  We need to schedule and conduct interviews this next week of probably four candidates.  It is only a part-time position paying $5 per hour and limited to 20 hours per week and it feels like it is one of the most sought after positions available.  This is an indicator of how desperate the employment situation is here.

The sale of mission home property scheduled for April 1st was finally completed this past week when the last tenant moved out.  This is the home we will occupy once all of the repairs, painting and cleaning are completed.  Shelley is anxious to be closer to the other senior missionaries and I’m not in a hurry to give up our privacy.  In any event, we’ll be moving within the next week.   Connectivity is such an important issue here and the mission home has better internet, so we will enjoy that improvement. Our phones are both on the blink and provide us limited service.  It isn’t the phones, but the local service provider, Vodacom.  

You may have heard news of a military coup in Burundi.  This is part of our mission and there were 4 Elders, 4 Sisters and 2 senior couples in Bujumbura.  The church monitors these things closely and sent the sisters to Lubumbashi and the young elders to Uvira the very day of the coup. The senior couples were scheduled to fly out the next day, but they closed down the airport and they are currently staying at a hotel close to the airport so they can leave at the earliest convenience.  The president of the country has served 2 terms and wants to serve an illegal 3rd term.  The contention within the country is over those who want him to continue and those who want him to step down.  The Democratic Republic of the Congo is facing exactly the same issue in 2016 and the entire time we have been here there has been an undercurrent of unrest over this very issue.  We’re happy we won’t be here in 2016.

Being this far away from home, we are missing some fun activities such as John’s baptism, Charlie’s arrival and Laci and Nate’s new baby, the Davis and Bott after tax season party and just yesterday, Matt and Ashley participating in the Ironman Triathlon in Houston, Texas.  I can’t imagine doing any of these ironman events, yet alone all of them consecutively.  Swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles and run 26.2 miles.  We applaud their preparation and dedication and hope they take time to celebrate before scheduling their next competition.  There isn’t a day we don’t speak of you and pray for you collectively and individually.  We know you are being blessed because of our missionary service as are we, yet we do have October marked on our calendar.  

Sister Emma Anthony is returning home a week from tomorrow. She is from Richland, Washington and she is here because Sister Claudine Riendeau, with whom she worked in the temple felt inspired to ask her to be her companion. She decided within a matter of a couple of weeks and I believe they were the first single sisters to ever serve in the Congo.   Sister Anthony grew up as Emma Smith in Tremonton as a Bear River Bear, so it was doubly difficult for me to like her, but she has rescued us from the office.  She is a BYU accounting graduate and has served in the finance office of the mission making it possible for mom and I to serve as humanitarian missionaries. I have been grateful to serve in the community and to associate with the local people, all made possible because of Sister Anthony.  We will miss her but she may not be done serving missions. She talks of Brazzaville and President Mongo; we shall see.  

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

May 13, 2015 - Burundi

Dear Family,  I thought I'd better dispel any worries for you in case you've been listening to the news.  Burundi is a country in our mission.  They are facing an election this year, and the current president wants to run for a third term (not allowed according to their laws).  Anyway, there has been some unrest and some loss of life.  The President Thomas made the decision to pull the young missionaries out - and they have just arrived here.  There are two senior couples - one humanitarian couple and an MLS couple - who had decided to stay.  However, today there was a military coup and the current president fled to another country.  The two senior couples were also told to leave, and so they will fly out tomorrow.  I feel really bad for the humanitarian couple because they have several unfinished projects.  Elder Bailey from the US had just visited them only a few weeks ago to help them.  I'm not sure but I think that they will both go home because they are scheduled to finish in September.  Anyway, don't worry about us.  The church is totally on top of things.  Congo has elections next year, and I'm really glad we won't be here - there is already tension brewing.  We love you all!  --Shellster

May 10, 2015 - Shelley

May 10, 2015

Well, we’ve been here long enough that the word is spreading and we’ve had many visitors this week – all asking for various and sundry amounts of help.

One of those for this week was a health center.  I’m not quite sure what prompts people to open a health center.  There is definitely a need, but most of them have nothing much to offer.  Below, the

owner is showing us the sum total of “the pharmacy”.

These are people in the observation room – just four beds with people looking very sick.  The center was tiny – only four rooms that were separated with cardboard that was painted white.  However, it was very clean.  The scariest room to me was the “birthing” room.

That’s it!  The new mother under the

       

mosquito net has been here for three weeks waiting for her husband to come and pay the bill - $15.00!  She won’t be released until it’s paid.  This center

serves 24,000 people, has no electricity and no water – and no doctor -  just a man who called himself the nurse.  The list of “wants” that they gave us included enough supplies to outfit the Mayo Clinic.  It’s heartbreaking, especially since we really can’t help them.

Well, on to happier thoughts.  One of our biggest water projects was approved!  The project is to extend water lines from existing pipes to five neighborhoods.  The people in these neighborhoods will be required to dig the trenches for the pipes.  We hope that it all comes together because clean water is such a great need.

In another project, Kamweneja School

is replacing the roof and ceilings over  part of their school.  It will make six classrooms usable that have heretofore been unusable for several years because of leakage damages.  It’s been an education for us to buy the supplies – my last letter showed the lumber being delivered to this school.

We have three single senior sisters serving with us.  It’s difficult for them to do much exploring around town as the rules say that they shouldn’t be out alone.  So Clark has done a very good job of including them in our “P” day activities.  This week we went to a fabric store.  Beautiful fabric is in abundance

here and they had a good time picking some out.

There has been a polio immunization campaign going on in Lubumbashi for the past two weeks.  Because so many babies are born in health centers and at home, it’s difficult for the government to keep track of the number of births.  Most places don’t have the internet – even many hospitals.  So the government hires people to go door

       

to door to see if there are any new babies.  This photo shows a circle written in chalk on the door of the mission property to show that it’s the 8th house on the street and that there are no babies in any of the homes.  If there were, the vaccine would be given on the spot.

There’s a beautiful door to a compound in the mission home neighborhood.

It is painted with the “Big Five” game animals in Africa.  Alas, we have only seen these in the zoo.  Our Lubumbashi Zoo has two lions and a few monkeys – and that’s about all.  No need at all to worry about being eaten by wild animals here!  They have been eaten!

To my family, I will say that I made a great discovery at the grocery store : genuine Baker’s coconut!  It’s amazing but random familiar products show up occasionally at the store– Skippy Peanut Butter, Crisco, Bounty towels (those, however, were $50/12 rolls!  I didn’t get them!).  I don’t know if a single box falls out of a passing airplane or exactly what happens, but whatever we see is short-lived, so you have to jump on it while you can.

Our family has a tradition of making “Conference Cookies” at our house but of course, I’ve haven’t made them here.  With my wonderful discovery of real coconut, I decided to make some local adjustments and try to make them.  The “Eet-Sum-Mor Biscuits” became the graham cracker crust,

and the “Mister Sweet Yumallows” substituted for our usual Kraft marshmallows.  I just took them out of the oven and they look about the same

as our usual cookies – I’ll let you know if they taste the same!  ☺ ( I forgot to mention the chocolate chips – I already had those, as they are a staple in any good household!).

Not many of our US holidays carry over to the DR Congo.  Even Christmas was on a very different scale here – probably better in some ways without the extreme commercialism we see at home.  So Mother’s Day is here.  I have been able to cope pretty well with the holidays so far, but this one has me feeling a pretty tender.

My mother will be 88 years old at the end of this month.  She has been living at the Apple Village retirement home for the last two years.  She is pictured

below a few years ago.  It was very difficult for me to decide to leave her and go on a mission, knowing that she might not live until I returned.   My wise Stake President told me that our whole family would all be blessed if we went – and his words couldn’t have been more true.  Our children have stepped in to nurture and care for Mother – and it has been a blessing to all of us.

I am so thankful on this Mother’s Day – not only for my wonderful mother and children – but for the privilege of being a mother.  Clark and I often say that nothing else has helped us better understand our Heavenly Father’s unconditional love for us, as being parents.  We have been blessed!

Happy Birthday this week to grandson Rex Muhlestein who will reach the ripe old age of eleven on the May 11th!!!!  Don’t they call that your “golden birthday”?  (Same birthday as the date – ie. 11 on the 11th or 19 on the 19th).  Have a great week!   Love,  Mom/Soeur Davis

May 10, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, May 10, 2015

Mothers’ Day and Golden Spike Day.  Friday, May 8th will be a red letter day for us in our missionary journal because we received notification that Regideso, our largest water project had been approved.  Up until Friday, we felt like we were just going through the motions because our local projects are nearly complete and we had no funding approved for additional work.  Steve commented that the hardest work is trying to stay busy when there is no work.   We are grateful for this approval and it should keep us busy for at least a few months.   We will be constructing water stations in 5 different neighborhoods in cooperation with Regideso, the public utility company over water for DRC.

We also returned to visit with Immaculee at the Ministry of Health.  For our Kafubu Health Zone pump repair project we are having difficulty because there are four villages who are ready to start but they don’t trust the Health Zone and Dr.  Claude (Health Zone Director) to manage their money.  A  long story short, Immaculee’s boss, Dr. Hugues just happened to be in her office (first time ever), and he helped us devise a plan to provide village representation in accounting for the money and structured the compensation of the well-repair technician.  Everything works so much better if it is their program rather than ours.  He also directed Immaculee to organize a meeting next week with the representatives from the four villages to calm their fears and orchestrate the well repairs for their villages.

Since we had available time before the approval came, we attended Sister Janet Cook’s English classes at the Katuba Stake Center.  She is a single sister who is divorced and taught school in Lehi before her mission.  She grew up in Tremonton and is Doug Thompson’s older sister.  She sees her mission responsibilities as teaching English to members and non-members.  She doesn’t know that much French but she is fearless.  She drives on her own but President Thomas requires she have a Congolese couple with her when she is driving and at her classes.  She had divided her class into beginners and more advanced.  The first class had about 85 people and the second 55.  She is an excellent teacher and we gained some pointers on how to improve our own English instruction to missionaries.  

One thing we did complete this week was to gather all three vision contracts from Sainte Yvonne, University Ophthalmology Center and Sendwe Hospital.  You wouldn’t think it would be that difficult to give away $150,000 worth of equipment and training.  It required multiple visits to finally obtain the signatures.  Email is infrequently used locally and you always have to get the number one person’s sign off.  Authority is centralized and not shared or delegated effectively.   Dr. Jesse Hunsaker is the short-term specialist assigned to work with us from church headquarters.  He will visit in August or September.  He is the younger brother of Hedy Hunsaker Eyer (Chris).  We were close friends to the Eyre’s in San Francisco and at Utah State.  Dr. H,. as he refers to himself, is great to work with.  

On this Mother’s Day I wanted to record some of my reflections about my mother.  From my earliest recollections, she was always there for me.  She didn’t work outside the home and was always a ready companion.  My early childhood memories are from the American Legion War memorial Building on Forest Street between first and second East.  We lived there from the age of 3-5.  We lived in an upstairs apartment with a back entrance.  Dad always seemed to be gone but mom was always home.  She played with us and involved us in her life.  She cleaned the dance hall downstairs.  We lived at the Bushnell Apartments next from age 6-8 before moving to 119 S. 4th West.  

I remember my mother enjoying simple flowers in the back yard.  She particularly like 4 o’clocks.  Their blossoms would open and close depending on light and heat.  When I was involved in little league sports, she was at every game.  She was definitely my number one cheerleader; a position she later gladly shared with my sister, Cathy.  During my youth I was often suffering from an injury: frost bitten toes from Pioneer Park pond skating that required toenail removal, cut neck from barb wire fence while chasing in her parents’ yard in Corinne, broken index finger on my right hand (twice) splitting logs with Grandpa George H. Davis and playing catcher for Mendenhall little league baseball team, just to name a few. I had multiple broken bones and a few surgeries along the way.   I’m sure every boy loves to be pampered and nursed by his mother but my mother had a lot of practice and she was the best.  She always seemed to take my side and was my advocate.

In that advocacy role, she only wanted the best for her children and yet we had a meager income.  I never felt poor or deprived.  She kept a little cash stash in the cabinet in the hallway and I recall on multiple occasions when she would dole out a little candy money to the kids from her reserves.  Before leaving home, I can’t recall my mother ever having new clothes and I thought my dad had no taste at all.  Little did I realize until later that they were spending it all on their children and just eking out an existence.  She always conned me into going to Smiths to shop for groceries with her and I’d con her into buying just one more new record album.  This accounts for my love of popular music and my aversion to shopping for groceries.

She often helped me with my English homework.  I particularly remember that I had to write a poem for Jordan Larsen’s English class.  I couldn’t think of a thing, so mom sat with me on my bed and quizzed me about what I enjoyed.  I reminisced with her about one of our favorite TV shows, The Andy Griffith Show. His chief deputy was Barney Fife who had a girlfriend, Thelma Lou.  We laughed together as we (mom) penned the words to the infamous “Barney at the Duck Pond” poem.  It was a favorite parking spot for lovers.  She worked in all the quiz questions about who was my Thelma Lou and where are the Brigham City Duck Pond locations.  She never missed an opportunity for interrogation and you hardly noticed it.

During my teenage years my mother was always there.  She would wait up for me at night whenever I was out late.  I thought she liked those late night movies but she was just biding her time until I returned.  I always knew I would be required to give an accounting of where I had been, with whom, doing what and had I had a good time.  I wasn’t always as talkative as she was but her consistency in waiting for me saved me in so many ways.  When I was the high school quarterback my senior year, she would attend all of the games but couldn’t bear all of the criticism on poor performance or missed assignments or any number of crowd comments about the game, so she would spend time either in the car or behind the stands, but she was always there.  The crowd was often right but in my mother’s eyes I could do no wrong.  As a consequence I was motivated to try to live up to her expectations.  

She had the softest hands and gave the best tickles.  It always felt like she was totally focused on you when you were in her presence.  She had time to listen and to console and counsel.  She was mainly a listener and allowed you to make your own decisions.  After marrying and having our own family, I loved going back home because it allowed me even for just an hour to be the little boy again and enjoy that motherly influence.  

As a missionary in the Congo all these years later, I never cease to be amazed at how much influence my parents continue to have upon me.  I think of them often and the many life lessons I learned from both of them.  It is difficult to speak of one without the other, but today I want to pay tribute to the goodness of my mother, Jean Christensen Davis.  I love you mom.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

May 3, 2015 - Shelley

May 3, 2015

It’s been a week of saying “Hello” to visitors and “Good-bye” to friends.

We’ve met so many wonderful Congolese friends who have helped us.  One such friend is Felly Bukasa.  He’s the church employee in charge of purchasing.  He has helped us in many of our projects by assisting us in finding the best prices, etc.  Well, Felly has been promoted and is moving to Kinshasa.  It’s nice for him because he and his wife are both originally from there – but it’s sad for us.  One of his

best friends is our former translator, Flavien Kot (pictured on the left with his wife Kristal).  Another friend and church employee, Desire Ilunga, invited us to a going-away dinner for Felly at his home.  Desire and his wife Lily are in the center of the couch in the picture, and Felly and his wife Anacet are on the right end.  Eating dinner at someone’s home is an opportunity we don’t often have.  Food is very expensive and usually just sodas and popcorn are served when making a visit, if anything.  Anyway, it was a delightful evening as we witnessed how these three Congolese friends horsed around and acted silly

like our own sons and their friends would.  And they also shed some tears in the end.

On a different note, the whole mission has been busy preparing for the visit of Elder David Evans and his wife Mary.  Elder Evans is the Executive Director of Missionary Work worldwide.  The main purpose of his trip is to speak at a conference for mission presidents in Cape Town next week, but he stopped in Lubumbashi for two days.  It was his first trip to the Congo.

Sister Draper wrote parts to “We’ll Bring the World His Truth” and the young missionaries spent three weeks practicing in place of English class.  The

photo shows a practice at the Lubumbashi Stake Center.  It was exactly like practicing for the Primary Sacrament Meeting!  Even though the missionaries are wonderful singers, almost no one reads music – and they like to make up their own harmonies!  Teaching them to sing parts was uphill all the way!!!  It turned out fine in the end.  I was happy that I got to sit next to Sister Wamalwa, one of the only English-speaking young missionaries – she’s from Kenya.  We chatted (only at appropriate times – not really!  haha ).

After the missionary conference led by Elder Evans, we had a dinner at the mission home.  Our only source for a photographer for a group picture was one of the mission home guards.  And I’m pretty sure he had never held a camera before.  Consequently, the picture came out pretty fuzzy – but a

good time was had by all!  Elder Evans is in the back next to me and his wife is in the center on the couch.

Emmanuel brought his new baby to the dinner.  He and his wife had two daughters and then they recently had a son.  His name is Vainqueur – meaning victor or winner.  The ladies all took

turns holding him – we’re trying to keep our “grandma skills” tuned up!  He’s adorable and has the cutest curly hair!

We actually did get some work done this week!  We spent 2 ½ hours at the lumberyard getting wood for the ceiling repair at Kamweneja School.  Interestingly enough, all of the lumber-

yards we’ve been to have been run by women.  The picture shows Clark with the gal in charge at this one.

Back at Kamweneja School, they used

metal railroad ties to make a bridge

over an existing ditch at the entrance to the school so that the transport could deliver the wood.  The picture doesn’t

do this justice but it was an absolute tribute to ingenuity that the wood ever made it to the school!!

Elder Davis has been charming the

banana gals into letting us take a picture.  Most people are reluctant – like this one!  ☺  p.s. That is heavy!!!

At the market, I found another local delicacy – caterpillars!  They’re

seasonal, so you have to get them while they last!

Our thoughts have been at home this week, too, as our grandson John Chamberlain was baptized.  Birthdays this week are Navi Davis and Nelson Chamberlain.  Even though we would love to be there for the celebrations, we feel comfortable knowing that we are where we are supposed to be.  You know that we love you all!  Love,  Mom/Grandma/Soeur Davis

May 3, 2015 - Clark

Sunday, May 03, 2015

The highlight of the week was to have David L. Evans, the Executive Director of the missionary program worldwide, be here for a zone conference with the missionaries.  There were several interesting facts he shared with us:

1. The change in missionary age allowed the total missionary force to grow to around 85,000 but they expect it to level off at around 79,000.  The change is age has had a lasting effect on increasing the missionary force. I believe before it was around 60,000.
2. The number of sisters has increased dramatically.  He mentioned that percentage increases are not as meaningful as the percent of the total missionary force.  The sister have grown from 11% to 24%.

While at dinner together at the mission home, he shared a story from President Boyd K. Packer.  Elder Evans served as a mission president in Japan.  President Packer counseled him to focus the mission baptismal targets not on numbers but he told him “you get what you go for”.

When the Salt Lake Temple was under construction, Brigham Young counseled the missionaries going to England to seek out tradesmen, such as masons, carpenters, painters, etc. who would be needed for temple construction.

While President Packer was serving as the mission president in New England, the church wanted to purchase the Joseph Smith historical sites but the property was tied up in some complex legal entanglements.  President Packer told his missionaries the Lord needed a brilliant real estate attorney and to begin the search and to notify him when they had found him.  He said, I know the Lord has prepared someone to help move his work forward, we just have to exhibit faith and find him.  Within a few month they did and the rest is history.  

Elder Evans was told by President Packer “you get what you go for”.  As a young mission president they sought after young families and young single men who could become missionaries and return home to begin righteous families.  They had success by exercising the faith discussed in Ether 12.  He gave the same counsel to President Thomas regarding establishing a stake in Likasi.  

Friday was the zone conference and Elder Evans spoke for about 3 hours to the missionaries.  He spent most of his time talking about marriage rather than missionary work.  He said the Lord is preparing you for a much more important work and that should be your focus.  Look to the temple and entering there with a righteous companion when you return home.  That will be the most significant calling in your life, that of husband, wife, father and mother.  

Our translator, Steve Mutombo, served as Elder Evans translator and he was genuinely pleased to have had this unique experience.  Steve’s engagement has been rocky because Matild’s family have been trying to convince her to postpone marriage, serve a mission, etc.  Her sister is Sister Mwenkeo is Matild’s sister and she and her husband had Matild live with them for a few years while obtaining her degree.  They wanted her to marry someone who had already accumulated things (money, property, position)  They paid her passport that would allow her to go to the temple and then attempted to persuade her to break off the engagement and go on a mission.  They told her she could find a better prospect than Steve while serving a mission.  We don’t believe there is a better prospect than Steve.  Elder Evans told of marrying just 3 months after his mission and that they starting with nothing but love for one another.  Brother and Sister Mwenkeo were at the conference; Brother Mwenkeo is a counselor in the mission presidency.  

Other events happened this week that deserve recording.  Felly Bukasa, the church purchasing agent, was promoted and moved his family to Kinshasa this week.  We were invited to his going away party.  The party included three Congolese couples and us.  They were Felly and Anacette Bukasa, Flavien and Crystal Kot, and Desire and Lily Ilunga.  It was held at Desire’s home.  We thought we were going for a short 30 minute visit that turned into a four hour entertainment and dinner.  We felt truly accepted and despite the language limitations, we had a great evening.  

Kenneth Mofokeng called on Tuesday with more bad news about the humanitarian department.  The worldwide director for water projects, Bret  Bass, was replaced a couple of weeks ago by Del Brady.  Kenneth had held a telephone conference with Del Brady who informed him that they (SLC) had only budgeted a single water project for Lubumbashi for 2015.  We have 5 proposals that have been pending since December and have been extremely frustrated with the delays in the approval process.  Kenneth is attempting to be our advocate but things continue to look bleak.  I really needed one of Elder Evans bits of advice found in Alma 29:3,6.  “I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me” and “why should I desire to do more than the work to which I have been called”.  We’re working hard to do all we have been called to do, despite the bureaucratic setbacks.

During the week we returned to Kamwenja School to see the progress they have made in installing roofing and ceiling materials to reclaim their school.  The installer’s name is Pierre (Peter) and his grandson Andre (Andrew) who is about 15 is helping him.  Andre has dropped out of school because his father died last year and his mother can’t afford to send him to school.  We have to pay cash for nails and lumber, so we take the installers with us to make sure we are purchasing everything they need in the right sizes and quantities.  

This shopping trip to the hardware store and the lumber yard would take about an hour at home, but here it was a six hour affair.  The lumber yard was run by women and as soon as we arrived, we were surrounded by a dozen salesmen vying for our business.  Last time they left Shelley and I in the car so the prices wouldn’t escalate just because they had white people with them.  This time we were armed with the previous prices and so I accompanied them.  It was a very unique experience and we captured it with a few pictures.  Transporting the lumber from the lumberyard to the school was also an adventure.  They used an old transport van with lumber twice the length of the van hanging out the back.  When we arrived at the school, they laid some car bumpers across the ditch to allow the van to enter the school compound to unload the lumber.  A fun day.

We attended the Ruashi 3rd Ward today to support Emmanuel in blessing their new baby son.  Their block meeting time starts at 11:30, not a good block time for children and then had a lot of them.  We’re off to the mission home now to eat the leftovers from Elder Evans dinner last night.  We enjoy the time with the other senior missionaries.  Have a great week.

Love, Dad (Elder Davis)

April 26, 2015 - Shelley

April 26, 2015

This was us at the Provo MTC one year ago yesterday!  It seems like a lifetime ago!

We said good-bye to our landlord and his daughters this week.  They have had

a family reunion in France planned for more than a year.  His youngest daughter lives there.  So they are going ahead with it – his wife would have wanted it that way.  We’re quite sure that he will spend time – maybe a year or more – staying with his daughters before he returns.  One daughter lives in Canada and the other in Virginia.  They are all such lovely people!

Well, I’m going to recount our week.  It was very different than most.  We have a project that involves training local village people to repair their own wells.  We have paid for the trainer and will pay for the pump repair.  Their part is to start charging for water (50 francs - 5 cents - per bidon) and to put that money aside for future pump repairs.  It’s more complicated than that, but those are the basics.  And it has been totally uphill to get villagers to understand that they have to pay for water because they never have had to before.  If their pump breaks, they just wait for someone to come along and fix it.  Meanwhile, the women walk for miles to the river for water.  No women’s lib around here!!!!

Anyway, we spent the week at the training for the pump technicians.

This is Clark with Immaculée (head of the clean village projects) and the trainees.  Clark didn’t really get as sunburned as it looks!  We tried to explain about who Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer was to our translator Steve, but he just couldn’t quite understand.  He has no concept of cold and snow.  It was about like our explanation of Halloween or the April Fool’s Day – some things just don’t translate well!

Anyway, we did get quite a few pictures and gained more insights into village life.  These are trainees pulling

the insides of the pump out.  It’s amazing how deep the pipes go.  So the process is to pull everything out and see where the troubles are – like leaky pipes, etc.  Then they fix it and put everything back in the ground – a super simplified explanation.  (It’s obvious that I know nothing about wells!)

My job was to watch and take pictures.  I was interested in the process that a nearby village lady was using to make foo foo flour.  She peeled the cassava roots – they look quite a bit like potatoes.  Then she soaked them for three days in a big barrel of water – it got bubbly and smelled fermented to me.  Then she dried them in the sun.

Above are the peeled roots.

Here she is with the barrel of bubbly roots.  Then she chops them up and dries them in the sun.  The village has a kind of a grinder but some people pound the roots until they are really fine.

These are roots that are drying.  This has been a staple in the Congolese diet for centuries.  In the photo below, the gal

preparing lunch for the trainees is mixingthe cassava flour with water over a stove. These balls are then dipped in a sauce containing leaves and veggies.  This was lunch everyday this week.

This is hard to see but these school children are headed home carrying their plastic chairs.  Their school has no desks, so everyone comes to school with their own chair from home.

This cute onlooker had his brother riding along on his back.  Older children care for younger siblings, even during church.  Since there is no nursery at church, it’s very common to see Primary kids taking baby brothers or sisters to class with them.

Just some gals passing by.  Notice the combination of western clothing and traditional dress.

This abandoned transport has seen better days, but it makes a great play house for the neighborhood kids.

This might be hard to see, but the tall boy is holding a soccer ball he has made out of plastic sacks that are rolled up tightly and then bound with string.  It actually bounces, and they were having a lot of fun with it.  Pretty ingenious!

These charmers hung around all day wanting their picture taken.  It’s fun to

take pictures, but it can open up a can of worms.  Pretty soon you feel like you work in a photography studio.

Here I am showing them their picture.

And here’s my piped piper companion!  He always attracts a crowd!

Well, that was our week!  Lest I sound like I camped out in the villages all week, I need to make it clear that we drove home to our nice comfy bed every night.  I did, however, endure something scarier than having to use a Turkish toilet.  It was using a Turkish toilet with a hornet nest in the stall!  No worries – I escaped unharmed every time!  Maybe I’m becoming a local! ☺

We’re spending our weekend watching General Conference with the other senior missionaries.  It’s just the uplift we needed and has been so inspiring!  Much love,  Mom/Soeur Davis

p.s.  Happy Birthday this week to our wonderful son-in-law, Mike Muhlestein!