Odds 'n Ends

We begin with a picture of our own Sister Hatch all dolled up in her latest Congolese costume, made for her (without pre-measurements) by one of her Congolese admirers. Included in the gift of the hand-made outfit was the pearls. They weighed 5 lbs. (We made her wear this to the Sisters' Conference that day -- her last day of her mission). She was a good sport, and we all enjoyed the reactions she got from the sisters she saw that day. As a side note, as is Congolese custom, she did not remove the tag/label from the necklace, but you can't see it because it is on the back of her neck. The Congolese love keeping the tags on their clothing items -- we are not sure why -- We bid good-bye to our beloved Hatches and wish them a joyous reunion with their family back home in Aztec, New Mexico. They touched all our lives for good.

Elder Bingham took this picture so Sister Bingham could enjoy the muscles this man is developing through the hard work of digging a trench for water pipes at one of our projects. Wow.

Here we are at one of our projects. The road washed out, so we got to walk to the site. I know one of these times I will lose my balance and take a little dip in this nice water. That's Francois, another one of our site monitors (also in the green shirt), waiting for me to successfully cross the chasm.

This is Ezah, our apartment manager. He is wearing a shirt from the town in California where I grew up, Glendora. What are the odds that I would find a shirt here in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, with my hometown school's logo on it, on OUR apartment manager?

The man in the green shirt is Jordao Mulumbo, one of our site managers, training a water committee. There is quite a story behind this picture, far too much to explain here, but I wanted to put Jordao on our blog to share with you what a great young man he is to do what he is doing to make a water project succeed after some unfortunate setbacks. He is another reason we love what we are doing and being where we are.

Another one of our awesome site managers (green shirt) beginning to load a concrete ring onto our truck - a load of 500 lbs or more - by 6 men pushing it up a ramp consisting of 4 boards of uneven lengths. Only one ring would fit in the truck at a time, so we made 4 or 5 round trips to deliver the rings at a new site. That's Dede, our faithful translator, in the white shirt giving a hand, and Albert Embimen, our engineer, in the red shirt. All very special men to us. Oh yes, that's skinny Elder B directing. We tried to download a video of this in action, but once again, the download failed.

Dede Mapiya (our number 1 translator) and his new wife Jocelyn showing off their new wedding rings shortly after their wedding ceremony. About 22 couples, one after another, were married here at the government building according to law. Next month Dede and Jocelyn will fly to Johannesburg to be sealed in the temple. There is a possibility that their trip and ours for a Humanitarian conference will be the same week, and we may be able to attend their sealing. We hope so!

This man knows how to get a big job done in a hurry by using a big broom -- straight off the palm tree nearby. This is at the Mission Office parking lot. And these brooms really work well.

We are in the midst of beginning a new project of 10 wells, a school latrine and water catchment system, and capturing a spring; two smaller school latrine projects; a shipping container of wheelchairs and training from some US doctors; a shipment of Neo-natal supplies and training from US doctors; refurbishing two drilled wells; a trip to Luputa to finalize a new water project there; a trip across the mighty Congo River to the Republic of Congo to go to Point Noire to evaluate a finished water project; three more closing ceremonies; and writing up another project in case we can plead our case and get more $$. There is quite a bit of paper work involved, but we think we have figured it all out and shouldn't make too many mistakes.

We love our work, the people, and the country. We are blessed beyond measure. We know we are surrounded by angels every single day.

We thank you for your interest and concern for us and our work.
We love you! Have a wonderful week.

How We Got Our Truck Air-Conditioning Fixed

We begin this post by introducing you to a group of great men (well, USUALLY great as you will come to understand as you plow through this blog). Included in this group are our Mission President (Pres. Jameson), two of our faithful translators (Fils and Felix), our Mission Office Financial Secretary (Elder Hatch), and The Three Amigos!! (Thierry, Pascal and Aime). Don't they look like a bunch of supportive, loving, compassionate men? Hmmmmm???
Our story begins on August 27, 2011, a day that will go down in Elder B's mind as his day of infamy. He set out early on the ROAD TO BANDUNDU with a man and the man's two uncles, a couple of their close friends, and a very heavy load of who knows what but what filled the truck's bed. BANDUNDU is about 470 km away, so Elder B was told later-- not before -- the cursed trip. The purpose of the trip was to look at a possible Humanitarian farming project (and to get our friend off Elder B's back). Five hours into the promised 2 1/2 hour trip, and after multiple promises that the destination was "just over that hill!", Elder B became frustrated. (Can you believe that?) But he persevered, mainly because he had a heavy load of who knows what in the back of the truck and he wanted to UNLOAD it soon. But the poor truck couldn't take it, plus by this time they had picked up 5 more stragglers perched on the back of the truck on top of the very heavy load of who knows what. The truck died a horrible death attempting to drive though sand, sand and more sand. Elder B ended up sleeping that night in the truck's cab in the middle of Africa in a small village of curious people who peered in the windows all night long to get a look at a mundele (who, by the way, was peering right back at them). And he had one of the uncles and the snoring friend also in that cab. (Africans can sleep anywhere, anytime.) An uncountable number of bodies also slept in the back of the truck which was now empty of the heavy load of who knows what, as it had been unloaded in a small village that was then to be hand-carried to an unknown destination "just over the next hill". Late the next day Elder B returned home to Kinshasa without the truck, and has loved every minute of the saga of the truck replacement that finally ended January 27, 2012.
The first step in getting the Humanitarian truck replaced was the approval from Salt Lake, which took a couple of months. Then Elder B excitedly picked out the new truck here in Kinsahsa: 4-wheel drive a NECESSITY!! And a canopy to prevent theft (that's another story). But did Elder B get to drive it out of the lot??? Oh no, no, no. First you must have license plates. Then you must have auto insurance. Sounds easy, right? You just go to the local DMV to get the plates. But our travel guy, who will remain unnamed (well, ok, we named the new truck after him) informed Elder B that "there are no license plates in all of the DR Congo." For some reason there is a shortage of license plates in a city of 14 million people. Hmmm. But being the patient man that he is, Elder B accepted that fact, and only bugged the travel man once or twice an hour to see if some license plates had magically appeared. In the meantime, the truck was somehow, without license plates OR insurance, driven to our office parking lot. Elder B got pretty excited about that!!! He ran in to the travel guy's office to get the new truck keys. "No no no! Still no license plates available." said the travel guy. Elder B was crushed, but he knew without a doubt that those plates would soon appear. And they did, 10 weeks later!!! Now is that a lesson in patience, or what?
But the story isn't over. (You can just put a bookmark right here and come back next week if you'd like.)
This is what happened. Elder B went to one of the 3 amigos, who doesn't work at our office but knows everybody and everything and how to get things done. He went to bat for Elder B, in addition to taking care of his own heavy load of mission work. His first call revealed the sad truth: there were license plates, and there had always been license plates. All Elder B needed was a form to fill out and that wonderful amigo went down and got the plates for him. !!!

The long-awaited license plates shown off by the proud papa. Aren't they cute?
Next step: insurance.
An insurance lady came to our office to "expedite" the process. She met with Elder B, who was expecting the cost of the insurance to be around $200. She wanted $445. Elder B asked to see the bill. She wouldn't show him. She wouldn't show it to the translator, either. Elder B smelled a rat. (sorry, a hippo -- after all, we are in AFRICA!) He declared, "I will go down to the office with you and take care of this. I will not pay you." So they set off. Amazingly enough, the cost of the insurance was $262, not $445. But hey, everybody has got to make a living. The woman was being resourceful, right? It just didn't work this time.
So now we have the plates and the insurance. All Elder B needed: the keys to the truck, and he would be home free, with a truck that would hopefully have decent air conditioning. So he presents himself to the travel guy, but wait!! The travel guy has just flown to Johannesburg, and the keys are in his locked safe in his office. Not to worry, Elder B just gets on the phone and calls this guy, who says that another man at the office has his safe keys and combo. Yippee skippee -- we're getting close! But the man with the keys had just left the office. Elder B made another phone call and this man said he would be back in several hours. Elder B disagreed with him!! "No, you are coming back right now!" And he did after a few well-chosen threats. Poor little man -- he couldn't figure out how to use the keys and combo. So another man was called in to help. Finally, they keys are in Elder B's hand. But he wants TWO sets of keys (that's thinking way outside the box -- planning ahead, etc.) That really threw them. "You can't have TWO sets of keys!!" Elder B got two sets of keys. Then he and our translator hopped into the brand new truck to take the plates down to have them mounted on the bumpers. (he didn't have the tools to do the job himself). Elder B noticed that the fuel tank was below empty (diesel). So first stop, fueling up. When that was completed, he put the truck in first gear, and before he could pull out of the station, a taxi zoomed in behind him and rear-ended him. First dent. Would you like to know what Elder B's blood presssure was at this point? Me, too. A nearby policeman came right over to see what he could do. He listened to the raving men and finally said to Elder B,
"Just forgive the taxi driver and pound out the dent." Dents don't mean much to drivers here. Elder B's comment right here is that the policeman's suggestion was certainly the Christian thing to do, but Elder B, at that point, had pretty much left the Christian religion and adopted something else. The taxi driver then said that Elder B had the truck in reverse and backed into him. Not so. But hey, the excitement at finally having the truck overruled a negative reply. With license plates in hand (ok, they were sitting on the dashboard), Elder B drove towards the place to get the plates mounted, and another little glitch got in the way, namely a bunch of policemen who stopped him and pointed out the fact that he was driving without license plates. Elder B patiently pointed out the plates on the dash, plainly visible from the front of the truck, explaining "We are going right now to get them mounted!" That just wouldn't do, they wanted money. Clearly, they were NOT getting any from Elder B. He'd had enough!! With a threat to call their boss, they cops decided to let him go. While waiting for the light to turn green, Elder B had second thoughts and called the cops back over and apologized for yelling at them, shook hands, and promised he would be back to show them the mounted plates. And he did. The cops laughed and pointed and thus ended a potentially ugly situation -- with smiles all around.


Elder B had to return to the mission office to tell his good friends about the dent. Here he is going into much detail (similar to this blog today?) You can see they are feeling his pain at his having a wreck on the first kilometer of driving.

Elder B is directing his friends to the dent.

Elder B is saying, "Really guys, I got hit!!"

Here are Elder B's compassionate x-friends feeling just terrible about the wreck. Observe the slump in Elder B's shoulders as he must face another disappointment("You call THAT a dent?") in his day of disappointments.

Sister's comment: I love the air conditioning! It was worth it!!

The End.

Our Turning-over Ceremonies

A group of school children filing in for the closing/handing-over ceremony of their new school latrine. About 300 children attended, plus the school staff and community members.

This group of young women started off the program by singing a welcome song to us, then added a Christmas song, since it is still considered the Christmas season here in the Congo. They had very sweet voices.

Here are our guys -- our two site monitors in the green shirts (Walter and Francois), who monitor all work every day as construcion takes place and then reports to us what is happening. The man in the suit is Albert Embimen, the engineer and head of the non-profit organization of the project that we partnered with. We provide the funds, he does the work. We have come to love these three fine men. This photo shows them receiving certificates from us for the great job they did.

The back of the brand-new latrine, with our friends, including our translator, Felix, on the far left. The sign says,"This project made possible by the grace of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, carried out by the NGO (non-profit organization) EBAT". The lettering was being finished during the ceremony.

After the latrine hand-over (which means the Church hands over the project to the school or community, and now the school or community has total responsibility to sustain/maintain it), we moved down to the Waters of Mormon spring project for another handing-over ceremony. This picture is of yet another of our site monitors, Eric, with the village chief. He is cutting the ceremonial ribbon to open the spring for his villagers' use.

Inbetween ceremonies, we went to see another potential project. We had to walk a ways, and on our way down a hill to the site, we came across this huge ravine where the Chinese are building a concrete run-off ditch to prevent erosion. To see the size of this, you will want to zoom in. You'll see the workmen at the bottom of the ravine. As you can see, there are homes built on the edge of this ravine that hopefully will remain standing now that the ditch is in place.

At the next ceremony a few days later, the 10 hand-dug wells and school latrine project were also handed over to the community. This is the village chief taking the first drink of pure water from one of the wells. We were very pleased that President and Sister Jameson and Elder and Sister Stagg asked to accompany us to this ceremony. We think they enjoyed it and got a better feel for what we do here.

This is a very special picture to us. The engineer for this project is Masha Gideon the tall guy in the white. With him is his father. Masha proved to be an excellent engineer who worked very hard to make this project an outstanding one. We are sad that the project is at an end and we won't be associating with these good people as we have been.

Earlier in the week we visited some of our wells and heard some drums being played nearby, so we ambled over to see what that was all about. A young albino boy entertained us with some religious preaching and singing. Afterwards, I went up to him to shake his hand, and he wouldn't let my hands go -- he was fascinated that mine were the same color as his! Unfortunately, he has very poor eyesight and can only see up close. Sunlight is very hard on these children.

We have two more handing-over ceremonies this next week, so undoubtedly you will see more similar pictures on the next blog.

Thanks for your patience. We realize these pictures mean far more to us than they can to you. You just have to be here to understand......

We hope you had as great a week as we did. We love you!

Going South for the Summer/Christmas in JoBurg

Loading up for the drive to the Kinshasa Airport at 6:30 am Dec. 4, 2011

Some of you may know by now that we American senior missionary couples becameDR Congo refugees for 3 1/2 weeks when there was political unrest in our city of Kinshasa due to a recent Presidential election. Our Mission President was forced into making a very difficult decision that we 4 couples needed to leave our country for safety's sake, so we were flown to Johannesburg, South Africa, where we languished, ate, played, and most of all, yearned for home (Kinshasa). While there, we became reacquainted with malls, cheap food and commodities, cultural events, freeways without potholes, movie theaters, and the beauty of a modern clean city . We refugees were treated like kings and queens by the missionary couples serving there. We also took advantage of the temple and attended four sessions.

We did some fun shopping there, and as you can see, President Jameson made a magnificent purchase of an African drum. (In his previous life he was a drummer for a small band, and it has never completely left his system.) That is Elder and Sister Hatch with him. They had the unique opportunity to fly to Zambia during our vacation and train a new office couple there. They returned to Joburg shortly before we flew back to Kinshasa. We missed them!

We went to a local Lion Park and spent the day taking pictures of the animals we will never see in the DR Congo (all were eaten). Elder B doesn't really count these animals as being wild because there is a fence around the various enclosures, and if these animals were released they wouldn't know how to survive. This guy doesn't really look very menacing -- just sleepy.

Here is Sis. B with her favorite type of animal. This was taken at the Johannesburg Zoo, which is a step or two above Sequoia Park Zoo.

And here we are at the end of our "vacation" at the Johannesburg airport, ready (and I DO mean ready) to fly home to our Kinshasa. See Elder Hatch with his new acquisitions? The outback hat and new backpack. Wonder what he plans to do when he returns to New Mexico in February??

We thought it humorous that our newly acquired Johannesburg friends felt so sorry for us having to live in the DR Congo (horror stories of the great sacrifices we must make when living there....) We would explain, "Yes, Kinshasa is dangerous, has the worst roads in existence, the craziest drivers ever to get behind a steering wheel, the dirtiest air on the planet, the most expensive mission on earth, more garbage on the roads everywhere than you can ever imagine, has nowhere to go for fun except the local grocery store, no beautiful sights to see, AND WE LOVE IT!!!! We can't wait to go HOME!!! Call us crazy....
And now that we are home, rest assured that life is normal, we are safe, and we are happy!

Elder B and Masha goofing around on an old broken down truck near a water project.

As soon as we got home, Elder B and I were back out on the road checking out our projects to see what progress had been made in our absence, and to see our wonderfu friends, the site monitors, the contractors, and our translators. It was HEAVEN to get back to work and it was even MORE heaven to see that they missed us almost as much as we missed them!! We have had some precious reunions these last few days, and for that we are most grateful. We have learned that it is definitely the people who make Kinshasa beloved to us all. What a blessing to be here!

If you look closely at this picture, you will see that it is a cemetary. See the gravestones? And the people have planted corn amongst the graves -- what better use for all that unclaimed soil between the graves? These people are extremely resourceful.

A completed well opened for use at the moment the picture was taken. That's Kedikedi in the long blue shirt teaching a village woman to pump properly. We love Kedikedi - a quiet, unassuming, kind and cheerful man.

Some beautiful children who love to have their picture taken.

Eddy, one of our valuable site monitors, hamming it up with some more beautiful children.

A completed (and nicely painted, I might add) ten-stall latrine next to a school of 1100 students. Until we built these toilets, they were using two old stalls with no way to wash their hands or "flush" the hole in the ground.

Now we are caught up, except for the pictures we lost on our personal lap top that crashed while we were in Joburg. Luckily we were given another Humanitarian laptop that we brought home to use in our apartment, since we do some of our work there.

We love you. Happy New Year.

Thanksgiving Week in Kinshasa

Happy Thanksgiving!!
Above you see the beautiful Thanksgiving table just before it was loaded down with delicious dishes contributed by all the senior couples. This is the Mission Home of President and Sister Jameson. We had a very nice meal -- too much good food. So now you know that we really aren't living in a little grass hut in the middle of nowhere with no luxuries around us. We are quite comfortable, especially being surrounded by the great people we serve with.
Here are the hors-d'oeuvres that Elder and Sister Stagg provided. Crabmeat on crackers and little homemade quiches. Very nice, and hard not to fill up on before the main meal.
This picture is out of order, but since you know how inept I am with trying to move the pictures around, you get it this way.
Above is Elder B and one of our partners showing how the water which is collected off the roof during a rainstorm is stored in these tanks and used for handwashing and latrine flushing in our new school latrine (the pink and blue ones you saw in an older blog).
Back to the Thanksgiving meal, here are the pies we provided for the meal. We transported them in this nifty huge basket that was in our apartment when we moved here. Finally found a use for it, aside from looking really cool in our living room. The pies - the first ones I've made here - actually came out great. We bought two huge squashes (like the one that the jack-o-lantern was carved out of in an older blog), cooked them up and made the pies. The middle one is an apple pie. Unfortunately, we had to forego our traditional chocolate silk pies this year -- not safe to eat raw eggs here.
Our apartment complex is getting a paint job. This was taken out our front window on the second floor. The picture below was supposed to be first, but oh well. We wanted to show you an up close photo of the man putting up the scaffolding, then show you (above) exactly where he was. No safety precautions here. Just very good balancers!
Back at the new latrine, this young artist is sculpting the name of the church (in French) onto the front of the latrine -- freehand. It will say, "Gift from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints."
At a different site, these happy women and Gaston, a partner, are showing us how thrilled they are to have a well close to their homes so they don't have to go so far to get dirty water to drink. Gaston did a great job on this project, and we plan to do another with him next year. For those of you who remember Betty Williamson, mom of Vivian Moses, take a close look at the woman in the middle front. Doesn't she look like Betty?
Below is another of the many beautiful sites as we walk along the Congo River. We have heard this called by several names -- poncianna, flaming tree -- but whatever it is, it is vibrant. We also saw this in Jamaica. The Congo has so many of the same flowers and trees and fruits we knew in Jamaica.
This is how we spend Family Home Evening. Eating. That's Elder Hatch and President Jameson snacking. We had planned to play games this particular evening, but we never got to the games. Just sat around eating and talking. Our favorite way to unwind from the challenges of hot, bumpy roads with crazy drivers and hungry policemen.
At the present time we are enjoying 3 days of 'lockdown' in our apartments because of the presidential elections going on tomorrow. There may be some incidents, and the US Embassy has advised us to all stay home for a few days. We feel perfectly safe where we live, but we all want to be obedient, so we stocked up on books and a few DVDs to occupy our many hours at home. We may have to leave the country for a week or so after the 4th when the results of the voting are posted. There may be some unhappy people around. So if there is no blog next week, you will know why. We will be flying to Johannesburg, So. Africa. Another adventure!
Please don't worry about us. The news reports make it sound worse than it really is. We are loving this place and the work and of course, the people. Have a wonderful week, and thanks for visiting the blog.
Love,
Elder and Sister Bingham

Election week, no ceremonies week

Happy Birthday, Jennifer Kelly, beautiful daughter of ours!
This week held some disappointments, namely that our closing ceremonies had to be postponed due to the political unrest. Postponed, but not cancelled, so you will be seeing those ceremonies on the blog in the near future.
We begin this blog with a few random, but unique photos. Below, you see another example of the resourcefulness of these wonderful Congolese people. Elections are coming up. There are hundreds and hundreds of individuals running for office. When you are running for office, you have banners made. Lots of banners. Hundreds and hundreds of plastic banners. Then you hang them everywhere. This huge electrical transmission tower serves very well to display some of those banners. We feel that if you want a going business during election time, you should start a banner-printing business. We thought our son-in-law Brad Huskey would enjoy this....he works for PG&E and has climbed such towers....but not with banners, we'll wager.

This little guy below is just an average-size grasshopper we found on the ground of one of our project sites. Unfortunately, he lost his back hopper legs as the man holding him tried to situate him for the photo. Poor little hopper-less hopper.
Today was Stake Conference in the Kinshasa Stake. Afterwards, we had the privilege of meeting little Gabrielle, the daughter of one of our service missionaries who also works at the Temporal Affairs building with us. She just was not sure of that whitey holding her, and we never were able to coax a smile out of her.
We were very impressed with out new camera's ability to take long shots. We were on the other side of the valley when our engineer pointed this out to us. We could barely see it with our eyes, but look at the detail! These are the hollow cylinders that are formed with concrete that are gradually dropped on top of each other as the well is dug. One meter wide, one meter across. Most of our wells are about 20 meters deep, so that means at least 20 of these are sitting on top of each other from the bottom of the well to the top. And one guy gets to be at the bottom digging with a short shovel and filling a small bucket on a rope that is lifted out, emptied, and sent back down empty. We think these people are amazing for their hard work and creativity.
We know we have posted other pictures of our wells being pumped, but this is our favorite. And in case it looks like Sis. B is struggling to pump, SHE IS! It is hard work to prime the pump, and I almost didn't make it without help. This is why the Congolese people have such muscles! They snicker over our weak ones. This well has just been completed and we asked that the contractor allow the villagers to go ahead and begin using it instead of expecting them to wait until the closing ceremony. They need the clean water NOW.
Last week we told you of the colorful latrines, but neglected to take a picture of the blue (boys) one. Here it is! That's Brother Kadi Kadi in the great hat, and President Kiembwe, President of the organization we are partnering with to do the work. He is also a counselor in his Stake Presidency. They are wonderful men and we love working with them.
The rainy season is upon us, and the roads are atrocious. Every rain storm destroys the roads more and more. The potholes are bigger and deeper. Elder B loves the driving and dodging!
We did have one exciting police experience. For background, the couples get hassled a lot by the police here, because they want us to give them money in order for them to let us proceed. So much hassle that President Jameson, our Mission President, had been stopped one too many times, so he called the Police department and made an appointment with the top guy. The interview went very well, the General was very kind and interested in our plight, was very impressed with the work we do here as volunteers, and he offered to give each of us his personal card to use with his phone number if we had trouble with any of his men. Elder B has really been looking forward to using that card....As we were driving down the main street in town one day this week, the policeman up ahead looked down the line of cars and saw us, the whiteys, coming toward him. So he stepped out in front of our car and demanded us to pull over. We do not pull over. That's asking for trouble. We stay in the lane blocking traffic so the other motorists get mad at the policeman for holding up traffic. With doors locked and windows up, he tried to tell us that we had done something wrong. Of course, Elder B tried to tell him that we don't speak French. Using sign language, the policeman demanded to see our driver's license. Did that, through the window. He still wasn't satisfied. Finally we had to pull out our trump card -- the business card of General Olako. Then Elder B casually swerved around the policeman, squealed his tires, and took off. However, this policeman didn't like that, so he had his partner on a motorcycle chase us down. We were at a stop light, so he came up beside us and demanded us to pull over. No go. I was a little panicky by then, but once again the General Olako card was displayed, Elder B asked, "Do you want me to call him?" and the motorcycle cop just sort of faded away. We love this place!!
That's all for this week. Have an outstanding week -- we know we will!

Halloween and a Pink Latrine!

Happy Sabbath to all of you!
This week has been a very busy one -- not enough time to do everything we needed to do, but still enough time to take a few pics to share with you.
We begin, and end, with our projects. Below is Aime (pronounced Emmeh), who is an employee of the Mission, and an excellent driver if you need someone to find absolutely any place in Kinshasa in a hurry. He is also a great one to take the sisters shopping when the husbands refuse! His connection to one of our projects is his shirt. His wife has been going to the Stake Sewing Project classes, and learned how to sew, and here is her first completed item -- worn very proudly by her husband. We are thrilled at her progress, she is thrilled with her accomplishment, and Aime is thrilled with a new shirt! This sewing project has been an amazing success!! This picture was taken on Oct. 31, which leads us to the next picture....

Our own President Jameson being a grandpa to the prematurely - born Ariel, son of another of the Mission employees, Thierry (pronounced Teery). Ariel is three months old, and a whopping 8 pounds almost. Look at those fat cheeks! President J is loving his 'grandpa duty' while parents are busy elsewhere, which leads us to picture #3........

Halloween is not celebrated here in the Congo. But some individuals, who will remain unnamed, wanted to know more about our strange customs on Oct. 31. So the Hatches and Jamesons hatched up a plan....have a Halloween dinner/party for the couples and mission employees AND their children (whoops, not the couples' children -- sorry), and introduce them to Halloween!
Binghams were given the assignment to find a pumpkin. But there really are no orange pumpkins in Kinshasa. We looked high and low for a large round squash. We finally found this interesting squash and hoped it would suffice. The Jamesons were thrilled, and as you can see, Mr. Green Squash made a delightful jack-o-lantern, cut by President Jameson himself. The children were amazed what that squash turned into, and then when Sis. Jameson inserted the candle and turned out the lights, their amazement turned to astonishment. The next activity was to go Trick or Treating down the Mission Home hallway, stopping at each doorway and yelling "Trick or Treat!!" First these little Congolese children were taught by Sis. J to say "Trick or Treat!" in English. They learned VERY fast. Then they were off down the hall with their parents in tow. Guess who had the most fun??? (Elder B and I gave the parents a little secret lesson on how to "taste-test" their children's Halloween candy after the kids went to bed...a tradition in our home. Is it in yours, too?) Finally, a loud game of "Don't eat Pete!" with peanuts. We learned the next day that one of the children used her candy-filled bag as a pillow that night, and another said, "Can we go trick or treating tonight?" AND a dad did a great job snooping in his sleeping son's candy bag.

Now on to the latrine (toilet). As you know, most of our projects are hand-dug wells, and we combine those with a school latrine and rainwater catchment project. As the latrines are constructed, we check on their progress. Below are two of the latrine stalls. Yes, those are merely holes in the floor. Your feet straddle the hole and .....well, you get the picture. That's what is used here. But take a look at the tile on the walls!! This is a palace-
On this particular latrine project, I jokingly said, "and the girls' latrine you'll paint pink, the boys' you'll paint blue, right???" JOKINGLY. Color is not gender-based here. Boys wear pink and flowered clothes. Baby boys are dressed in pink as often as any other color. Pink shoes, too. So the color thing was an unknown to them. However, this sweet engineer made sure my wishes were carried out. When we arrived at the project yesterday, the engineer and workmen were dancing they were so excited to show us the painted latrines. The boys' was the brightest blue you can imagine, too. (sorry, Elder B forgot to take a picture in all the screaming (mine). Do you see why we love this mission? It is a blast!

This picture just had to be taken. She was sitting on her mom's lap, and her grandma was nearby. Grandma asked if we could please take this picture. (She doesn't have an extra ear, that's her brother right behind her.)
Below is what became of our beautiful Waters of Mormon spring. It's moving along, almost finished. Just wanted to give you a different view since last week. Notice the little girl hauling her water away. She'll still have to do that, but the water will be clean and unpolluted when the spring is completed and running normally again. The open box is where the water will be collected from the hillside. It will be covered. The two pipes at the bottom of the picture will be the pipes from which the clean water will flow. The runoff will be diverted to form another Waters of Mormon pool below the spring so the children will still have a place to play, swim, and bathe.
Next Saturday will be our first official Bingham project closing turning-over ceremony for one of the projects. The following Tuesday will be two more. We are on a roll! Hopefully a video will be taken with our amazing new camera and we can attach it to this blog. Until then, have a wonderful week. Here's a great thought to think about:
"Every one of us is more beloved to the Lord than we can possibly understand or imagine." Elder Robert D. Hales, Oct. 2011 Gen. Conference