Sub-mission in Zambia

2009-02-28
Dear family and friends
I wish I could write home enumerating all the glorious experiences of our mission so far, but it might be a short letter. Rand and I have mused that if we thought we were in the trenches in Swaziland and South Africa, we are now on the chain-gang maintaining the trenches in Zambia!
The letterhead for our correspondence from our office is the Zambia Sub-mission. So you might say we are truly in submission here in Zambia! Being submissive has never been one of my strengths. I need to pay much better heed to Ether 12:27:
And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.
(Why couldn’t I have learned this sooner?)
Maybe I’ll just list some of the responsibilities of our Sub-mission:
Travel Agent: Making all travel plans for any mission-related travel out of and within Zambia. Making all hotel reservations for Pres. & Sister Bester, and the APs, and other mission-related visitors.
Chauffer: Driving all the above mentioned people to and from the airport and wherever else they need to be during their stay in Zambia.
Money Changer, Banker, and Distributer: Supplying the Zimbabwe mission office with US dollars by drawing Zambia kwacha out of the bank and then buying US dollars for the best exchange rate we can get. This has become an expensive endeavor lately as the dollar has gone up against the kwacha. Rand tracks and banks all of the money for the Zambia arm of the mission, most of which is done in cash! (No, we can’t believe it either and we aren't planning on continuing on with it!) This is an exhaustive process for Rand, one that he does not relish.
Missionary Medical: Trying to take care of the Elder’s and Sister’s ailments. In one month we’ve had one Elder with an abscess in his back from a mole-removal-gone-wrong; one Elder flown to South Africa for treatment of Bilharzias (I’ve become well acquainted with this disease); one hospitalized for four days with pneumonia and infected colitis; one with reflux; one with boils; one with pink-eye; two with dysentery. Then there have been the others with sore throats, migraines, earaches, and stomach aches, all of which are addressed as: “Sister Patterson, I have “a flu.” We are grateful we have not had a case of cholera yet and we feel the Lord is helping us on this one. One thing is for sure, I’ve never prayed for the missionary’s safety and well being like I do now!
Most of the Elders’ bicycles are currently broken down, and we are in no rush to get them roadworthy—much to their chagrin. Far fewer accidents when the bikes are parked. Riding bikes on the side of these roads is like riding in a Russian-Roulette-Road-Race. (Otherwise Zambia is a walking, taxi-riding area for our missionaries.)
We are also over the missionary immunizations schedules, which is like trying to figure out a jig-saw puzzle with many missing pieces. Because I live in fear that one of them will get Hepatitis due to my lack of information, I have turned into the immunization interrogator! When it is time, I must buy the vaccine from the chemist and take the vaccine and the missionary to the hospital to have it administered.
Oh, one more thing. The malaria pills. I’m in charge of making sure every missionary has their monthly supply of anti-malaria pills. When we were in the hospital with our sick Elder, there was a young man in the bed next to him who was suffering from malaria. He was so sick, even dying. It was quite the reality check for me that the pills are a must.
And I almost forgot about the de-worming pills. These too, are a must. They are administered every 6 months, or more often as needed. It is such casual conversation, the need of worm pills. Who would have thought?
Allotment counters and couriers: Paying the 26 missionaries their allotment twice a month. . . .in cash. . . which amounts to 400,000kwacha each. .. .which is a huge bank withdrawal, a lot of counting, and then, a lot of driving to the far corners of Lusaka. . . without an armored car.
Missionary Boarding Inspectors and Overseers: According to westernized standards, most of these missionary boardings fall far below par, and many a US mother would faint! There are a few we truly must replace, but the pickins’ are slim and our available time for rental shopping is nil. The worst boarding is now thought of as “a right-of –passage,” like camping out in Africa; it’s become cool! We pay all the rents and utilities. In Zambia, electricity is prepaid monthly. It has to be purchased in person, after standing in a long, slow,hot line. The amount is coded onto a card which has to be punched into each resident’s power box much like a lottery ticket. Power must be purchased monthly or you are charged a service fee, so we can’t stock up on it. Invariably, some of the boardings run short and we get a call from Elders who are sitting in the dark (probably because they forgot to turn off their water geysers during the day), and we have to rush out to get them a little more power till month’s end. And that is only part of the fun. The phone time works almost the same way. We buy phone time for all of the missionary cell phones weekly. The missionaries don’t have land lines so their cells must be charged with minutes so we can communicate. All phone time in Africa is expensive and it is one of the greatest obstacles to missionary work on this continent. We also pay the rents and repairs and the “what-whats” (African term for “etc., etc.”) for the boardings. These responsibilities alone are quite the revolving door.
Walking Distribution Center for the country of Zambia: Unparalleled insanity! I am the Distribution target person for all of the country of Zambia. Soon to change however—but not soon enough. Under the supervision of the Area Distribution Office, we will be setting up a new Distribution satellite store in a Meetinghouse. . . Definitely not an unproblematic process, but exciting! (Plus, I'll actually believe it when I see it.)
Cleaning and Maintenance Monitoring of all Zambia church properties (Physical Facilities): Too much to explain on this one! This is one of our squeakiest wheels. The whole structure is not be administered properly and we are working towards having it overhauled.
Overseeing welfare needs: This is a complex Priesthood responsibility in which Rand works closely with the District. The needs are great and heart-rending, but the possible (and obvious) abuses of the system must be monitored cautiously. Rand has had African experience in this before, making him more discerning this time around, so some people aren’t too happy that we’ve arrived.
Taking care of sundry details for District Conferences and Zone Conferences: This mostly involves keeping everybody fed and hydrated and making sure chalk, erasers, A/C controls and any other requested items are close at hand; and of course, chauffeuring.
IMMIGRATION: Every missionary that comes to Zambia must obtain a work permit to stay in the country and this is serious, red-tape hoopla. It is a many part process. I guarantee that one will be driven to the brink of insanity on an otherwise perfect day, just by stepping foot in an African government office. Gratefully, we have a member of the church who works in parliament who pleads our cause to the powers-that-be, and shuffles us through many a harrowing line. It is no coincidence that he is in this strategic place at this tenuous time. We do acknowledge the angels among us.
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So that is the most of it. There are other peripheral details that come at us too fast in this “deer in the headlights” stage. Hopefully we can personalize our mission experience a bit more when we have mastered these Sub-missions better!
The sweet reward is that if we get everything done, we can sometimes make it to the grocery store to buy our own food. There are a few items we love here, like the mangos, the tomatoes, the avocados, the fruit juices and the African caffeine-free Tab which tastes just like Coke! (Oh, the guilty pleasures!)
Next week, I will write a happier, hopefully more engaging, tale. I promise.
We love you
P.S. For those of our friends and relatives who are not members of the LDS church, we are sorry if there is a lot of unfamiliar church jargon in our writings. We would be happy to send the missionaries over to explain!