Thirty-two Boxes Go Before Us

Moving day arrived on June 20th.  It took a lot of paperwork and planning to make it happen, but the movers came and right on time!  On time,  for sure, that was a Congolese first. The three young packers worked quickly and efficiently and in less than two hours all our earthly mission belongings were packaged and on their way to Arizona.
We now will live out of a suitcase until June 30th.  It's really happening! We're really going home!

Dinner with the VanHauvermats and Jeanine

Our dear French friends, the Van Hauvermats and Jeanine invited us over for one last dinner at their home.  We love it when they have us over. Firstly, because we love this family dearly. Secondly, because it's always such a truly French experience.  The table is always set just perfectly, rather an anomaly in a country where the custom is to eat from a common serving plate without dishes and silverware, a meal with them is always eaten in true French style. The whole dining experience was lovely and refined.

First, we enjoyed an apéritif, which chez Van Hauvermat, that's a delicious sparkling raspberry drink.  It was accompanied by the clinking of glasses and  "bon appétit."  Then came a beautiful salad course of sliced tomatoes and deviled eggs perfectly presented with a homemade vinaigrette. The main course was,  Tartiflette (an au gratin potato that's to die for, and could kill you because of all the cheese, bacon, and cream in it). Dessert was "a la Brent." All Africa knows he loves a good chocolate sundae.


After dinner the ladies cleared the table and then we all visited in their very French home.  It's hard to explain how there's just a French feeling in their apartment that's unmistakable. Their apartment is an exact duplicate of ours, but our decorating style is completely different and very American. 
We'll miss them. The chances of seeing them again are better than with most. Their home is just outside of Annecy, France. That's one of our favorite French destinations and now we'll have an even stronger reason to go there once these good folks return home.  Unlike missionaries, their term of service is not definite. They're indeed brave souls to take on this church employment in construction. The whole evening was just a joy.

A Father's Day Lunch to Remember

After church in Matadi we went to the little terrace restaurant at the hotel to celebrate with a nice Father's Day Lunch.  We were told by the cute waiter who had helped us during our stay that there were only Congolese meals as the power was out.
Only things cooked on a brassier  (charcoal burner) could be prepared.  They burn wood until it's charcoal, extinguish it, store it and then relight it when ready to cook. The charcoal is put in the bottom of the brassier and a pot or frying pan is put on top.


So, Congolese food was all that was available. We asked to see the Congolese menu. What a surprise we had when we saw it.  It was in Lingala and French.  Here is the English translation.
Poisson is fish.
Viandes is meat.
They consisted of :
Antelope,
Simbiliki  porcupine,
Sanglier is wild boar;
Singe is monkey;
Tortue is turtle;
Crocodile;
Chevre is goat.
Then there was mystery meat of the day and lastly
Nguma is Boa constrictor.
There was also chicken but next to it, it said "a la" meaning WITH and that could have been with termites, with ants, with grubs, with who knows what. So, we opted for french fries.

 Not being the adventuresome sort we passed up the adventure of a lifetime in eating exotic meats. We asked if there was anything else they could do in a brassier.  They didn't seem to think so. We suggested that they could just heat hot oil in a pan and do French Fries.  After about 20 minutes of discussion they decided that they could do that. Half an hour after that we had our Father's Day dinner of french fries and orange soda.  The waiter was so pleased to serve us our French Fires and soda.  African life is such an adventure!

One More African Flight. Oh Matadi!!

Because of my unreasonable fear of flying and it's accompanying anxiety, I am always terrified at the idea of visiting Matadi. But we needed to make one more trip there. I had managed to only make three, while Brent had made four during our mission. But I just couldn't leave Africa without visiting this little branch again.  So, Saturday we flew to Matadi.
It's only a one-hour flight, but it's in a 17-seat prop plane.  Not my idea of a good time!! I just close my eyes and pray for the whole time.  This trip was no different, but we made it without incident.

 We take off from a little air strip in the center of Kinshasa and land on a dirt air strip on the top of a mountain.  And to add to the excitement, they have to shoo goats off the landing strip in order to land. The plane flies to three different cities. Fortunately, we get off at the first stop. Two more take offs and landings would be out of the question.

We stay in the ViVi Palace. Note that many of the names of the hotels we stay in have "Palace" in them, it's interesting that palatial is not a descriptor that I'd use for them. They are, however, the best in town and everybody tries very hard to make things comfortable and nice for us. There are a few challenges in this hotel that always make it interesting. First the rooms that we get are always on at least the third floor of one building.  The restaurant is on the fourth floor of the other. There are no elevators. (Note the heavy breathing that accompanies this description.)  It's quite a hike up and down to go anyplace and that doesn't take into account carrying suitcases to and from your room.

 
There's also a lovely little terrace restaurant that we have enjoyed. This time of year it was cool and beautiful to sit out there. Upon arrival we decided to get a quick lunch there before they came to take Brent to the church for interviews and meeting. Now, quick lunch isn't in the culture of an African meal. After looking at the menu we opted for french fries and orange soda.  It was the only thing that we knew would take less than 45 minutes to prepare. Brent spent the rest of the day interviewing people for priesthood advancements and callings.  I curled up on the bed in our two room "suite" and blogged all afternoon. At dinner time we hiked to the restaurant and found that not much on the menu looked really great and opted for Chinese food.  Maybe Chinese food in Africa wasn't the best idea ever. So dinner was rather light.

Sunday the branch president's counselor came and picked us up for church in a taxi.  He was there all weekend to pick us up and show us around. They were all very proud to show us their new rented church building. It was beautiful. It's probably the nicest of any of the rented buildings we've seen in Africa. It was designed, but never used, as a hotel. So, it has many nice rooms for classes and a very large chapel.

 They were so thrilled about the building and for good reason. It's beautiful and very well kept. In their previous building they didn't have enough room for all the people in sacrament meeting. Many sat out on the porch where little could be heard and seen.  What an improvement this is for them. The Branch President asked Brent if he would see the General Authorities when we went home and if so, if he would thank them for getting this beautiful chapel for them.

They always seem to really make big stands in chapels here. I think that they see how big they are in the conference center and think that's how they should be. Space is large and high, seats are over-sized and quite comfortable.  This building and its stand are no exception. It's also a problem that they often make the pulpit too high. This one was so high that I couldn't see over it when I went to talk. The Priest came and brought me the stool they use when they bless the sacrament. It was embarrassing, but not as strange as it would have been had I only been a voice coming from behind the pulpit.
 I visited all the auxiliaries and especially enjoyed the Primary children. Though we had no words in common, since most only spoke Lingala, we could communicate with gestures and songs and it was fun to visit them.

The investigators' class was too big for the room that they had planned to be in, so they  had to move to another room.  That room was still too small. We had more than 25 people in the investigators' class. Since the church moved to this new location, there has been great interest from the neighborhood. Isn't having too many investigators to fit in the room a great problem to have?! Look at the smile on Elder Ngalamulume's face!  A happy missionary.

Sacrament was also filled to the brim with 177 people in attendance.  There will likely be a split in this branch in the not too distant future. The church is growing everywhere in Africa. Now that they have a building big enough to hold people, they will come. They had a confirmation and 7 men sustained and ordained as elders.

The Second counselor, in the Matadi branch, President Buana and us.

    This young lady was interviewed to serve a mission. Brent hand carried her documents as far as Kinshasa. This will be his last potential missionary interview.  She's a sweet girl and will be a real asset to missionary work. There will soon be two missionaries from Matadi, a brother and sister.                                                                                                        

  No more African flights. We've traveled over 82,000 miles on this mission and have made over 100 flights.  With somebody who's afraid of flying,
the fact that I could do that amount of air travel is  another evidence of the Lord's patience and love and has been a true mission miracle.

Mission Presidency

Brent held his last meeting with his mission presidency this week.  They're long-time church leaders and now have served well in the mission Presidency. On the left, President  Kola stayed with us in Lubumbashi when he was traveling there as an Area Seventy. So, our relationship with him has been a long one. He was called as Brent's counselor when he was released as an Area Seventy.  He was one of the first stake presidents in Kinshasa and has devoted his life to church service. Next is Pascal, who is the executive secretary.  What can one say about what an aid and a friend Pascal has been to us?  His service to the mission as an employee has been fantastic. We love him like a brother and he will be forever in our hearts. He's been through a lot of trials in his life and has surmounted them all with patience, faith, and trust in the Lord's plan for him. President Iyomi has also given a lifetime of service having served as a stake president. These are fine men who have helped Brent with special case interviews every week, done some traveling to work with branches and the District and have always been willing to do what's been asked of them.  They are admirable examples of the faithful of Africa.

Five Zone Conferences for 100 Missioaries in Kinshasa

The day after we got back from our trip to the outlying cities we began our Kinshasa zone conferences. Can you say "Groundhog Day?"  Every other day we had a zone conference in our home with from 14-26 missionaries in attendance. I brewed up huge batches of rice and chicken a la King, 100 Rice Krispy treats, gallons of punch and Jackie made a mountain of coleslaw.  Brent went out on the street to Virginia, the bread lady, early every morning to buy fresh baguettes for whoever was coming that day. It was quite a process.

 Every zone prepared a song for us. Oh how these Africans can sing. It puts Americans to shame. It puts the Tabernacle Choir to shame.  It was so sweet of them to prepare this special gift for us. Nothing could have made us happier than to hear them sing.

   We tried to feed them both physically and spiritually. They're such spiritual people. You can really feel their strong spiritual nature when you teach them. As they left, we shook hands, bonked heads, kissed cheeks and gave a hug to every one of them.    

           

This experience definitely qualifies for the phrase, "parting is such sweet sorrow."    But it's also time to tear the band-aid off quickly!   Too many goodbyes, although I think we have still a few more to go.                      

                                                                               

The Last Days in Pointe Noire

The last city remained on our farewell trip was Pointe Noire.  It was such a nice thing to have a plane leave on time, go where it was supposed to go and arrive with so little difficulty.  We had done some of our hardest flights of our mission on this trip.  I  was very tired by the time we headed for Pointe Noire.  On the plane I couldn't help thinking that I just wanted to get to Pointe Noire and fall into bed.

However, Sister Wheatley had arranged ahead of time to have a little dinner party with the branch presidents and their wives the night we arrived. Thankfully Sister Wheatley was wiser than I. She had planned a perfect evening for us and it was just what I needed. She had made all the preparations for a delicious meal, had the table set beautifully and all was just fabulous. Our little gathering was just delightful and I felt  refreshed and ready to move on after spending this time together.  Many thanks to the Wheatleys for always going the second mile.

Brent with Presidents Sombo, Deckous and Caillet

This group of  people were among the first to join the church in Republic of Congo having been baptized in the 1990's when the church came to their country. They  have been stalwart leaders and are the pioneers of the church there.  We have come to love these devoted leaders and are inspired by their efforts.

Saturday was our day with the Pointe Noire missionaries and the Wheatleys. We held our  last zone conference on that side of the mission. These conferences have truly been one of the great joys of serving.  We love being with our missionaries. 

                                                                        

Then we took the missionaries out to lunch at a little Italian restaurant owned by a member of the church. It was fun to do something  nice for them. They seemed to enjoy it, even if it meant being crammed into the back of a truck to get there.  

It was a pretty hard week of goodbyes, but we will always remember our time with them.  Most of the missionaries in the outlying cities are North Americans and we have high hopes for seeing them again.  We tried to remember that as we said our goodbyes. How could you not have tender memories with pictures like this in your head?

Sunday we went to church in all the branches for at least part of the meeting.  We went to Priesthood/Relief Society in one branch and then headed across town to the other building in time for sacrament meeting and then the Wheatleys and I went back to their apartment for a couple of hours between meetings and Brent began interviewing 7 brethren for the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Then we had plans to go back to the last ward for sacrament meeting. However, on the way back to the church all the streets were closed because the Presidents of the Republic of Congo and of Ivory Coast were driving across town. We had to wait for almost an hour before any street to the church was open.  Looking closely at the picture of this bar you can see brave Elder Wheatley sitting in the front row of spectators waiting to see the presidential motorcade. Sister Wheatley and I chose to wait in the locked car until they ordered us out of the car just before the motorcade arrived. Since there were police with automatic assault rifles present, we complied but have no other pictures of the traffic blockades.

When the streets were finally opened there was a monumental traffic jam. We had to go to the church through a different neighborhood and it was an interesting drive. I had never seen these homes behind the church. There wasn't really any road. We just meandered through the area until we came to the church.  It was quite an impressive site as we finally drove up to the beautiful oasis of the church property and lovely building.

 

I thought that perhaps we were late enough that I would miss my speaking assignment, but we got there just in time.We had spoken in all three branches. In each branch we had to say goodbye to the members and priesthood leaders.  It’s so hard, knowing we won’t see these people again. 

We had planned to take an 11:00 flight to Brazzaville, but the night before our departure Aimé called to say that Monday was a holiday and river crossings would end at noon. So he put us on a flight at 8 AM instead.  When we arrived at the airport at 6am, they couldn't find our change listed. It was another tense airport day. The young man at check- in told us to just give him our luggage and go and wait for him to see if there would be room on the plane for us. This was TAC (Trans Air Congo) on which we fly business class because they tend to oversell and will only make sure you have a seat if you fly business class.  It was a tense couple of hours, but just before they boarded the plane the young agent arrived with tickets and luggage tags.  It would have been a real problem to have missed the flight  and the trip across the river, as our next zone conference was at 9 the next day.






We were met upon our arrival in Brazzaville by Gaetan, who has been our trusted aid and friend.  He took us to the beach where we waited in the comfort of his truck while the "formalities" were done by Isaac who has helped us cross the beach many times and has also been a friend.

Time to say more goodbyes to these great members who move the work forward with their faith and hard work as they make the necessary physical arrangements for our travel. We couldn't have done any of these trips without them
In nine days we visited five cities in four different countries, holding zone conferences in four of them. We've said goodbye to 48 missionaries.  At the end of this trip, which was filled with travel trials, we were quite tired but we have a week of zone conferences ahead of us and then another trip next weekend to Matadi, so we have to find energy enough to persevere.  The Lord always provides.