ZAMBIA welcomes PEF

Last week it was our pleasure to travel to the republic of Zambia (formerly Northern Rhodesia) and introduce to them the Perpetual Education Fund. What an honor for us...to bring this great program to these folks that have patiently waited for all of the diplomatic, legal, educational, banking and administrative details to get done. We arrived in Lusaka on Friday, via South Africa Airways and immediately began meetings. We met with two North American missionary couples who are based there, along with the District President for the Lusaka District and the Church Education director, who is from Zimbabwe. Saturday we had a 2.5 hour orientation meeting with the seven Branch presidencies followed by a 3 hour training and orientation with a large group of young people who intend on using PEF to further their studies. These are really quality people who we were delighted to meet with and deliver this great program into their land. Unfortunately, when we arrived at the building on Saturday morning there was no power in that part of town, so the masterful powerpoint that I had put together for the morning training session was unusable, but we carried on and it all went well. Power outages are quite commonplace in Africa and there is really never a convenient time to be without power, but the people here just roll with it. The following pictures capture but a few of the happy moments and the great friends that we met while spending a few days in Zambia.

Lusaka International Airport. Quite dated and very hot...but adequate

Our morning session with no lights, powerpoint or air conditioning and it was 34 degrees that day! (about mid 90'sF)

Us with District President Harrison M Lumbama and Stake President Tasara Makasi

Us with Elder & Sister Patterson (Lusaka District) and Elder & Sister Esplin (Kitwe District)

Jim meeting with the new PEF Committee that will see to the success of the program in Zambia

Power on in second session! but still a perspiring Elder Von Stetten. That was bottle of water #2

Here are the future recipients of the PEF. They were some of the nicest and most grateful young people that I have ever met. The two hour meeting went to 3 hours to be able to answer all of their questions. How exciting for us to be there...but wow how exciting for them and their posterity.

Power still on...air conditioning beginning to work...water bottle #3

The first 10 PEF loan recipients with President Lumbama



Mothers Without Borders

After church on Sunday we drove about an hour outside of Lusaka to an orphanage run by a Utah family known as Mother;s Without Borders. There are 23 children there right now. Here is a picture of Reenie with little Alice. She is a very tiny 5 years old, due to her health. She is HIV positive and has struggled with Malaria. She went to Reenie straight away and clung to her during our 2 hour visit there.

Here are the boys who had just finished a good game of soccer when we arrived. These guys have very tough feet!

Alice again. She probably will not live very long, however is happy and getting loved. Be happy for these children. They are more fortunate than many others in that they have someone to care for their shelter, food and well being. There are many many who wander the country and scavenge for daily bread.

This picture says it all...

...and so does this one.

The mostly completed dormitory and kitchen where anywhere from 8 to 30 children live at a time. The construction is done by North American volunteers who come here a month at a time to build.

Here is the result of their last visit. A much welcomed and used jungle gym for the kids.

The mother hen and her little chicks.

Fresh mangos...soon. These will be ready in about 45 days.

These kids walk 1.5 hours to their school every morning and then 1.5 hours back at night. Soon there will be a school built at the orphanage. Free time is spent playing 'futball'. You can see that the ball gets well used! If any of you feel inclined to donate something to this cause their website is http://www.motherswithoutborders.org/

The shadows became long and the time for us to leave had come. When one is in the service of his fellow man, the bonds of love and friendship are formed fast and firm. It was a difficult thing to part from these strong custodians and these orphaned children, but we left knowing they were better off than most in their similar condition due to the generosity of a family 12,000 miles away.

"Education is the great engine to personal development. It is through education that the daughter of a peasant can become a doctor, that the son of a mine worker can become the head of the mine and the child of farm workers can become the president of a great nation. It is what we make of what we have, not what we are given, that separates one person from another."

Nelson Mandela

Stay well...

Mormon Helping Hands

For those of you who read the Church News or the Ensign Magazine, you will be familiar with the Mormon Helping Hands Projects, particularly the one held each August on the continent of Africa. On August 22, 2009, we were fortunate to be involved in one of the 260 different projects that took place all over Africa. Over 50,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints joined to 'lend a hand' to a host of projects where material and labor came together to fix-up, paint-up, clean-up and spruce-up orphanages, old peoples homes, other churches, schools, community centers, parks, and on and on. Several hundred thousand man hours were donated to see that the selected projects were left far better than they were found that day. In the true spirit of service and helping those in need, members stepped up and assisted the downtrodden, the aged and the displaced. It was a great day to be alive, get dirty and tired, and witness such improvement and gratitude.

Reenie pictured here with our good friends Gawain and Gayle Wells from Provo, Utah. All are wearing their bright yellow "Mormon Helping Hands" vests.

Our particular project was cleaning and fixing up the Central Methodist Church in downtown Johannesburg. This church has been turned into a center for Zimbabwean refugees that have fled the cholera epidemic, 80% unemployment and general oppression in their land. Zimbabwe, the former Rhodesia, has gone from the most educated population and the bread basket nation of all of Africa, to one of the most impoverished and diseased countries in the world. It is a tragic story of what comes at the hands of a powerful despot, like Robert Mugabe, who was put in power after the days of British colonialism, and has ruled with an iron fist for the last 45 years. As a result, our neighbors to the north are fleeing in astounding numbers (about 5,000 per day) to South Africa, and despite having the blessing of the government of SA to come, there is no support system in place for them when they arrive here.



The Central Methodist Church has been turned into a refugee center. I was awakened immediately to the difference between a 'mission' or 'homeless shelter', and a refugee center, the latter being a very desperate and dirty place for people to come as a very last resort on their journey to escape intolerable conditions. It beats sleeping on the unsafe streets with your children and babies, but not by much. These people have a serious look and feel of hopelessness about them.



Above are some of our folks painting the common areas to give the place a look of cleanliness.



Here are some more of our members scraping the paint-chipped and cracked walls in preparation of a fresh coat of paint. These were some brave ladies, as this area was a home to not only refugee's, but rodents and roaches as well.

Here I am, hanging on to a window sash with one hand while washing windows with the other hand, while balancing myself on a ledge 15' above the stairs below.

I made Reenie take photos here so she would focus on doing that, instead of lecturing me about how foolish I was being by just barely hanging on. The difference in daylight was pretty amazing once the years of dirt was removed from the window panes. In such a dark and depressing place, any and all light was a welcome guest.

Here is my lovely and dedicated wife, cleaning pews that are used for sleeping on each and every night of the week. The pastor at the church said that they average 2,500-3,000 refugee's sleeping in this church each night. She was very emotionally moved as she watched our 250 members move through this building, leaving improvement in our wake.

Here is another shot of the sanctuary and our people giving it a thorough cleaning. This room is used for worship on Sunday morning only and the rest of the time it is a congregating area and a bedroom.

This is what used to be a kitchen/serving area in the church.

It is now one of 30 rooms where everything these people own is stashed, and meal prep is performed daily.

Here are our guys putting a fresh smell and look on the hallway walls of CMC with loving energy, enthusiasm and detail. Many on our crew had never ever painted before, so it was not only an act of service to others, but a day of education for our guys and gals as well.

Here is the main lobby and entrance to this facility that was a beehive of activity all day. This was a very dark and dingy looking place when we got there that morning. It was transformed into a much more inviting and fresh looking area. One that we hope will serve to lift the despair that these fellow members of the human family from Zimbabwe carry...even if just a little.

Happy with the day's effort.

One hard working helper who is ready to go home and get a hot bath!

Clearly a day to remember and one to remind us of how good we have it.

"And behold I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God."

"What a different world this would be, if we could forget our problems

as quickly as we forget our blessings"

(anonymous)

Stay well...

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...

FAMILY VISIT !!

Being on a mission is a great thing, but let there be no doubt that while on the other side of this big world, we do miss the family, so imagine how happy we were when our daughter Brittney, her husband Dan and their two oldest children Chase and MacGregor chose to spend their vacation, resources and lots of time in a jet-plane coming to Africa to see us! Our Area Presidency encourages us to see this great land so while family was here we took a week from our busy schedule and did just that. Below are the Henrichsen's arriving after a 16 hour flight from NYC to Johannesburg.

Rather than have them fall asleep during the daylite hours, we let them freshen upat our flat and then took them to the wonderful bird garden (see former post on same). We had a fun time and everyone got their second wind.

Mac with a friendly and hungry Lorrikeet feeding out of his hand.




Chase had a friend that went from his shoulder- to his hat-then to his back- before making a deposit on his coat.





The next day we headed off to Durban. Durban is on the Indian Ocean, so we all had our first glance at its grandeur and of course the boys had to take a swim. The rest of us were not that bold, but went in up to our knees. The water was not that cold, but the air was unseasonably cool.




Here is a lifesize example of some of the talented sand artists who create their work for a day at a time. They spread out a towel and hope folks will pitch some money for their efforts. Really top quality sculptures.

While we were in Durban we visited one of the biggest and most famous Marine Parks in the world, USHAKA. It is a beautiful place with a fantastic aquarium, seal and dolphin shows, water park and lots else to see and do. Here is an example of some the 50+ large aquariums with all the sea life from this part of the world. Beautiful and graceful -3 meter across -Manta rays.

I do not remember what this one was called, but he was one of hundreds of varieties of fish that we had never seen before. It is said that the African coastline has the finest scuba diving anywhere.

HHere is a family photo of all of us on our office grounds.

Brittney, Dan and the boys visiting the beautiful grounds of the Johannesburg Temple.

Dan was looking up to see the statue of the Angel Moroni, who adorns most of the temples, and noticed the daytime moon arranged in this position. We all began clicking away as this was a pretty 'cool' shot.

We tried showing our family as much as we could of South Africa while they were here, so it was off to a safari at the large Madikwe game reserve. Here of course is a lovely,elegant and very large male Giraffe.

Here is a female elephant who just turned toward our Land Rover and stomped her feet to tell us we should not get any closer because she had a baby by her side. None of the guides mess with elephants because they are very unpredictable.

Here are two interesting photos we were fortunate to get. This is the baby learning what it is that it is supposed to forage for, but ended up with a stick way too big for it to consume. The stick was then stuck part way it its mouth/trunk area, and rather than work to dislodge it...

...it just reached up and went for some that mom had already picked and chewed up.

...two muddy female White Rhino's that struck a very accommodating pose for us.

It is the dry winter season here, so these two one year old lions (see the spots like the yearling white tail fawns back home). This watering hole has been reduced to mostly mud, but they managed a drink and lots of playtime for us to see.

We also got to see some of the 'reality' of life in the wild. This is a Blue Wildebeest that was killed the night before and became dinner to this sleeping female lioness and her cubs. Notice how cleanly they went for the entrails and soft tissue rump first off. Then if they are still in need of nourishment, they will go for the rest, or move on and leave this for the scavengers. That's why they call it the Wild Kingdom.

Occasionally even we amateur photographers get lucky!

A young male lion who was 'solo'. He has yet to fight for a pride, but has been kicked out of the pride he was from for fear he would be a threat to the dominant male there.

During the course of each four hour game drive, the driver will stop at a place that he perceives to be safe and we will have some light refreshments. At this stop on our fourth and final drive we happened to be near this five foot tall termite hill. The boys were glad to get to stop and see one up close since other than this approved stop, we are not allowed out of the vehicles-for obvious reasons. The termite hill is as hard a cement and the guide told us one of this height would take about 15-20 years to create.

On this stop, we also got a nice photo of Brittney's family with Sam, our guide for the three days that we stayed at the Mosethle Bush camp in Madekwe Reserve

One of my favorites. Hard to believe that no two are ever marked the same.

Yes -this photo is out of order, but you know who it is and where he is headed.

The whole gang bundled up on a game drive. The weather was interesting. The drive would begin at 7am, when the temperature was about 2-5C (38-42F) and by the end of the four hour drive it could be 18-20C (around 66F) So- plenty of clothes to start with and less to finish.

Here we are back at camp having a good game of dominos while waiting for our hot lunch to be ready.

A beautiful male Impala with the McDonald's logo on his bum.

The African Wild Dog (not a Hyena) is a very endangered animal. There are only about 2500 left in the wild. We were very fortunate to come upon a family with 6 new puppies. They were as cute as any puppy ever is, but will grow up to be fierce hunters -second only to lions in their percentage of 'kill rate'.

...up and out of the den for some good African sunshine.

...and Mom never far from her litter for their protection.

Another very unusual experience we had was when we came upon another truck that had stopped for their afternoon break. The driver, supposing this to be a safe area, set up the table for his guests cocktail hour/snack, when three young and curious lions showed up. The group of humans evidently hastened back to the truck, as this is what we found as we approached. These cats were just as curious as domestic cats.

Perhaps we could sell this one to the Winhoek Beer Company for marketing purposes. Once the guide saw the cat take off with the empty bottle of beer however, he drove quickly to the animal and it dropped the bottle and ran away. The driver was nervous that the cat would crunch the glass bottle and become injured no doubt. Wow...only in Africa!

Well, just as the sun sets each day in the West, we knew that our dream visit with family would have to end - and so it did, but not without first creating memories for a lifetime. Thank you Henrichsen's for coming and helping to make our Africa Mission even more memorable.