Updates on project

School principal showing electrical

We are happy with the progress of one of our projects.  This week, we were able to be a part of the delivery of desks purchased by humanitarian funds. 
This project has been a great success.  We feel the Welfare Principles have been accepted and applied. 
This project was done at an elementary school.  This is a picture of the school director.  She is showing that the main switches to the lights in the classrooms are in the office rather than in each of the classrooms to maintain control over the electricity running to each classroom.  In this way the children will not have access to the switches.  They also take the light bulbs out of the sockets during the day so as to keep them from getting broken by balls and children playing.  These are signs the school administration are thinking of maintaining and sustaining what they have.  The electrical supplies to refurbish the electrical  and the 100 children's desks and 13 teacher's desks were supplied by humanitarian funds.  Here is a picture of a couple of Baharan crew guarding the desks that were dropped off outside the Bairro.  This was  most interesting.

Guards watching desks out on the street

The desks were delivered by a manufacturer called Baharan.  They delivered the duplas or children's desks (dupla because they are made for 2 students) in a huge semi 18 wheeler.  As we met up with the 18 wheeler outside the Bairro, we wondered how they would get into the school along those extremely narrow roads that lead to the school.  We also knew they had received other desks somehow.  Surely there was a way to get the desks to the school.
Baharan had it all figured out.  They had the desks on two trucks, an 18 wheeler and a smaller truck that would fit inside those narrow streets.

students so anxious to help

The students were so anxious to help carry the desks to where they belonged.  This completed the need for desks.  Every student would have a desk now.  The teachers would all have a desk too.  The students were lining up to wait their turn to help move the desks into the rooms.  It took 4 loads from the little truck to move all the desks from the place outside the Bairro that the big truck had stashed the duplas.  Each time the truck came again, the desks from the previous load were already moved into their spots with so many willing hands.

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before picture of students without desks

The miracle of this school is the success of the school director meeting with the community chefi and agreeing that the community could help support the school.  The community has agreed to close the back gate and the school is providing a guard to help protect the electrical and the desks.  When we first met with the director and her school staff, they were reluctant to ask the community for help saying the community would not help.  But because of Stan's great ability to teach and the blessing of the Lord, their minds were open to at least trying.  Now the community is wanting to paint the school as well.

Lunamar Hotel/Beira

[Stan] We received an assignment to return to Beira for a couple of days to follow up on 2 major initiative projects.  (Major initiatives are managed by specialists in the US, generally SLC.  They are in a different budget and our part as in-country coordinators is to support and followup.  We do not start any area initiative projects farther that 100 kilometers from our home.)  We stayed one night in a nice hotel.  Our assignments were to gather info on 3 hotels and their services so the project manager can make a decision where we will hold the training event for the Maternal and Newborn Care project, MNC.  100 participants will be trained on advanced infant resuscitation techniques and postpartum care.  It will be a week long event.  We are looking for the best place in Beira to do the training.  It has been done before at the church, but this presented its own set of issues and our area manager in Johannesburg wanted us to find another place.  So we spent some time checking out 3 hotels; accommodations, catering, conference room, etc.  The second project we were following up on is the Vision project with the local hospital.  This project was started 3 years ago and there were problems all along that simply would not get resolved.  They finally found someone in the area who had the expertise to get the job done and we are pleased with what we found.  They should finish training the staff on the computer medical records software and all will be good; we can process the final payment and close the project.  Beira is a nice city and we enjoyed our short stay.  The senior couple there are Elder and Sister Castro Deus and they were very kind to us and helped us with a few things. 

Beira Vision meeting

Now we are back home in Maputo and will be meeting with a representative of the Ministry of Health to plan the MNC project and clarify what each party is agreeing to do to make it work.  We also coordinate with the specialist in SLC.
I want to share an experience I had at  Inhagoia School while delivering desks.  This school has over 2000 students from grades 1-7 that are scheduled in 3 shifts.  The children were excited about the delivery, as you can imagine, and were running about and showing off as children like to do. There were so many children moving about it was like an army of ants!  As I was taking this all in, I looked into the face of just one child; then another, an another.  And the spirit suddenly bore testimony to me again of the simple, but powerful eternal truth that each of us is a son or daughter of God who loves and and knows our name and sent us here for an eternal purpose.  He knows all the intimate details of our lives and is interested and involved with each one of us.  What I felt at that moment cannot be expressed in words; but I believe it was a tiny sliver of God's love shared with me for what he feels for each of those children.  It left a profound impression upon me; a desire to be better and to strive to treat everyone with respect and love.
Thank you all for your contributions to the humanitarian fund of the church and for your prayers in our behalf.  This work, like all missionary labor, must have the help of the Lord for it to be successful and we are mindful of His hand.  
Love,
DAD, Grandpa, Stan, Elder Petersen