We have been traveling in Africa since June 30th. We are getting a little tired of living out of suitcases and staying in hotels.However, we are having an adventure visiting many branches and wards and providing financial, auditing and membership record training and auditing some of the units that do not have auditors in their areas.
We are privileged to meet and get acquainted with branch presidencies, stake presidents, bishoprics and clerks. Some of the units are in large cities such as Nairobi,Kenya, and others are in towns and villages we have never heard of, such as Arusha and Mwanza, in Tanzania. These leaders are anxious to learn more about their stewardships and are concerned about carrying out their callings better. Mostly, they are humble, responsible, leaders. We have done the training in missions, stakes and districts in Kampala and Jinja, Uganda, Nairobi, Kenya, Bujumbura, Burundi,Kigali, Rwanda, and Arushi and Mwanza in Tanzania. We have trained ward and/or branch leaders in about 30 units, with leaders from one, two or three units in each session.
We have been traveling with Jadmaire Ndivo, who is the manager of the Nairobi, Kenya Service Center, a satellite office of the Africa Southeast Area office in Johannesburg. The service center manages Member and Statistical Records, Public Affairs, Finance, Travel, Church Educational System, and other church administration issues in Kenya and other surrounding countries. Jadmaire is also stake president of the Nairobi Kenya Stake. In local areas, He drives us in a church owned car, and when we need to travel to places such as Tanzania or Rwanda, we fly, because of the long distance. He schedules our training sessions and has been installing MLS (Member and Leader Systems) on the computers in some of the more remote branches that do not yet have it, as he travels with us.
Because he is a Kenyan, he is familiar with the various cultural differences and directs us through the beauracratic processes of traveling through airports and across borders from one country to another. He also keeps us out of trouble with passport issues as we travel. He knows where most of the meeting houses are located, so he gets us where we need to be. We couldn't have done what we did without his help. We have spent a lot of time with him in training meetings, in the car, on airplane flights, and eating meals with him, and he has become our good friend.
During our travels, we have tolerated bad roads full of pot holes, bad hotels, mosquitos in our rooms at night, bad restaurant food, heavy traffic, many security checks at airports, long hours in the car, etc. But the positives far outweigh the down side. We get to see some beautifual scenery, meet many good people, stay in some good hotels, enjoy good food in some of the restaurants, and even travel on some very good roads. We have learned much about African culture and about some of the problems that the church leaders experience in their wards and branches. We have opportinities to help them to become better leaders, especially those newly called, inexperienced leaders.
Attached are photos of us, Jadmaire and some of the branch leaders that we worked with. The man in the "native attire" is a Masai (a tribe of people in Kenya and Tanzania) He is a counselor in the branch presidency.
We are greatly blessed to be serving in Africa, and for the opportunities he have to do this work.
We are in Nairobi, and are now going to take a couple of days off and go to Masai Mara, a game park in southern Kenya that we visited once before. This time, we will see the "migration" which is thousands of wildebeests and zebra that migrate through thre game park this time of the year.
This is all for now. After Masai Mara, we will finally head back to Johannesburg.
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