Our First Handing-over Ceremony

African dancers at the St. Joseph Hospital handing-over ceremony. Drummers were drumming, singers were singing, and we were enjoying!

Sister Bingham getting into the act.

Yesterday we attended our very first handing over ceremony (closing ceremony). These are put on when the project construction is completed and it is time for the Church to 'bow out' and hand the project over to the community. It's the way we tell the community that the Church no longer has any responsiblity for whatever we funded -- in this case a drilled well at a local hospital -- and that now the community (or hospital) will be fully responsible for the repair and maintenance of it. It is also a celebration that the project is finally completed and can be used. We had dreaded these events because we were worried that we wouldn't know how to plan and carry these out. Sounded like a lot of detail work. But as it happened, our very wonderful Site Monitor for this project, Francois, came to us and told us he would do it all -- and all we had to do was pay for the event and attend it. We still had some reservations about how it would play out. To our delight and astonishment, it couldn't have been done any better. When we arrived, the chairs, tents, food, sound system, PR people, entertainment, speakers and attendees were already there, and it BEGAN ON TIME!!! The picture you see is of one of the African dancers. They put on quite a show!! They danced before the ceremony began, and then again during refreshments. It was absolutely astounding -- what you see on PBS but WE WERE RIGHT THERE!!! We took some videos of the dancers and the drummers, but it won't upload on the blog. So sorry about that -- you would have heard as well as seen the whole thing. At the end of the ceremony, we were all led over to a covered (tablecloth) water faucet, surrounded by a tape (torn strip of tablecloth) which they ceremoniously cut, handed a piece of the tape to the Catholic Priest (it is a Catholic hospital - St. Joseph's) and then gave out glass goblets to all the important people, including us, to take the first drinks from the faucet. The engineer even spoke, the priest blessed the water tower and pump, the hospital director spoke. And we just got to sit back and enjoy. All the other senior missionary couples attended, and so did the Jamesons, our new Mission President and wife. They all loved it. The great thing about it is the Church got some great PR, in fact our name is painted on the tower. We also learned that the site monitors always plan the ceremonies. Yes!! We have made up a certificate of achievement for Francois -- he deserves it.

Below is a three-week old baby's club feet. In a short two months this baby's feet will be normal. We will put up pictures on the blog as her feet are gradually straightened in the casts.

To the right, you will see a baby's leg being casted. This is a little clinic where we have written a project to provide the plaster of paris bands and some cotton for casting children with club feet.
We learned that the incidence of club foot is 4-5 out of every 1000 births. The baby's foot (feet) can be straightened easily by just casting the foot every week for about 2 months. That is only true if the child is under 2 years of age. Older than that requires surgery. So this clinic is treating about 15 babies each month. Too often if the baby isn't casted, the cost of the surgery is too much to have it done, and then these beautiful babies grow up to crawl around Kinshasa begging for money to survive. A very worthwhile project, we think. We submitted it last Friday, and we think we have a good chance of it being approved because the medical personnel here at this clinic are training nurses, doctors, and physiotherapist on how to assess and cast these patients so they can then go to other clinics and do the same. Self-reliance is the best!! By the way, this little clinic was being held outside in the back yard of the clinic because there was no electricity or water that day and it was too dark inside to work. We all sat under a nice shade tree and were entertained by these beautiful babies, mothers, and clinic people.

Just an interesting sight as we travel the roads of Kinshasa. Much of what is hauled around the city is not done by truck, but by pouse-pouse. They are carts with handles on both ends for pushing and pulling. Single axel with car tires. They haul everything, including whole cars, as you can see. Nothing stops the pousair! (operator of the pouse pouse.)

Our first clean water project that WE wrote up and submitted was approved, and so we have just learned how to write contracts with the contractor and site monitor. Everything we do here is a learning experience, and being old and forgetful, it is all difficult, sometimes seemingly imossible. So we have to stop and ask ourselves, "What did we accomplish today?" Then we can say, "We learned how to do contracts." or "We went all day without getting stopped by the police." or "No fender-benders today." or "We got through another day without being able to speak French." That way we can put things in perspective and feel like we are making headway. But no matter what, we are having daily adventures that we would never have experienced any other way. (Friday night we went dancing again and took a young man visiting from the US who taught the Young Single Adults how to ballroom dance. ) We have been reminded over and over how blessed we are to be here, and totally humbled by these amazing Congolese who are happy to be alive but have so very little. They are teaching us!

A closing thought from Elder Neal A. Maxwell regarding our testimony of Christ: "It matters very little what people think of us, but it matters very much what we think of Him. It mattters very little, too, who others say we are; what matters is who we say Jesus is."

Take time to tell your family who Jesus is.

We love you!!