Tiny Miracles

It seems like Sundays are the best day of the week for us. We work all week on things and then on Sundays they seem to fall in place. Lots of tiny miracles take place each week.

This week I have been working on records. It's my job to track down the official records of the members here and get them put into the mission unit for our group. It's important to get them corrected and moved into our unit so that people can be counted in the Kingdom and to show the composition of the group in preparation for the formation of an official branch. It's a bit of a crazy job.

We have records from 1996 with names and no further information. We have people who are attending meetings and say that they are members, but have no recollection of their baptismal dates, birth date, etc. (TIA) We have people who remember all their information, but we can't find them on the official records of the church. We have people who we find, but using a different name or spelling or birth date. It's a bit of a detective job to find them all, get official verification of them as members, make sure all the information is correct and move their records to our branch.

Example of a conversation. Me: "Sister, does your daughter spell her name Raissa or Raisa?" Response: "She spells it both ways." Me "For the records of the church it needs to always be spelled the same way." Response: "I'll ask her if she cares how it's spelled." Me: "This is important to have it correct on the membership record." Response: "It won't matter, so let's just say Raissa." Me:"OK! We're all set, right!?!?" Response: "It will be fine, Sister. Names are not so important here in Africa." Me: (spoken in my head and with a smile and a nod), "Right, TIA! Move on Lorraine!"

Raissa or Raisa

This week we had a great deal of information come in from South Africa and today was the day to verify it all.

• I have been looking for the records of one member since we got here. His name is Simon Suguru. His son, Fleury, was baptized last week, confirmed this Sunday and ordained a priest. The rest of his family was all baptized in 1994. We could not find the records of them anywhere. Simon only knew that his birthday as in 1950. So, that wasn't a lot of help. This week he found his actual birthday and we got his records. It was a great event! Without this he would have had to be rebaptized. As one of the first members here in 1994 that would have been difficult for him to be "lost." He had lost so much during the war, including a son who was burned alive, and being lost by the church would have been especially sad for him. The problem had been one little letter-Saguru instead of Suguru. Exact record keeping is so important.
• Not only did we find the records of Simon but also the records of three of his children who were baptized in 1994. So, today I went to church planning to give Simon his records and ask him about his children. To my great joy, he excitedly came up to me and introduced me to his daughter, one of the people whose records I had received. So, I not only found out where she is, but actually found her and her two children. Such a wonderful little miracle.
• Another person I have been looking for is George. His name is on the list of members from long ago, but I haven't found any evidence of him here and now. Today at church Brent brought me George! He's been here all along, but with so many new faces every week, I had not met him. Now I have enough information to find his records. Another little miracle!
• The oldest daughter of the Malabi family showed no baptism on the church records. Today I got a signed paper from her parents and picture of her baptism. That's enough information to recreate her record. Miracle #4 for this Sunday.

In addition to the tiny miracles of records, today we showed the Saturday session of General Conference. DVD's had been sent out to all of the South East Africa area in the languages of the people and every country in our area saw the conference today. This is the first time for almost all of the Burundians to ever see a general conference. They were so thrilled and overcome with happiness. There were some tears and many, many enormous smiles. We had 54 people there (about 20 are members). We showed it in French, Swahili and English. It was especially wonderful that Elder Holland, who most of them met last week, was the first speaker. It somehow made it very personal to them. It seemed like a miracle to these people to view a general conference and see and hear the leaders of the church speak in the conference center. They just couldn't believe their eyes. To them the church is a tiny group meeting in a rented hall and to see the beauty and magnitude of the church was almost overwhelming.

• We showed one session of conference, then had a 30 min. break and showed the second session. About five minutes after the conference ended, as we put away the last of the chairs and said good-bye to the elders and a few members who lingered, the power went out! We had been blessed with power for our whole conference, then it was gone. What a sweet little miracle!

• The last tiny miracle was my own special one. There's a little nine month old girl at church who has cried every Sunday when she sees us. I have tried to make friends with her, but she just screams at the sight of these weird white folks. Well, today she came right to me and spent about 15 minutes with me. When her mom put out her arms for Nicole to come back to her, she turned away and wanted to stay with me. She even pouted when I handed her back to her mom. So, my last little miracle was making new friend.

It's been a great Sunday!

What to Eat? What to Eat?

There are so many wonderful things happening in Bujumbura that it seems kind of sad to talk about something as boring as food, but it is one of the things that we have to think about far more than we'd like to here in Burundi.

I promised myself that I wouldn't talk or write about food while on our mission. I remember reading when others, who were in third world counties, talked about food. I just didn't understand. When our call came to Africa I thought, "I wouldn't talk about food." Well..............

Now I'm eating my words. Actually, sometimes we feel like that's that best thing available to eat.

Food is a real challenge here in Burundi. We thought that we were limited in Lubumbashi, but we were not! We had Jambo market, Ma Maison and Psaro and they were were filled with good things. Not everything you would want was there-no shortening, no good chicken, no cottage cheese, etc., but they really had a great selection of food.

Now I appreciate what really nice stores they were.

Then there was the "apple lady" on the corner who had the best apples ever, and the Qovado bread store with delicious small loaves of French bread.

There was even a take out at Luana, who had pretty good chicken and fries meals.

Now, we are in Bujumbura and we know how good we had it in Lubumbashi. Finding food is sadly a pretty big preoccupation for us. We have found a few very small stores, about the size of a convenience store. Each has a few choices of items.

The only canned foods we've found are tomato paste, tomatoes, corn, and mushrooms. Those of you who know us well know how much help mushrooms are. Oh, and we can get tuna for $5 a can and sardines, which have not temped us at any price.

We're not allowed to go to the big local open-air market where the native Burundians go because of security concerns. It wouldn't do us much good anyway because the minute we show our white, stranger faces, the prices go way up. Many of the things in the markets are not things we even recognize or know how to use either.

If you're a tropical fruit fan you can always get pineapples, mango, papaya and bananas on the streets. I love the tiny bananas. They're just the right size and very sweet and tasty, but Brent calls bananas "slimy projectiles" and won't touch them.

Bread, eggs and fruits and veggies are reasonably priced, but are in very limited varieties. Can you imagine craving broccoli? We can get an egg or a banana for $.35. An apple or an orange will cost you $1, if you can find one. Things are there one time and gone the next. American products are priced sky high. We found an average size bottle of shampoo $18. Brent's shaving cream was in one store-$20. We found a small bag of Lay's that was $5. Corn starch was $6 for a small box, so we passed on that one.

The other missionary couple who are here, Frogleys, are much more adventuresome with new food than we are. So, they have bought some crazy things. They bought what they thought was fresh milk. After two days in the frige, during which the power was off for 23 hours, this is what they found.

There was a solid block of something in the top of the bottle, and clear liquid in the bottom. After looking at it for awhile they decided that it might be goat's milk and it could have turned to feta cheese. So they cut it open and sure enough, FETA.

They also bought some crazy fruits and veggies. We declined the invitation to try some of the fruits. We did try that okra and these little tart cherry imitations that come in little husks. We liked the little cherry-like fruits. The okra was not our favorite! We fried it, took a bite and gave it to the Frogley. We find that Janet will like almost anything.

Here are the fruits we found in the store today. I had no idea what they even are.

These are bobadine, aubegine and passion fruit. Or so we were told.

Here are some more. These might be melons of some kinds and the green things are oranges.

Go figure?

The slimy, eyeball looking fruit is bobadine. We didn't try it.

Brent has found a different fruit that he does like . It's a Japanese plumb. They're about the size of a large prune plumb. You cut them in half and scoop out middle with a spoon. They're very tart and yet sweet.

And here's something that he really doesn't like. Huge mushrooms. They're bigger than my hand extended to it's biggest size. These are fresh. Then when the season is over, they dry them and sell them in little, shriveled chunks. Not a good choice for Brent.

The other day we went to a new store. The directions to the store went like this. Go down the hill, past the mosque and turn right. Then drive down the muddy street.

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Behind the broken down blue coach bus you will find a cute little blue market. Chez Shewa is barely visible behind the bus and the turquoise dumpster.

We found it! Chez Sheva! It is a cute little store run to two sweet little East Indian ladies who working together could usually figure out what we were talking about using all our English, French and a lot of gestures. But they had some great finds, and she's a good, honest woman. One time we bought peanut butter and somehow got home without it. So, we went back to buy more. We told her what happened and she not only gave us a replacement jar, but the other one we were buying for free. We will be going back to her store.

We also found a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup. It was a bargain for $5 and we bought a $6 cake mix for the elders for Zone Conference.

After we bought the syrup, I remembered that the only ice cream we've seen was a quart for $36. So, Brent's just going to eat spoonfuls of chocolate syrup. We can't even make chocolate milk because all we can get is boxed milk, which Brent hates.

So, we're sticking with peanut butter, boxed juices and Brent's bottle of chocolate syrup. I have also figured out how to bake a few kinds of cookies that require available ingredients, although my oven doesn't have a temperature gauge. It's either off or on. Go figure???? I even made peanut clusters this week. Sometimes I actually enjoy the challenge of figuring out to how to make something without any of the normal ingredients.

No matter how bad the food situation, you have to have a few goodies. Right!?!