Mulungwishi wrap-up

Back Stateside?

Too many days have flown by and you are asking what is happening. Believe it or not we are back in the States for two months. Bishop Max Whitfield invited us to speak in churches in the New Mexico and North West Texas Annual Conferences in order to promote the partnership between these Annual Conferences and the Southern Congo Episcopal Area under Bishop Katembo Kainda. We are traveling in New Mexico and some in Texas through October and November. We are trying to plan some family time at Thanksgiving and then back to Congo in December.

Small generator helps a bit

August and September still found us struggling with no electricity. It was a balance act to keep the fridges somewhat cold and secretarial work for the university offices, plus minutes here and there for Internet! A small generator was set up at the Clinic to help with the lab and at night. With one generator for the University, we had "an outside office" with people, computers, printers, etc. in our payot (the African version of a gazebo) working off the generator in the garage!

Lori: Sew sew

Lori worked on sewing projects with the women, especially quilting, as we had received special quilting things in the container! Yea! Another session of the Christian Leadership was held in Lubumbashi. Then we had a quick time in Zambia.

Volunteer teams paint classrooms

We arrived back in Mulungwishi to help host a work team from the New Mexico Annual Conference under the leadership of Rev. Jeanie Riley. In the tradition of the great VIM teams that have come out, wonderful relationships were created with the Congolese on the station. The focus of their work was refurbishing and painting the preschool and kindergarten classrooms and nursing at the dispensary. The children of the preschool were so excited to have a newly painted classroom with pictures of Noah’s ark and animals on the walls. The children kept looking in the windows as the paintings appeared and they could not wait to come inside and show their parents!

Lori's KU reunion

Lori left at the end of September in order to join her friends in Kansas City for the 40th anniversary of her nursing class at Kansas University. It was worth the four days of flying to be with wonderful friends and catch up on our lives and memories. Go Jay Hawks!

Another first

David stayed on at Mulungwishi to help bring to a conclusion our first class of the Masters of Organizational Leadership & Management by extension. Eight candidates defended their thesis in public session and graduation was held on October 5th. Dennis and Jeanette Fulton from Development Associates International (DAI), our partner organization in the Masters of Leadership Program, were present for this first graduation for French speaking Africa.

Small power transformer helps

The good news is, two days before David left Mulungwishi, the railroad company put in a small transformer (because they still have not been able to fix our old one ) and Mulungwishi is back in the "light"! This brings a big sigh of relief, as the cost of using the generators was terrible! We are still hoping to have the bigger transformer fixed.

Cross Hill status

We have also been working with the Bishops and officials about the mining of the Cross hill. So far no sale has been registered with the government and it looks like a private deal with the local chief. We are putting together a dossier of the property boundaries of the mission station to present to the governor. Please keep praying!

Continue to pray for:

• The Leadership program
• The beginning of a new academic year at Mulungwishi
• The itineration and travel in New Mexico