DEDICATION - April 14, 2019

We had the marvelous opportunity to return to Kinshasa for the dedication of the temple.  The dedication was on April 14, 2019.  The church paid for our flights and hotel.  On the flight to Kinshasa, we had a layover in Paris.  We met up with Elder Dale Renlund and the leaders of the temple department, and it was fun to visit with all of them.  Elder Renlund had been the area authority over the Congos on our first mission and now he is one of the twelve apostles.  He thanked us for our faithful service.  

The dedication was sacred and inspiring.  We were able to sit in the Celestial Room, with earphone interpretations in English.  It was humbling to sit and hear the reaffirmations that we had been blessed to work on a project, hand in hand with the Lord.  As the speakers discussed the challenges that were presented through the 36 months of building, we were reminded that we had witnessed the inspirations that were such a special part of the construction.  The speakers and the prayers were beautiful, but our highlight was singing “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning” with the fervent voices of those great Congolese saints!

It was wonderful to be with Stan and Merilee and Justin again for a few days.  What a blessing it was to work with these two great men.  We ended our stay with a dinner at our favorite Kinshasa Chinese Restaurant, in a private dining room.  We were able to express our gratitude to one another, and to the Lord, for the sacred privilege we had of being part of the miracle of our Congo Temple. 

  

OUR TEMPLE CONSTRUCTION HISTORY BOOK

One of my main assignments on the mission was to write a Temple Construction History Book.  From the beginning, I was told it would be a sacred book.  There would be limited copies, with only six printed.  One would be for the cornerstone, one for the church archives, one for the temple president's office, one for the Special Projects office and one copy for us.  They also ended up printing one for Stan Houghton, the contractor.

We completed sections on the History of the Church in the DR Congo, Preparing for the Temple, The Temple Team, 170 pages of Construction, The Finished Temple and Sacred Highlights.  

Elder Bradshaw, another senior missionary is a writer and was able to help me put the book into a professional format.  He was a great help in many ways.  After he left the mission, our son Chuck was able to take over and help finish the last portions of the book.  

We worked on the book for almost three years.  Ed and I took thousands of photos, and with lots of help from heaven, we completed the book. When we returned home, we received a letter from the Director of International Projects which said "The history you created was definitely the finest, and that sentiment has been confirmed with others as well."  It was our gift back to the Lord, for allowing us to help with the building of the temple.  

These are a few of the pages that portray some of what is in the book.  

     

  

OUR STREET BOYS

(This entry was written March 28, 2020, 17 months after we left Kinshasa.  I want to finish my blog book for my mission, but I need to include this tender part of our mission.  I have not written it earlier, simply because it is too emotional for me to remember how much I learned from being with these sweethearts.) 

The temple construction site had a high block wall all around it.  There was a gate entering into the property.  Outside the gate there were several young “street-boys” that begged for anything they could get people to give them. Because we were in a fairly affluent area, they had people give them food and money, when they gave their much practiced hungry, big eye looks.  They were not allowed inside the wall, but they set up little cardboard beds along the outside of the wall.  They had a sheet of tin, they would climb under, when it rained.   

They enjoyed peeking over the fence in the morning to watch our prayer meetings. One Sunday, one of the boys hung out by the gate of the adjoining property, which was where the stake center was. This was also our ward building. We asked the boy if he would like to come into church with us. He said he would, and we took him inside. His name was Mechack, and he was an orphan. He attended every Sunday for several months. When we went home to the US for a visit, we returned with a church outfit for him, including a white shirt and tie. He was thrilled.

Mechack was 12 years old. He decided he wanted to be baptized. The day of his baptism, Mechack was dressed in his white baptismal clothes, and we were walking into the church when we received a call from the missionaries. They said they had just found out that Mechack couldn’t be baptized, because he didn’t have a parent or guardian to sign the papers. We were all very sad, but Mechack kept coming to church.  He started to bring his friends to church with him.  They would wash up at the leaking fire hydrant in front of the church and I would help them get dressed.  

The other couple missionaries were very good to the boys.They especially loved to sit next to Stan or Justin.  They let him play games on their tablets during sacrament meetings. This was not a good idea, as they were more interested in the video games than sacrament meeting.  The bishop befriended them.  I told him that since they lived on the streets in his ward, and coming to church, they were his ward's investigators.




One week Mechack brought five of the other street boys with him, two were older than he was, and sort of the ringleaders of this group of street boys.  All of their clothes were very dirty and ragged, but I had collected enough shorts and t-shirts for his friends to wear into Sacrament meeting and into primary and priesthood.  I would gather the clothes up after the meetings and bring them back each week. 

The week after he brought the five boys, I could tell he was nervous about something.  He didn’t want to wear his good Sunday outfit.  They changed clothes in the construction office.  One by one, each of the boys were given their nice shorts or pants and a shirt to wear to church, and then they went out the door to wait to walk over to church together.  I walked out the door with the last boy,  and was surprised that I couldn’t see any of the boys there.  When I asked where they were, the gate guards said they had gone outside, one at a time.  I finally realized that I had been robbed of all the church clothes I had collected by a bunch of street urchins who wanted to keep those nice clothes.  They had all disbursed down the side streets, even Meechack.  I was furious!

The next day the boys were back at the gate again, some in their rags, some in the stolen clothes!  I scolded them, but since most of them only spoke the tribal language, they just laughed.  Meechack came back and gave me back the clothes he had taken and apologized.  I could tell that the bigger boys made him do it.  

I decided that I could possibly help Mechack, and other younger street boys, if I taught them to read French.  Being literate is a huge advantage in Kinshasa.  I started teaching them daily.  Right after we had the prayer on the job, I would walk out the gates and gather up the boys who were interested.  I usually had at least 2 or 3 boys. I taught the in a classroom at church.  They loved being in that beautiful building and were fascinated with the picture of Christ.  

Classes lasted for about two months, and some of them actually learned to read some.  Moise was the sharpest and attended class the most regularly.  I cared a great deal about those we were teaching.  In addition to Mechack, I had a little boy by the name of Moise, who was very slow learning, but we let him come with us daily, just so he could be part of the group.  I wouldn’t let any of the obnoxious older boys into the class.  Just the sweet ones who were really there to learn. 

 

 

After two months, I had grown so attached to Mechack and Moise, that I asked if they would like to get off the streets and go live in an orphanage.  I suppose I had become way too attached.  We had stayed close to Philamene and the Kaka Orphanage.  Philomene said she would take them, but we had to get it approved by the government.  We hired a young returned missionary to help us coordinate it.  He arranged to have government officials come out and interview the boys, to see if they were truly orphans, or if they had parents who might claim them.  We paid all the fees, and finally the day arrived for the two boys to leave.  We bought them new clothes and back packs for the move.  They were thrilled.  We scrubbed the 2 boys clean with water on the job site. 

When they were ready, we had a taxi drive onto the job site, and we shut the gates.  We put the boys in the back seat of the taxi and had them crouch down.  We didn’t want the big boys, the leaders of the street kids, to see them leave.  We knew they might create problems.  

The orphanage was a good hour away from the temple job site, where the boys hung out day and night. When we got there the next day to visit, they were excited about the move and going to school and having food and friends.  However, they had never had rules to follow, and the orphanage was quite strict.  Moise went to the local school, but Meechack was smart and we sent him to the private school and paid for his uniforms, entrance fees and tuition.  Philomene became their legal guardian, so she could sign the papers for them to be baptized, after our mission was over.  However, Moise couldn’t handle the rules and ran away back to the street by the temple site after just a couple of weeks.  Mechack lasted about three months, and then he got into trouble at the orphanage, as he was accused of stealing.  Soon after that he went back to the street gang of kids, where he could be a free spirit.  We love to remember them on this happy day they headed for the orphanage.

We saw Mechack outside the gate when we went back for dedication.  I told him to let the Bishop know if he wanted to return to the orphanage and the school.  We never heard from him again.  We did hear that the bishop opened a home for the street kids in the area, and we hope Mechack and Moise were able to follow the few rules, and that they could stay there.  We had to learn to accept the concept of free agency, and we felt a bit of the pain that our Father in Heaven must feel when his children make poor choices.  Perhaps some day, as they grow up, they will remember the good feelings of being at church and return. We know the Lord loves these boys.  We are grateful to have learned from these street kids, and we will never, ever forget them.  

ORNELLA

This is a copy of my entry for our 2017 annual Family Christmas Service Project.  It is written to our daughter, Amy, as she was my assigned recipient for the year.  This is an important chapter of our mission, so I am including in our mission blog.
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Dearest Amy...

You are such a loving and caring sweetheart.  There were many things that I could have done and related to you, and there are many ways to serve in the Congo.  However, I wanted to make an extra effort on a project for you.  Knowing it was for this purpose encouraged me to focus on it and make it happen. 

You have two grown-up girls, who are very special.  You have seen to it that they are getting educational opportunities, and taught them the importance of learning.  We had the opportunity to "Pass it On", and owe the incentive to you.

A couple of months ago, Dad and I were visiting the orphanage.We were taking them some Home Depot shelving units we had shipped over in a Westland container.  

There is one girl who was raised in the Kaka orphanage for the last 17 years.  Her name is Ornella ands she is now 22 years old.  On our last mission she worked for us, cleaning our home, to earn money.  She now works at the orphanage and helps take care of the children.  She does most of the cooking and the laundry and cleaning. 



While we were there, delivering the shelving, Ornella, humbly told me that she would like to go to sewing school.  We had an interpreter with us, so we were able to coordinate that we wanted her to find out more about the school she wanted to go to.  We gave her transport money, so she could go get printed information that would tell us more about dates and prices and requirements for attending the school.  We were to call her three days later to see what she found out.  She was very excited about learning to sew, hoping she could make some money.  We then told her we would pay her (very well) to work for us again, and if she would earn half the money (from us) for her schooling, we would pay the other half. 

We arranged to meet with her the next week, at the school, to get her registered.  The school was over an hours drive away, in terrible traffic.  Dad took off working at the temple to drive me and our interpreter, Felix, to the college.  We waited in the line and then Felix coordinated with the receptionist to find out what we needed to do.  He made the arrangements for us to pay the registration fee and testing fee directly to the bank.  Yes, we found out she needed to take an entrance test.  We gave her the registration form to fill out.  She looked at it and shook her head.  I pointed to where she should write her name, and she haltingly did... in very childlike letters.  That was all she could do.  We discovered she could not read or write, at all.  My heart sank.  We knew she would never be able to take a test, let alone pass it. 

When she came to clean, a couple of days later, I sat down with her.  I had her write her name.  Then I asked her what the letters were.  She only knew some of them.  I asked her if she would like to go to school to learn to read and write.  She said, "Oh, yes... Please!"  I had one of our student/workers who lives out by the orphanage check into literacy schools in the area.  We found one about a ten minute walk from the orphanage. 

The next week, we drove out to take Ornella to the literacy school to find out about registering her.  The school was very humble, but perfect.

Ornella was excited for the opportunity to learn to read and write.  They agreed to start her the following Monday.  We had kept the money she earned working for us in an envelope for her.  She paid her half of the tuition with it,  and we paid the rest.

She was thrilled and on the walk back to the orphanage kept saying, "Je suis une etudiant!"  ("I am a student!)  For the first time in her humble, humble life, she was a student.


We don't know how it is going, but we look forward to finding out.  Hopefully she will be able to get away from the orphanage work for 3 hours a day, for the next 6 months, and she will become literate.  It will open many new doors for her... and change her life, if she is able to.



Amy, we are proud of you for making the sacrifices that you have to give your girls the opportunities that they have to learn!