* C'est la Vie: Round and Round We Go

It seems as if we're starting to fall into a pattern here on our mission. It makes for less interesting journaling, but it also feels good to be in some kind of rhythm. Things just seem to go in one continual round. Life goes on a 6 week cycle that revolves around transfers. Week one is for taking care of business and making sure that things and schedules are in place after the transfer and for our next trip. Then there is a week or more of travel to our outlying cities for visits, interviews, zone conferences or whatever requires our being there. Next we spend a week with our five zones in Kinshasa doing the things that we did in our travels. Throw in a little company and a couple of dozen meetings with missionaries, stakes, districts and zones and life gets a bit wild. Then there's company that comes. We have visitors from the area office and general authorities coming for stake conferences, mission tours, training, and other services that they do for the church here in Kinshasa. Two weeks ago we had the IT team from Johannesburg here for week installing new computers. It was our old friend, Graham and his side-kick Mathew. They worked all week with our IT guy, Konde. We're grateful for the support we get from the area office. They help us in many ways as they visit and lend their expertise. Plus,we have a lot of fun with them.

Matthew and Graham with us at our home.

Then we're on the road again traveling to someplace where there's a special missionary need or branch business. Zone leader council is held the next week and staff meetings and meetings with the assistants are every week. Throw in having to deal with a few "dumb things" done by missionaries who are still trying to get into the missionary world and Brent's famous phrase, "Now, you know that you can't do that anymore!" There are always a few challenges with physical facilities and our 11 mission branches. It's a complex and busy life. Finally there's the week of preparation for and then the craziness of transfers. Making the transfer is a huge job. It takes much prayer, thought and research to get all 150 of them in the right place every 6 weeks.There are always surprises. Last minute switches are the rule, not the exception. This time we found out upon the arrival of our new missionaries that one of them has brother in the mission (they don't have any name in common, so we didn't know.) It turned out that he had been assigned to be in the same apartment with his brother. What's the chance of that? With 150 missionaries in 25 apartments in six cities and three countries who would guess that they'd be assigned as roommates? Crazy!
Transfers are a three-day process full of welcoming, interviewing, training, feeding and moving new missionaries. This time we had only two African elders and 8 Americans coming. The Americans go directly to their assigned cities, so we had lots of help from the Nuttalls and Wheatleys, who work in Cameroon and Republic of Congo with the branches and missionaries there.

New African missionaries assigned to Kinshasa

New Yaoundé Missionarie

Sadly, we also say goodbye to seven in Kinshasa who are going home. After exit interviews, dinner and a testimony meeting, we send them off to the employment center to help them get headed in a good direction and start trying to think of possibilities for their life after their mission. We pray for a bright future for them, and worry about how difficult life will be for them when they return home.

Seven leaving from Kinshasa

Our nine American missionaries are headed home with many plans for the future.

Seven Elders leaving from Cameroon

Two elders leaving from Pointe Noire

We're grateful to have served with all these faithful missionaries and wish them all the Blessings of Heaven promised to those who faithfully serve the Lord. They return with Honor!
We love them dearly!

After that the merry-go-round starts all over again. One round it's zone conferences and the next it's individual interviews with missionaries, but it just keeps on going round and round. There are many other things mixed in, but we're getting to really plan on this cycle.
Pictures of each zone are an important part of the history for our missionaries, since few have cameras and can take their own pictures. We give each missionary a few pictures as a remembrance of their mission.

Brazzaville Zone

Pointe Noire Zone

Yaoundé Zone

Douala Zone

Kimbanseke Zone

Kinshasa Zone

Masina Zone

Mont Ngafula Zone

Ngaliema Zone

Zone conferences include training, teaching, role playing, speaking to and singing with the missionaries.

All these meetings are held in French and the missionaries are very kind to listen to and figure out what I'm saying as I speak. They seem to understand and I'm so grateful for the gift that the Lord has given me to be able to communicate, even though it's far from perfect. They all love to hear Brent speak with his wonderful French. His language skill is a great blessing!