We're Back and Better than Ever!

Hello all!
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have been away from our blog for nearly two months, and if there is anyone out there actually reading it, we do apologize. But we are back and running, and running with a new camera, at that! Hopefully you will see some benefits.
We begin with a photo of a rather unique part of Africa -- this is a picture of Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, across the mighty Congo River from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. It is the only place in the world where two country capitals are separated only by a river. We have not yet been to Brazzaville, but we have a stake there and have a project that includes the Brazzaville Stake, so we probably will be going there in the next few months. To do that, you must, of course, travel by boat. We understand that it is a very interesting, sometimes scary, but almost always inconvenient experience that takes most of the day. The boats have been known to get hung up on a sand bar while crossing, then the passengers are transferred to another boat to complete the trip. And these boats aren't just for passengers. Oh no. These boats are the #1 way to move ANYTHING from one country to the other. So you have bags of vegetables, flour, and live animals traveling beside you.
But we wanted to show you how beautiful Brazzaville looks from our side of the river. We love walking along the river in the evenings. Today when this picture was taken, it was sunny and clear, the birds were singing, and the trees were in bloom. Just a beautiful day and we wanted to share it with you.

Moving on to our work, the picture below is a latrine (bathroom) nearing completion at a local school. There are no sit-down toilets in most latrines, only holes in the ground. And a bucket to flush with. But since there is no water at this school, we are funding a rainwater catchment system to provide hand-washing and flushing water for the students. When it rains, which it does nearly every day during this, the summer season, the water that runs down the corrugated tin roofs of the school building is collected in gutters that drain into large tanks. The tanks have a spigot where the buckets are filled and transported to the latrine. There are 600 + students at this school, and they have been using a single-hole latrine up until now. Count your blessings!

Another project of ours that is well underway is a spring catchment. It's a little hard to tell from this photo that this is a spring, but under all the concrete and rock there is quite a nice spring. It used to come out of the side of this hill and created a beautiful little pool that we named "The Waters of Mormon". However, we had to sacrifice the pool in order to capture the spring to keep it from being polluted by rainwater drainage, animals, and nearby latrines. Unfortunately, this simple project has turned into a huge project as it became necessary to expand the work to stabilize the hill and channel the rainwater runoff to protect the spring. But it is nearly finished, and then there will be two pipes with beautiful clean water running out above a concrete platform where the empty biddons can be placed to fill. The community is very happy to have this work done as it will improve their health by having clean water to drink.

Here is our Mission President's wife, Sister Jameson, holding a little girl at Church today. The hairdo just had to be photographed. Most of the hair is fake, extensions that are braided onto the ends of her own hair (takes hours to do, but is very common in both the young and old). Hair is a very big thing here, and we think that sometimes it is more important than even eating!! We love seeing all the varieties of braiding and extensions. Lots of beads, barrettes, clips, etc. And the wigs!!! We often struggle to recognize the women because each time you see them they have a different wig/hairdo!
Look at this precious little boy! His name is Russel, and he is the son of one of the bishops we work with at Temporal Affairs. His mom was attending the sewing class (background) which is another of our projects. Russel didn't even flinch when this whitey lady picked him up. Often just seeing us sends children running and crying to safety away from those Moondellies!
We wanted to show you two things in this picture below. This sewing project provided each of the 5 Kinshasa stakes with 20 sewing machines. The goal is to help women learn a marketable skill in order to improve their family income, thus becoming self-reliant. It has been a huge success! The machines we provided are Super Singer hand-crank or pedal machines (no electricity here). Imagine sewing with only one hand because the other is cranking the wheel. Very awkward, but they do it just fine!
If you will notice, two of these women are wearing glasses. The day we visited this project we brought along some reading classes, many of which were collected back in the US by two of our perfectly adorable granddaughters. They received permission to ask for donations of used glasses at their school and also at church. Then a couple who were coming here from the US brought them to us. Thank you so much, Holly and Kadee. We love you!! And these sisters can now see to thread those needles.
This picture is out of order and should have been up with the first spring picture, but the blog didn't put the photos in the order I attached them. Oh well. Just a small frustration. Anyway, this picture is of the same spring, but taken from across the valley as we were walking down to it. We thought the surroundings were so pretty and typical of the areas we work in that we had to share it. We love the zoom on our new camera!
If you could only hear what we were hearing! This is a group of workers who are hand-digging a well, one of 10 in this project. They are singing as they pump water out of a nearly finished well. They are a wonderful bunch of men, and they entertain us every time we visit.
Here's another one out of order, but oh well. Below is our own Brother Bekele, who spied Elder B's camo hat and just had to have it. Elder B said no, you can't have my hat. I need it. Brother Bekele said, you need to give this hat to me. I like it. I need it. Brother B said no, I need it. Brother Bekele finally settled for a picture in the hat, but Elder B had to promise him that when we leave the Congo, the hat is his. We love Brother Bekele. We are funding a big well project with his company. His sweet little wife comes out to the project every day to stay with her husband while the children are in school.
Now back to the last well. This woman lives near this well and has been looking forward to the day that she will be able to get her water from this well rather than walking so far down to a polluted river and carrying back a heavy biddon on her head. This particular day Masha, our engineer, called her over and said, "Mama, you be the first to pump water from this well!" And so she did. That's Masha pumping along with her, teaching her how.
We are having such a blessed time here. Words just can't describe the feelings we have. We are so thankful that, in spite of not speaking French, we were sent to this incredible place. We are well and happy. We have amazing friends, supportive family, and truly are surrounded by angels.
A la prochaine (until next time),
Elder and Sister Bingham

Fences, Feet, Freddie and Fun!

Here is Freddie, the baby boy of Fils, one of our interpreters, and his mom and dad. We went to their church meetings today to see Freddie blessed. Aren't they a cute family?

Above is a little guy at our club foot clinic having his cast removed by our own Dede and Elder B's leatherman tool. Worked great, and much faster than their serrated-edged knife or soaking the babies' legs in a bucket of water to soften the plaster. Dede would make an outstanding doctor -- he is very gentle and patient and loves children.

This may be a little hard to see, but here is Kisungu, our 3-week old baby who first came to the clinic 3 weeks ago with two club feet. After 3 castings, she has straight feet and no longer needs the casts! Her mom had her feet wrapped in the white tape so Dede removed it for the picture. Mom is very pleased with the results, and so are we. Our project at this clinic has been approved and we (LDS Humanitarian Services) will provide $15,000 worth of plaster bands and cotton for casting so many more babies such as Kisungu will have straight feet.

The Hatches and Binghams took a trip out to our little orphanage to build a fence. Here is little Nathan, the baby from an earlier blog. Such a cutie, but pretty solemn that day.

This young man at the orphanage had broken his femur (pretty serious break). The woman who runs the orphanage is a nurse, and she casted his leg and torso herself. Do you see that rod under his heel? That is a piece of tree branch she wrapped into the cast to stabilize his foot from turning while it heals. (So resourceful!) He will have the cast on for 3 months.

Here are some folding chairs (obviously). Now in the U.S., when we put away folding chairs, we first fold them up, then lean them in stacks upright against a wall, right? Or fold them up and stack them in a chair rack. But the Congolese are used to those plastic chairs that stack on top of each other. Hence, the folding chairs are stacked the same way!! Who cares if they fold up?

Back to the orphanage, we couples pitched in and bought the materials to have this fence built, and Elder B and Elder Hatch took us out there and set it up with rebar and wire. Now the kids can play ball without the ball rolling down the steep hillside into a very busy road!

The finished product with the children posing for us. We also took some cookies for them which were generously donated by our two guys who run our little store downstairs. Ali and Prem are the best!

Sister Hatch showing the children that she, too, can jump rope! Dig that totally African dress -- she had it made here.

Well, that's all for this week from the DR Congo!

We love you and hope you have a wonderful week ahead of you.

Babies in Buckets

Here we are at the Club Foot Clinic again, one of our favorite places to visit. This little guy has been casted multiple times, and each time he returns to the clinic, his mom sticks him in the bucket of cold water to soften the cast so it can be removed. No cast saws here!! After the cast is soft enough, the mom takes a huge serrated-edged knife and cuts off the cast. This process takes 30-60 minutes. IF there was electricity and IF there was an electric cast saw, all this would be done in minutes. But the moms expect to do this, and they patiently work with those casts with a smile on their faces. Such dedicated moms!

A beautiful little princess and her beautiful mama, waiting for her turn at the clinic. This was her first visit.

This little cutie is lying on is stomach on his mom's lap while she is hard at work doing the bucket thing. He was having a ball just talking and laughing, while all the time .......

exposing his little hiney to the whole world!!

This is the clinic cook making foo-foo. This is the most popular food in the Congo- the staple - It is made from the roots of the cassava plant. The roots are peeled, chopped up, soaked, pressed,
spread out in the hot sun and dried, then ground into flour. The flour is what foo-foo is made of. They boil the flour with some corn flour in water, then stir stir stir. The consistency is of very thick cream of wheat. It is eaten with some sort of gravy and fish. Eating utensils are not usually used, so the foo-foo is rolled into a ball with the fingers and dipped into the gravy. We plan on trying some real soon. It doesn't have much nutrition, but it fills the belly.

Yesterday (Saturday) we went to the second Youth conference, this time a two-stake affair with only 600 YM & YW attending. We all learned a lot from our previous one, so this one went much more smoothly. We were dreading it because it was held in a much smaller building and we heard there would be 1000 attending. Thank goodness it wasn't quite so big. Elder B spent much of his time in the kitchen with the ladies yukking it up and making sandwiches. They sang Church hymns to him in French while working. When it was time to clean up, he tried to do some cleaning, but they wouldn't let him. At the end of the conference, there was to be a little dance (sort of talent show), but it got a little rude (again, like last week.) During one of the numbers (terrible rap song) the electricity suddenly went out. So the kids went home. It turned out that the electricity didn't really go out....Elder B just decided it was over and went out and pulled the power switch. Perfect way to end the day! He felt a little guilty about it later, but everyone else thanked him over and over.

We will end this with a bit of good news from Lafayette Super Market. Not only are Ali and Prem promising chocolate chips, they are saying that they will begin ordering PEPPER JACK cheese!!! I will give them a few weeks before requesting corn tortillas and green chili enchilada sauce.

Life is good.
From these Mundelis we bid you Botakala malambu! (Lingala for good bye)

First Youth Conference in the DRC!!

For the first time in the history of the church in the Democratic Republic of Congo, a youth conference was held. It was a tri-stake event. It was the idea of Elder and Sister Hatch, our awesome office couple, who have been involved in the youth forever, first at home (New Mexico) and now here in Kinshasa. They knew that if they did all the planning and all the work, it wouldn't teach the local members anything at all, so the whole event was delegated to the local Stake and Ward leaders. And it worked!! There were close to 800 youth in attendance!! (The picture above is only about 80% present.) We were hoping for 300. Yikes!!! And they kept coming and coming, up until lunch-time. Finally those at the registration tables said, "Just go find a class and enjoy! Don't worry about registering!" The classes taught were on Temple Marriage (taught by a darling couple just returned from the temple), Missionary Preparation taught by our own interpreter Fils, Singing taught by Joseph, an outstanding musical guy and return missionary, Duty to God for the YM, Personal Progress for the YW, and Outdoor Games taught by two US guys who are temporarily working here in Kinshasa. Classes rotated every 45 minutes.
In spite of some logistical problems, it was a huge success and we hope it gets in the Church News. But even if it doesn't, the purpose was accomplished: To get the youth together to have a spiritually uplifting day, and to have lots of fun at the same time. For the adults, a sampling of what they themselves can do for their youth.


For closing exercises we tried to get everyone inside, but didn't quite make it. This is the chapel and cultural hall. You may notice that not only are there YM and YW-aged attenders, but also Primary age (their older siblings couldn't come unless they brought the younger ones) and some young single adults who just couldn't stay away. We think we also attracted the neighborhood youth, but figured why not? What better place for them to be on a Saturday?

Three young men who were begging to have their picture taken. We had just broken for mid-morning snack -- peanuts and a 'biscuit'.

The whole event was just what President Gingery used to say about his missionaries in Jamaica: herding cats! Imagine herding 800 youth at one small building.

So much was learned! (by the leaders even more than the youth). For example, what a 'dance' means to Congolese youth. Not where everyone gets on the dance floor and dances. Oh no...It was more like a talent show. Small groups got on stage and put on a dance exhibition. Unfortunately, they are in love with rap, and the exhibitions (very suggestive) had to be ended almost before they began. Now we know what a 'dance' is. Another 2-stake conference is being held next Saturday, and there will be a few changes - especially in the dance category. That is how we learn!

Above is one of our club foot babies who will begin treatment to straighten her feet.

We revisited the Club Foot clinic this week to follow our little baby girl. Last week you saw her before she began treatment. Here she is in all her glory -- and all her casts. After we left, her casts came off, she was assessed, and re-casted to turn her feet gradually. You will begin to see a difference this next week when we return for our 3rd visit.

That's all for this week. We may be taking our third trip to Luputa next week to check out the water system there and offer support to the water committee. Our recently written projects are getting approved and we will start signing contracts now and get busy with the work. It has been a great (complicated, frustrating, scary, worrisome) experience, and we look forward to the future in serving the Lord this way in the Decmocratic Republic of Congo.

Our love to you all.

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!!

Children, Wheelchairs and Cotton-eyed Joe

Welcome to our week! I will begin with this disclaimer: This blog will be the death of me yet. On the page that I arrange the pix and type the text, it looks beautiful, all is lined up and makes complete sense. But the preview changes the location of the text and pictures. I simply CANNOT, WILLNOT do it all over. You will have to figure out which pictures goes with which description. I apologize, but what you see is what you get. Maybe someone out there can give me some advice???? And it took about 2 hours to download the video. We really really hope you can get it to play. Good luck!!

On our last trip to the orphanage, a special children's program was being held. When we arrived, the children were all sitting up on a raised area under an awning, waiting for the program to begin. We were told to be there at 10 am, and we were early. The program began at 11:30. During this whole time the children sat calmly and obediently, no fussing or complaining. While some rock/salsa music was being played, two little boys in the front row stood up and danced in place. (Two pictures below). Where they learned their moves is a mystery to us, since they've been in this orphanage for most of their lives, and they certainly don't have tv or videos. I think it's inborn. And Dad got to hold our little guy who was sick last visit and is doing great now. What a cutie! For the program, the children sang a sad song about being abandoned by their parents, but the Lord would never abandon them. Then they presented some skits about their circumstances that brought them to the orphanage. Very eye-opening. Our little guy has a sad story == he is the tash baby. His mother was told by her pastor right after his birth that the baby was possessed by an evil spirit and had to be thrown away. She broke his arm, tied up his ankles, and the pastor began to drown him. Luckily he was rescued and the man was put in prison. He swears when he gets out of prison that he will kill the woman who turned him in, who is the owner of the orphanage.

Unbelievable!

At a visit to a Health and Hygiene training in Nuna. Whenever we construct a water syster the community is required to have this training to teach them how to take care of the clean water and how to stay healthy. We always find beautiful children to photograph wherever we go. It was a very well-organized event, with the village chief walking around the village using a megaphone to announce the training. The presenters were gifted teachers. It was such a treat to see this

training take place.

Some of the children outside the Health and Hygiene training in Nuna. They are so very curious about us Mondeles coming to their village! They love to shake our hands. They love to beg for money or food. They love to imitate our words. We just have a very fun time with them, wherever we find them.

We have been purchasing some local 3-wheeled tricycle type wheelchairs with some left-over funds from an old wheelchair project. This has been such fun, because we can just give them away wherever we choose. This picture is of Bibi, a member who hasn't had a wheelchair for years and can't get to church anymore. Today we attended her ward, and there she was in her new wheelchair!! We met the young man, Koki, when we were shopping in a fabric store. He came into the store on the back of his friend. Koki contracted polio as a baby, and has never walked. His friend carries him everywhere. He came into the store begging for money for food. Of course we were approached by the two of them, (whiteys = $$$) so Elder B. pulled them to one side and talked to them, using an interpreter, and found out that Koki, age 34, had never had a wheelchair. Elder B asked him, "Would you like to have a wheelchair?" Koki said yes, but didn't act like he believed that would be possible. Elder B told him to be waiting on the corner at 1:00 that day and he would bring Koki the chair. Koki said ok. And Koki was there on the back of his friend, waiting, when Elder B arrived. Now he was beginning to believe. He asked about the Church, and was familiar with it. His friend said, "Now I will have nothing to do. Can you get me a job?" So we helped Koki, but put his friend out of a job. Can't win 'em all.

And finally, our Congolese Young Adults doing the Cotton-eyed Joe, taught and led by our wonderful Office Couple, Elder and Sister Hatch from New Mexico!! The Hatches have given so much to this mission. They are totally into the YM and YW of the Church. Elder Hatch tried to get the Boy Scout program started here in Kinshasa, but the Church said the Congo wasn't quite ready for BSA. He was sad. But he has introduced the Duty to God program to the nearby stakes, trains YM leaders, teaches in the Aaronic Priesthood class, is organizing a Stake YMYW Conference next month, and plays basketball with the YM every Saturday. Sis. Hatch teaches in YW, teaches English classes to 90 young adults every Wednesday evening with her husband, and is teaching the Personal Progress program to the nearby stakes. Then on Friday nights they drag the Binghams and the Staggs to these dances to teach the young single adults how to dance some good ol' American moves. These activities are totally voluntarily -- no one asked them to do them in the beginning. Talk about giving your all!! They are our heroes!

(Please excuse the immodest clothing on the video.) These kids have learned the cha-cha and the Virginia Reel, too. They call that last one "The Pioneer Dance" because Elder Hatch told them the pioneers used to dance this one on the plains as they trekked to the Salt Lake Valley. Next: the bunny hop!

Operation Smile and an Orphanage

Another highlight of our mission took place this week. One of our new projects was to donate funds to feed the patients at this Operation Smile mission for cleft palate repairs. The hospitals here do not provide food for their patients, and because many of the patients had to come from long distances, getting food was a major difficulty. We were thrilled that this project was approved, and more thrilled when we attended the event. We were taken through the entire process, from screening patients to post-op. We were very impressed with the caliber of volunteers (Doctors, anesthesiologists, nurses, etc. from all over the world) who came together to make this work. They LOVE thier work and it shows! We will share some videos about it when we return.

We were allowed to go into the operating room where two patients were being operated on. It was amazing to see the difference in the patient going into surgery and going out of surgery. We feel we were witnessing miracles. We followed these two children into recovery and post-op.

The picture of the man with the raised arms was a father who had just seen his daughter for the first time after surgery. I was there. He took one look at her face (she was a double-cleft, extremely deformed) and first held his hands to his heart, then lifted them to praise God for the miracle he was seeing. You could not keep from crying.

We learned that the reason we haven't seen children with cleft palates around Kinshasa is that their parents hide them. Some feel that these children are 'devil' children and should not be seen. We only saw mothers and fathers who love their little ones and want a normal life for them.

Don't mourn over these children. They now look wonderful!

On an outing to look at a potential project for capturing some springs, we had to walk through this river. The people with us are the contractor, the president and vice-president of the organization that brought the project to us, plus various and assorted other villagers who are always interested in seeing the moondellis. Even though the water looks very dirty, it really felt wonderful and we wanted to go for a swim!

We visited an orphanage recently. That's where Elder B is, holding a sick baby. He's a natural at such things. Several of these children are being adopted by US couples. Some of the children are here at the orphanage because their parents can't afford to care for them. Others do not have parents. One is referred to as the "trash baby" because he was left in the trash. The Hatches, our wonderful office couple, found this place and have asked the rest of the couples to help them build a fence across the front of the property to keep the children's balls and toys from rolling down the hill into the road. Elder B can't wait to get to work and actually get his hands dirty!!

We are so blessed to be doing this work. It is hard, sometimes things are out of control because there are so many different aspects of the work we have to be involved in at the same time, but we love the work and can't imagine doing anything else. There are frustrations, but we are learning how to stay calm. For example, we have one of the Operation Smile nurses staying overnight with us tonight. She just came out to say her bed just broke while she was saying her prayers and the light stopped working at the same time. She is from SL City and this is her 18th Operation Smile mission!! I told her I knew she could handle it. She agreed that as long as she could have running water and a flush toilet, she was A-ok. At least those things are still working.

There are many more pictures we would love to share, but this will have to suffice for now.

We love you and appreciate your prayers.