WOW! What a Month

Following our great visit with our family from the USA a month ago, I must say that the last thirty days have really flown by very fast. They have been days filled with joy and pain. Mostly joy, but some serious pain as well.

Even though we are administrative missionaries assigned to the Area Office to develop and direct the Perpetual Education Fund, we were treated to be involved in two baptisms this month. Claire Lambert, pictured below, who is a great young gal and also Reenie's hairdresser, was baptised and we were invited to participate in and celebrate this wonderful day and significant change in Claire's life. She is from a long line of Afrikaans and British people, so joining a faith that is widely racially integrated was quite a decision for her. She brings great enthusiasm and a wonderful spirit with her to her new community.

Elder VS, Claire Lambert and Sister VS, following her baptism.

Thembi Majombozi is a free-lance journalist that came by our office about six months ago to do a story on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and all of the educational and humanitarian efforts we are doing to help the people in Africa. We struck up a wonderful relationship with her. She interviewed us, asked us lots of questions about our faith and practices and soon began attending church in the Johannesburg 1st Ward. The rest is history. The more she read and studied, the more she loved this gospel and when she and her son decided to join, I was honored that she requested that I baptise them both.

Young Ofetse Mongameti Majombozi and his mom, Thembeka Majombozi on that special day when they became members of the church. She is a wonderful lady. She works 4 days a week in a special school for HIV/Aids orphans who are raising their siblings. Yes, 10-15 year old children who have lost both parents to Aids and who society allows to be 'parents' to their even younger brothers and sisters. The additional day of her regular work week, she works in a homeless shelter for Zimbabwean homeless refugees. She is a gifted writer/journalist and supports herself and her son by freelancing her articles to newspapers and magazines...a sweet and giving woman who has found her place among the Latter-day Saints here in Africa and brings much to the table to enrich our lives.

Here is a photo of us with Lerato Mosimane and her mother at the airport. Lerato kind of adopted us and we were happy to have her. She has had a very difficult life and needed some parenting and love in general, and she was correct to see that we needed a child to care for. It was our gain to know and associate with Lerato during these last 8 months and it was our pleasure to escort her to the airport and see her off to the USA on August 3.

Jim and Reenie with Lerato just before she left for the Provo Missionary Training Center in Utah, to prepare for he 18 month service in the Georgia, Atlanta Mission. She will warm the hearts of those southerners for sure. We miss you Lerato.

All the while a lot of this was going on, I was in some serious pain -having begun the process of passing a kidney stone. I was not sure what it was for the first four days, so I suffered mostly in silence. I received a blessing and exercised faith that somehow with all that we had going on, ie two more missionary couples arriving from the states in 3 days to assist us with PEF is South Africa, (so we can focus our attention on expanding to other countries), and all needing training and attention, that somehow it would all work out. Well, I was literally brought to my knees in pain that Saturday night and ended up in the emergency room...then in the operating room having a eureturoscopy, but finding that the stone was far too big to pass or retrieve (6.5mm- a small peanut!), then the Dr. pushing it back up into the kidney, having a 20" long stint put into my plumbing and told to come back in 4 days and they would 'blast' it apart with a very expensive laser proceedure, so then I could enjoy passing several smaller stones. Well, I went back for that procedure in four days, had X-rays taken so that they could pinpoint the stone for blasting...and it was gone. Yep...gone. They consulted with Urology and Radiology and concurred that it was no longer there. I had no pain, so they scheduled an appointment to remove the stint which was done with local anesthetic only-(I believe water boarding would have been more fun) but I am feeling well again and am grateful to the Lord for His intervention.

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord." James 5:14

One of the many projects that our church is involved with here in Africa is the gifting of thousands of wheelchairs every year. This continent does not have the same support system for the disabled that we have in America, so as a result, there are hosts of people with disabilities that have to crawl or be carried or they just don't go. We were pleased to have a part in this giving ceremony where 48 chairs were given to the Alma House. This is a facility where children are sent, who are physically and/or mentally disabled, to be housed and educated. Everyone of these 48 children needed a wheelchair and none of them had them. It was a heart warming and satisfying bit of giving that we were witness to as these children realized for the first time, a chair with wheels, that will ultimately lead to some level of independence in their lives.

One of the happy recipients.

More of the happy kids getting used to the fact that they don't have to be carried everywhere from now on.

A group photo of the young LDS Missionaries who assisted the kids on this special day, along with the tremendously grateful staff members of the Alma House.

"Wherefore, be faithful; stand in the office which I have appointed you; succor the weak, lift up the hands which hang down, and strengthen the feeble knees."

Doctrine & Covenants 81:5

"Tremendous happiness and peace of mind are the results of loving service to others. Nobody can live fully and happily who lives only unto himself or herself."

Gordon B. Hinckley

Stay well...