Intersting week

Weekly review

Interesting development this week.  Last week we had decided we would drop a couple of projects we saw no progress on.

This week, we got a call from a man we had not ever met and a woman he was representing.  We found out these two people were now the directors of the Machava KM 15 Primary School.  They were asking for us to keep our promise to get them water.  They had done their part and gotten a bid for the water to be started.

We were surprised and set a meeting with the school director, Raul.  This is when we discovered the change in leadership there.  Now, the director is Graca Cossa.  We set a time to meet with her.

This is the new director of Machava school, Graca Pedro Cossa.  When we got there, she showed us what she had done.  Without a penny in the school account, she took her own money and got the water running.

This is the man she hired to guard the pump (that we were told was stolen) She had hired a man that  got the water running all for very little money.  She paid for it herself and wanted us to reimburse her (which we will not do)which shows what a champion she is.  We were able to visit with her about a partnership and what is really needed to get what she wants in this refurbish project.

She was willing to listen.  We were able to teach Welfare Principles and Supporting Outcomes.  She could see the value in further testing of the well to find out what its capacity is.  How many people will it serve?  What is the quality of the water being drawn out of the well? Is the pump quality able to serve that many people and the latrine?

She was willing to learn the history of what the church had provided the school not too long ago.  We had left them a great well that served the community and the school, run pipe to a fountain for drinking water.  We had left them with a beautiful building for an 8 stall latrine that was waiting for the pipe run from the well.  Because we had left them with these perfectly working things, we would require the community to pay for half the project.

She was willing to open her mind to the possibility of including the community in the maintenance of this project and in the development of it.

These are previous picture showing the conditions of these parts of this school before Graca Cossa replaced the previous director.  These are very telling pictures.

Now, there is a tank on this tower.

We have now been invited to attend the viewing of the walk thru for the bid for the total project tomorrow morning at 7 am.  We will attend.

These are qualities of a real champion.  Here is a lady that wants to make a difference and put her own time and effort and money into helping the children at her school. 

1.       Desire for the good of her people

2.      Willing to put in the work for the people

3.      Going to do it whether we will help or not

4.      Has a plan of action to accomplish her goals (She mentioned her plan to us and we asked for a written copy of her 2 year plan for the school)

It looks like we are going to work on a Project Development Worksheet for this project and present it for approval from the Johannesburg office.  What a change from last week.

When you wait for a champion to appear, sometimes they do and sometimes they don’t. If they don’t, that is a “NO” for this possible project.  If they do, that is a “yes” for a possible project. This is a great way to keep from having to tell a group “No”.  The answer is obvious.

Elder and Sister Petersen Mozambique Mission

Matriarch of the pride

[Stan] This last week we were assigned 3 projects to followup on in Swaziland.  So we drove there from Maputo; about a 4 hour drive not including stops.  The border experience made me nervous, but all went fine.  Our first stop was at the Hlane Royal National Park.  We took a game drive for about 2 1/2 hours.  Seeing wildlife in its natural habitat is so different than observing them in a zoo.  Here is lioness in the shade of a small tree.  There were 2 other adult females and 2 cubs about 8 months old.  There were several impalas and a few waterbucks as well.  Later in the drive we saw zebras and wildabeests, but the giraffes were elusive and we missed them. We also saw 3-4 elephants; spent about 15 minutes very close to a bull elephant in a sloppy watering hole.  He moved about quite a bit and gave us a good show.  He has only one tusk; the other being lost in a fight.  After returning to the camp we saw several rhinos at a watering hole near the restaurant where we ate our steak dinner.  A swarm of bees decided our soft drinks were their next meal and we almost could not finish eating for the number in the swarm.

Bull Elephant

Then we drove to our hotel at the Summerfield Resort.  Pretty nice place; they give the church a great rate.  Otherwise, we would not have stayed there.  We met up with Elder and Sister Martins, a new senior couple from Brazil.  They have been assigned Swaziland.  We had a great visit and they joined us in a trip to the Cultural Village where we were given a tour of a traditional local village and demonstration of several dances.  Very fascinating!! 
We had 2 appointments on Friday.  One was with the Ministry of Health working toward a Helping Babies Breath program.  Lots of work needs to be done there to get things worked out so they feel comfortable with us and what the church is offering to do.  Then we went to our second visit with GoneRural.  They are an NGO that we have found to be very good at getting the people to commit to doing their part.  We have supplied them 3 wells with them doing much of the manual labor.  This was not offered, however, until 95% of the homes in the area had built VIPs; ventilated, improved, pit latrines.  The church did provide some materials for the community to use.  Now we are in the final phase which is 3 more wells.  Part of the project was to provide "hippo rollers".  A family can now reduce 5 trips to the well into one.  This rollable tank is 90 Ls and to carry that much in the standard bucket would take 5 trips. 

Hippo Roller

This all was happening conference weekend.  We hoped to view it, but the schedule and internet access were limiting to us.  We spent more time with the Martins and had fun getting to know them.  Sunday we attended church at the Ezwelwini branch and found the members to be strong.  There should be a stake soon in Swaziland. 
We were anxiously waiting to hear if Jarom and Randi were having their baby; but because of limited access to internet as I already mentioned we were not able to connect with them until Tuesday.  We are so excited about another granddaughter!!  Adeline Rose!!  (Had to throw that in!)
Sunday afternoon the Blakes (our supervisors from Johannesburg) and the Mellors (water specialist from Lehi, Utah) arrived at the hotel and we visited that evening.  Great people!!  What a priviledge to know them!  Monday we had a seconde meeting with the Ministry of Health.  Then we ate lunch and went to our next visit with the Ministry of Water and Natural Resources.  She happens to be the sister of the district president and a member of the church.  I won't bore you with the discussion of the meeting, but things are progressing for us to start another project.  (Maybe we should move to Swaziland!).  It is a beautiful country.  There is a range of mountains we like to call the little Wasatch.  The climate is cooler and they receive more rain. 
Tuesday morning we checked out and visited the Cultural Village again with the Blakes and Mellors this time.  We enjoyed it as much as the first time.  Then we drove back to Maputo after getting turned around and lost.  It put us behind about an hour.  Finally we made it to the border and had the unpleasant experience of the Mozambican border entrance.  We escorted the Blakes and Mellors to their hotel just in time for us to make our next meeting with the mission president, Pres. Koch and Pres. Castinheira, stake president.  We discussed what we will do to help support the effort to grow the present 2 stakes into 5.  We arrived home and crashed.  Today was catch up going thru emails and trying to organize our notes.  We are managing 6 projects and it is getting a bit challenging to say the least.  We know the Lord is in our work.  We do not often have opportunity to discuss the gospel with others, but once in a while we do and it always feels good.  Teaching and working with welfare principles has taught us so much and I am grateful the the experience.  This church is led by inspiration from the Lord Himself through chosen apostles and prophets.  And we can and do received that same inspiration in our callings and assignments.  Love to all of you.  Stan, DAD, Grandpa

Summerfield Botanical Gardens Hotel

(Teril) Here is something Stan forgot to tell you. When we arrived at this beautiful hotel where our supervisor had booked us a room (really a bungalo) Stan realized his passport was missing.  In the pouch was the church credit card, his temple recommend, 100 dollars Rand and several other odds and ends that were important.  We looked everywhere for it.  We searched the car, our luggage, our pockets, everywhere.  We knelt down and prayed and looked again everywhere.  We finally gave up and called our supervisors.  We also went to the concierge at the office of Summerfield.  We were franitic thinking we would have to stay in Swaziland until we could replace it.  Oh!  What a mess!!  After we had resigned to our fate, Stan went and looked in the car once again.  There it was!!  I know The Lord is with us!!!  That was a true miracle!  We are still missing the Church debit card but that can't be used unless someone has the pin number so we canceled it and are waiting for it to be replaced.
With this miracle on the front of our visits, we were able to approach this new area of mystery, Water Wells, with confidence that the Lord knows what needs to be done.  We are much more confident on how we can help move His work along now.

Summerfield restaurant

I was so taken by the beauty of this amazing Hotel.  I got up each morning and investigated every nook and cranny of this amazing Botanical Gardens.  I never tired of the creativity.  We will stay here each time we come.  The restaurant served amazing food too.

Playing the murimba at the cultural village

I enjoyed the music and dance at the cultural village.  This would be a great place to take you all when you come see us here!!!

Interesting possibilities

Joaquim Chissano School

[Stan] This week has been a week of possibilities.  We have visited 3 schools; 2 of them with the community members.  At the Joaquim Chissano school the women sang a song welcoming us.  It was really nice and very interesting as one woman chanted and the others responded.  They are in need of more classrooms and thought we were there to build them more buildings.  But we had to tell them we do not build buildings; but we can help fix up what they already have.  A storm took off the roof and we can help with that as well as other materials needed for fix up; also, desks.  Well, they did not seem so happy now.  There was a big discussion about how they were going to get the money to do it.  I told them they needed to sacrifice for their children if they expected them to get an education.  The average number of students per classroom is 50.  We often see 80.  Anyway, the school and community leaders reminded them that this was their chance to get some help and they needed to step up and do their part.  We will go back to speak just with the leadership and formulate a plan.

Ricatla School

The Ricatla school experience was almost identical.  The difference at this school is that they have already started the foundation for 3 more classrooms; but have stalled for lack of funds from the community.  (The government is supposed to provide, but simply cannot keep up.)  They also were disappointed to learn we will not build buildings.  But they have a good start and after the meeting today we believe they will make it happen.  We assured them if they build them we can furnish them with everything they need inside, desks, cabinets, blackboards, etc.  When some complained about the plea for more donations a member of the community leadership asked them how much they spent on a beer.  If they would just for go a few beers they could help build the school.  (Great idea!) Again, we will meet again soon with the leaders and put a plan together.  They think they cannot do it, but they have the resources.  They just need to believe.  Our mission president said something in the zone conference that has given me courage.  (We usually do not go to these conferences as welfare services missionaries, but the couple that does was out of town and we needed to fill in to take care of food and other arrangements.)  He said we should not be afraid to ask people to sacrifice.  We are inviting them to demonstrate their faith and the blessings come by faith.  So now I do not hesitate to ask and expect the people to do their part.  It is so important for them if they are to grow and get stronger.

Machaa KM 15 School

The third school we visited was Machava KM15.  A few years ago the church built flushing latrines for this school, but the well you see here was vandalized and the pump stolen before the water supply could be installed in the latrine and it has never been used.  We have tried to get the city to respond and help to no avail.  Now the well still does not work (no pump) and a storm took the tank from off the top of the tower.  This school has 7500 students, grades 1 - 7.  19 classes can use the existing classrooms; the others meet outdoors under the trees.  I cannot comprehend 7500 students!  They meet in 3 sessions with a staff of 86.  They do not have water at the school.  We will probably expect the community to get the well up and working and we will get the water to the latrine and get them refurbished and working properly.  At least, this is the plan.  We still need to see what our supervisor in Johannesburg counsels us to do with this.  It is a complicated situation.  We have to get  the right people involved and on board to make this work.  We will see.

Talking to the printer for MNC

Holding a darling baby Daniel

We are working on a major initiative called Mothers and Newborn Care.  It will be in Beira (a one hour flight away) and we have been tasked to follow through on the printing of training materials.  Not sure when this project will actually take place.  Still working on that part.  The printer showed some interest in the church that came from reading the Liahona.  He was given a copy a few years ago and wanted to know if we could get him more.  We gave him several that we had in our apartment and showed him how he could go online to get them as well.  We said he really liked Mr. Monson's words. 
The next picture is Teril holding little Daniel.  He is the baby of a young couple that worked with a previous missionary couple in welfare services.  They are interested in making their own organization bigger and stronger; so they have asked if they could help us with our work.  It is an interesting arrangement.  Not sure how things will work, but they are very nice people and gives us an opportunity to share gospel principles with them.
Love all of you and appreciate your prayers in our behalf.
Elder and Sister Petersen, Stan and Teril, Dad and Mom, Grandpa and Grandma

Mateque School continues to grow!

Tin room after project completion

We closed Mateque School refurbish several weeks ago at the closing ceremony.  At that time, the school administrator shook our hands and promised he would keep working on the upkeep and improvement of his school as we had been teaching.

There is no better "thank you" than to see what you have been teaching applied.  We are so proud of Izidro Magaia and his community.  They are following thru.  They continue to work at improving the school.

Door the community bought

2nd door the community bought

These door were purchased by the community without our assistance.  The community had promised to secure the desks we had given them.  These two rooms did not have doors on them and so could not secure the desks.  There had been no desks put in these rooms because of that.  Now they have locking metal doors that match the doors we did provide them and secured the rooms.






Look at the happy teacher and students that get a desk to work from.  The teachers are so grateful to teach students from a desk rather from the floor.  They can walk among their students and see what they are doing and help them much easier.

Happy Teacher

The teachers have been standing the whole time, unable to sit down during their shift with no teacher's desk available until now.  They are also very happy with the cabinet, locking cabinet now provided to secure the textbooks supplied to them.

Cabinet to store books

Happy children in their desks

We are so privileged to be called to this great country to serve the Lord on this mission.  We are so grateful for the principles of the gospel here (Welfare Principles) that have been applied and we have been a part of this great plan.  We hope and pray these principles continue to be adhered to  and that growth can continue to happen.

Week of March 1-6

Africa South East area mission

2nd Stake Conference after Elder Andersen

Out of water again---Mission Office Thank goodness

Traditional Dance program See facebook video

Natural Museum of Maputo

 

 

Natural Museum

Natural Museum

Inhagoia B new gate

 [Stan] Teril posted a some pics here and I will comment on our week.  The first pic was taken at the area office in Johannesburg in January at our area welfare training.  This are the humanitarian couples in Africa Southeast Area.   The couple in the middle (she is standing just over my left shoulder and her husband behind her) are Walt and Susan Peterson.  They are our supervisors there and they have been assigned to work as the office couple for the mission in Zimbabwe.  They are in dire need there.  That leaves us short-staffed as well.  We will miss them.  PLEASE!!  We need more senior missionaries!  Our mission used to have 6 couples; we are down to 4.  There are also less humanitarian couples and it is making things difficult.  The area office is having to say no to possible projects because we do not have the people to get it done. 
We had our regularly scheduled stake conference today 2 weeks after Elder Andersen's visit.  Stressed temple attendance and the importance of sacrifice.  They are so looking forward to having a temple here.  Teril and I sing in the stake choir.  I am not an enthusiastic participant, but I go.
We have been out of water most of the week; our back up supply lasts us about 2 1/2 days.  We had to take a drive to the mission office where they had water at the time and fill our containers.  It has become a regular exercise to expect water shortages; so we rely on our back up.  When the water returns it is the number 1 thing we do to get every container filled because we never know when we will need it.  For sure we will. 
The next picture is of a street performance of some African cultural dance.  They started performance on the street next to the place we were eating.  The picture is not good, but Teril has posted a video on facebook that turned out pretty well.  I would like to learn more about the culture behind the dance.
As welfare services missionaries, we do not have a regularly scheduled P-day (preparation day).  So we schedule things around our projects when we can.  We decided to visit the museum of natural history here in Maputo.  It was very interesting; along with wildlife displays they had arts and crafts from the culture of the area.  Many of the things we saw reminded me of the American Indian culture; using bark for canoes, pottery, carvings, beadwork, etc.  Fascinating place. 
This last picture doesn't look like much; but it has a great deal of meaning for us.  We just finished a project at Inhagoia school.  When we returned just to see how things were going we found they had continued to do improvements and followed through on what they had promised.  The community paid for and installed 2 gates to the school so they can control who comes and goes and the vandalism has dropped significantly.  When we sat down in the office and discussed it, one of the staff members told me that my analogy of a bucket with holes in it made an impression on them.  They talked about it and decided they really did need to do something to "fill the holes" so they could move forward on the improvement of the school.  It was great to see them using the welfare principles we taught and witness the progress.  Our desire is to see every project reach this level of community involvement and understanding of the principles. 
We are so grateful for the opportunity to serve here.  We plead with all of you to seriously consider your situation and ask the Lord if He can help you serve a mission.  We could sure use you here.  If some other place and assignment comes you way, that is fine.  But find a way.  I cannot tell you how wonderful this experience has been so far and we expect it to just get better.  Love, Elder and Sister Petersen,  Stan and Teril, Grandma and Grandpa

Joaquim School

Joaquim Chissano

[Teril]We visited another school today.  We are considering partnering with them on a project.  This little school has 4 classrooms three built by the government.  Their foundation is up off the ground to control flooding and they have desks for about two rooms.  The community has come together to build a classroom to add to this knowing it a little hard to house 2200 students in 3 sessions in 3 classrooms.  (Oh!  They do have an office that has two rooms too!)

Community built classroom

We were impressed that the community built classroom uses the model of the government built classrooms in that the foundation is good and high and the windows are up out of reach of children.  They let in the light but you can't see distracting things outside them. [Stan] I would like to see better material used for the roof.  They need metal doors and windows that can be locked.  We will meet with the community leaders again to hear their plans and see how we might work together.

classroom under the tree

[Teril] There are 18 classrooms held under the trees during their 3 sessions per day.  I don't yet know what they do when it rains. Kids sit on their capulanas and write on their backpacks the lessons they copy from this chalkboard they move in and out of the lockable classroom.

Roofing problems

[Stan] When it rains they do not have class.





A big storm came thru last November.  It blew off the roof to two of the Government build classrooms.  The community put up a makeshift roof hoping it would work that blew off too.
As you can see, they do have desks that they carefully move to the corner with a roof for protection.

collecting blocks

The community has been involved as you see this pile of blocks they have been collecting.  Hopes are waning in their ability to solve their classroom problems.  Maybe we can help.

What do you think?

Mateque final report

Our first visit ever when we arrived in Mozambique was the Mateque School.  We worked with them for months mostly learning what exactly we should be doing as missionaries. 

We asked for a plan of action for the future of the school.  Izidro worked with his community to come up with that plan and presented it to us.  It was more of a list of needs rather than a plan of action.  We worked with him to hone that up into a real plan of action.  Now we have a maintenance plan for the future to add to that first plan of action.  That is progress.

Their needs list included

metal doors, grating for their windows and frames, locks for the doors, secretary desks and chairs, desks for students, storage cabinets for the textbooks, and textbooks. Electrical supplies,  computers, a printer, and a typewriter, community involvement, and a guard.

This first plan included who was responsible for supplying the school with these items, what the objective of having these items was, the deadline, and then a note regarding each.  Not bad for a plan.

We chose to work with them supplying electrical supplies and refurbishing supplies to secure their classrooms to protect the desks, the cacifos and the teacher’s desks and textbooks.  They would supply the rest needed, work to install and upgrade classrooms and a guard. 

We asked at this time, to work with the community on coming up with a maintenance plan.

Because we were so new, the work was slow.  Finding bids and working out details was slow.  We finally got a supplier for the refurbishing supplies who would deliver it out to Mateque, a desk supplier who we felt we could trust and a textbook supplier.

This is Ceasar from the Marracuene District in Capulana Shirt.

We also went with Izidro to his District Director, Cremilde Narunga, Marracuene District Director. Our first meeting with her showed us many places we needed to work.  The Welfare Principles were not being applied much here from what we could find.  We wanted to make sure Cremilde was supportive of us supplying Izidro with textbooks when we understood the Government was supplying textbooks.  We needed her support for the things we were doing to work with Izidros school.  The impression we got was that she thought there were much more “needy” schools to be working with and Izidro was rather brash in his character.  Why did we pick him?  We came away with a feeling that we had at least done what we came to do, which was to let her know we were working with Izidro, even though we felt Cremilde was not very supportive of Izidro and his school.

Then the work began.  We paid for the materials to refurbish and checked off the delivery.

How exciting that was.  Izidro said his school was hoping we would come thru with our promise but they had been let down so much from so many, they weren’t counting on us.  When we got the materials there, they did the work and refurbished those classrooms in no time at all.  We promised that when they had the rooms refurbished, we would supply them with the books and the desks.

Here are the two men that were integral in the book supply, Imran and Mayzer. The books were delivered in 3 sessions.  Oh the joy!

The whole community came out to haul the desks from 200 yards outside the school grounds to the school.  The truck couldn’t get any closer.

The children and teachers were so excited to be a part of the delivery.  They held a beginning of school activity showing their gratitude even before the desks and books were delivered.  They were convinced we would keep our promise after the refurbishing supplies were delivered.  What a difference in confidence.

We went to give our final picture show of success to Cremilde and invite her once again to the closing ceremony to be held that Saturday, February 27, 2016.  She welcomed us so differently this time.  She showed gratitude we did not expect for the work done at Mateque.  She said she had a meeting but would try very hard to be at the closing ceremony.  AS we were telling her of the champion we found in Izidro in his ability to move the community to support the school, she came up with a story about her own children’s school asking the parents to provide 100 mets per child to help build another building.  She was beginning to see what the Welfare Principles are all about.  We came away from this meeting much encouraged that she could be learning what we had hoped to teach thru our project at Mateque.  Our goal is to help teach the districts thru our projects that the Welfare Principles can be learned and then applied anywhere there are people who want to improve and are willing to learn, “champions”.  She did not show as much enlightenment as Tiago did but there was hope.

The closing ceremony was amazing.

The talks on maintaining what they had been given could have been read right out of the manual.  The community chefi, the school chefi, the director, the students, the community members and even the Bishop showed forth application of the “Welfare Principles”.  If these principles can be taught and then learned and then applied, our project is a success, no matter what it is that we have given them.

The only thing missing was someone from the District.  Just as we were closing the meeting and everyone was going home, here came Cesar from the District.  We were so glad he was able to meet the Bishop, the School and Community Chefi’s and take a tour of the progress with all the supplies from the project.  He was invited to plant a tree in memory of this occasion along with four others of us. The above picture shows the Chefis, the District rep, the Bishop, Izidro, Benildo, our interpreter and me. Success in getting them all together to meet.

Our discussion after the meeting was very enlightening.  We felt that Cesar was beginning to see what it is that we are looking for to partner with a school in a project.  He brought up a little school we had visited in the beginning and how they were so concerned with it.   Why didn’t we help that school? That was one they were really concerned with.

I got to share my opinion of that.  When we were there, we could see they had been built a new classroom, with water barrels outside, and filled with desks and a chalkboard.  There was another building that was given to them as well, with glass in the windows, a good roof, a solid foundation up out of the floods and filled with desks.  While we were there, I could see the desks that had been freely given them were broken up, burned, used as props for other things or moved out of the building built for them and they only had about 10 working desks if that many.  While we were there, a student or several students broke one of the windows while their teacher was talking to us.  What did they do? They didn’t even get up and go talk to them.  They said, “kids will be kids” and kept begging us to give them things; another classroom so they could have 6^th grades stay there instead of walk so far to the other school.

My comment was “This is why we did not choose to work with them.  They did not take care for the things they had been given.  This is why we chose Izidro instead.  He was teachable and willing to work with us.”

Cesar left saying he would relate this comment to Pazimani in hopes they can learn what they need to do to enlist our services.

This showed us that Cesar is beginning to learn the Principles and Supporting Outcomes of Welfare also.  This is success.

We have felt the Principles of Welfare are beginning to blossom at this school in Mateque.  We hope to follow their progress throughout the rest of our mission.  We hope and pray the District will see and support these great principles and strive to spread these principles into all the schools of the Marracuene District.

Sister Petersen