We are on a mission...

In our mission attire, showing Elder Leonard (our welfare supervisor from Frankfurt) around town

We thought we better confirm that we are on a mission, not just shopping, eating fish, and sunning ourselves in our sandals.

Our mission assignments fall into three areas: 1) humanitarian projects, 2) supporting the young single adults and Perpetual Education Fund (PEF) recipients (definition to follow), and 3) supporting the young missionaries and their work. Our time commitment to these three is also in this order: 1 is highest and 3 is lowest.

Janet likes to say that humanitarian projects are our 9 to 5 jobs, with young adults our evening job. Missionary support sort of comes when needed. Let us give you a sampling of what we do in each of these areas.



Dr. Paulo, president of the local Red Cross, showing off a new wheelchair

Humanitarian Projects

We have picked up several projects started by the previous Welfare Services couple, Larry and Pat Goff from Orem Utah. We feel greatly blessed to step into projects they worked long and hard to get off the ground. One, a wheelchair project, is getting close to the big payout stage when the wheelchairs and other mobility aids, such as canes and walkers, are delivered to the needy recipients. They are spread over the five northern islands: Sal, Boa Vista, São Nicolau, São Vicente (our island) and Santo Antão. We don’t have dates set for the presentations, but the items arrived here last week and are in storage with the Red Cross, our partner, waiting the final step. There will be a few LDS church members who receive wheelchairs, but the lions share will go to those in the community identified by the Red Cross as most needy. We look forward to sharing with you the conclusion to this wonderful project. As we wrap this one up, we will be developing plans for a second wheelchair project for the southern islands.



This couple will be blessed with water in their house



Humanitarian supplies ready to go out



We have one other big project, a water project, that we are working on and which we tell you more about in future posting.

Then we have a number of small projects we designate as Area Initiatives, project designed for specific local needs. They include help for the inmates at the local prison, help for students who have to pay tuition for public school and provide their own supplies and school uniforms, and help for pregnant mothers and newborns. Some of the LDS church humanitarian donations are used to assemble school kits, newborn kits, and hygiene kits to meet these kinds of needs. We order these kits from Salt Lake City and store them in a warehouse here until we have identified the appropriate need. We are excited about the opportunity to share school kits with inmates who have signed up for literacy classes this fall. They are also dependent on their families for basic hygiene supplies. If the family can’t or won’t help, we can and will. Next month we will be painting the insides and outsides of the Ribeira de Corujinho School in Porto Novo, the largest city on our neighboring island, Santo Antão. Members from the branch of the church there will provide most of the labor. School assistance will be a big part of our work here as the schools are grossly underfunded.



President Neves and Oliveira getting ready to start painting



Are we having fun yet?

Center for Young Single Adults and PEF

Most of us are familiar with the Single Adults Wards or LDS church units for those between 18 and 30 years old who are single. They serve an important purpose in the stronger areas of the church. Under the direction of the European Area Presidency of the LDS church, Centers for Young Single Adults (CYSA) have been organized in many stakes and districts in the European Area to serve many of the same purposes as the singles wards, including social interaction and spiritual nourishment, but also outreach to less active young adults and missionary work among this age group. These centers are often affiliated with the institute instructional program of the church for this same age group. In our district in Mindelo, we have a young adult center that shares the rooms and facilities in our local chapel with the institute and seminary. This group has student leaders and meets at least twice a week to accomplish the purposes above.

We have been assigned as the adult couple to provide adult role models, support, and guidance to this group. We meet with them twice a week in the evening to attend their family night and activity night, as well as meet with their youth leadership council to review progress of the youth and their plans for upcoming activities. They are an energetic, fun loving group, with a lot of strength, but lots of needs to reach out to the less involved. I include some pictures here of a recent service project they participated in with gusto.



Playing

Working and...



PEF or the Perpetual Education Fund was started by the LDS Church in 2002 to assist young adults in developing countries have access to loans for education. The idea is that with some help gaining an education they can rise out of the generational poverty they are trapped in through better skills, better employment, and greater self-esteem. As such they become more productive members of their communities and greater leaders in the church and community. The loans they receive are paid back during and after their schooling providing funds for loans to other young adults, thus the perpetual aspect to it. This gives them a real time experience in responsibility, integrity, goal setting, and self-sufficiency.



UNO the universal game

Our role with PEF is to help them succeed in their commitment to pay off their educational loan from this program and progress to meaningful and productive employment. We are still coming up to speed on how we can effectively do that so stay tuned.

A brief pause in the missionary action...

Supporting the Proselyting Work (Young Missionaries)

As missionaries in the Cape Verde Praia Mission, we also report to a Mission President and associate with the young missionaries who are assigned to work in pairs teaching the restored gospel to those who are interested. In Mindelo we have 8 pairs of these young missionaries. They are organized into two districts which combine with two other districts on nearby islands to form two zones. We meet with the Mindelo North district for weekly district meetings and recently joined with the other districts from these two zones for a Zone Conference. Leading the conference was the new mission president, President Oliveira and his wife and the two assistants to the president. Attending were about 26 missionaries plus one senior couple, us. Of the 26, 6 are sisters.

The full time missionaries sort of blend in

We felt a powerful spirit in our first zone conference. President Oliveira feels he was called to establish stakes here in Cape Verde. It is the time for this to happen, but there is much yet to do to bring this miracle to completion. This mission is the highest baptizing mission in the European area. They are targeting 600 baptisms this year and are progressing well towards this goal.

We hope this gives you some feel for our mission opportunities. We certainly feel God’s hand over the work we have been called to do. There will be some challenging decisions ahead, and we pray daily for guidance in doing the Lord’s bidding. We feel frequently that we are blessed to work with many wonderful, dedicated people in these assignments. Visiting with Doctor Emely Santos of the Bela Vista Health Center was inspiring. They do an incredible amount of good for the health of the people in this city with great concern and feeling for their countrymen.  When Pedro and Nifata, members of our local unit or branch of the church, expressed their love for their people and their life in Cabo Verde, their very basic living conditions was not important to them. No two mothers have shown any more determination to help improve the schools for their children than Maria and Teresa, even if they have almost nothing of their own to give. There is much strength and confidence among this people, and God is most aware of them and their needs even though the rest of the world hardly knows they exist. We love serving in the kingdom of God on the earth.

Until our next free second…

News Flash!

We were able to deliver our first new-born kits to needy expectant mothers at the Bela Vista Health Clinic. Dra. Santos was there to present the kits to women who were there for their appointments. She see about 60 women a month who have very little to offer to their new-born child. We can help.


We were impressed with how these women dress up for their clinic appointments. Dra. Santos is in the middle with Sister Broderick at her side.



This blog is brought to you by Janet and the letter “S”

Our First S is Shopping - This is One Place We Shop

 Shopping
Buying food and other items is a new and different experience. Our first shopping trip was to the Pilar Vermelho (Red Pillar) that the missionary elders showed us the first day in Mindelo. It is about a 3 minute walk from our house, quite convenient. It is about the size of our kitchen. Along the back wall are the fruits and vegetables. The carrots and potatoes looked awful. But, we needed food and so I got some. We discovered quickly that you have to have the produce weighed at the "deli" counter before you "check out." There we also found 1 kind of cheese and eggs. They write on the plastic bag with a ball point pen how much the item weighs. There are never scales at the check-out counter in any store.

These ladies are waiting in line for the lone clerk in red to weigh their items

If you come to the checkout without weighing your fresh stuff, back you go

On the shelves are various items. I found white and whole wheat flour. I guess the store buys large sacks of the flour and then repackages it for sale to the customers in plastic bags. It is about 2 pounds I would guess and costs about 58 CVE (Cape Verde escudos, about 77 escudos per dollar). We spent nearly 1500 escudos which seems like a lot, but is only about $17.00. Most everything is imported from Europe (we see much from Portugal and Holland). Prices are comparable to the USA. The people are just much poorer.

Never been in this one yet, along with hundreds more

We since discovered that there is a Mini-Mercado on nearly every street. They vary in size from my living room to our smallest bedroom. There are a few things that are the same, but each has its own variety. I find better carrots here, better potatoes there. Less expensive oranges around the corner. Yeast here. Jam there. The butcher here, the bakery there. We are trying to streamline our shopping and not have to go to 8 stores to get everything we want and need. I always carry a shopping bag in my purse – never know when you will find what you need and you had better buy it then because you may not remember which mercado you saw it!!

We found one bakery by smell on one of our morning walks. Fortunately, we had some escudos with us and we bought 2 loaves of a wonderfully soft and tasty whole wheat bread. About once a week we plan our walks based on our need for bread. Early morning is the best time for fresh bread! I have also found knowing Portuguese is helpful. The first time I bought chicken, it was pretty nice chicken breasts. The next purchase looked the same, but didn’t seem right. I looked at the label and checked the dictionary and discovered I had bought Entre Coxa – or, the meat between the thighs – or just the backs. It made pretty good chicken fried rice!! I now know to buy Frango - pieta (breast meat) or even Frango Coxa would be good.



And these are drum sticks, on the loose


We have found a housewares store. There are paper stores. And we enjoyed some delicious ice cream at the Ice cream store. And we even hear there is a "Costco" of Mindelo. We will check that out this weekend.

And the other store we use is the street vendors for some fruits and vegetables, particularly mangos, papayas, and occasional bananas for Elder Broderick. I am sure we can dicker with them, but haven’t yet. Our best mangos have come from them. But we don’t buy any baked goods etc.– only food we can put in our Clorox rinse.

What I can’t find:

• Baking powder in cans - only tiny packages of about 1 tablespoon each.
• Baking soda in larger than 1 ounce jars.
• Kleenex boxes - just tiny packages.
• Celery.
• Fresh mushrooms.
• Shortening (had to make flour tortillas with oil - but they worked!)
• I haven’t seen nuts yet.

I am glad for the Maple flavoring for syrup and other spices we brought with us.

Shoes
Shoes are an important part of shopping because you are walking from store to store. [Warning: product sales pitch to follow] My REI Mary Jane walking shoes do very well on the cobblestone streets. I do wonder how long they will last with all the corners of stones we step on. Dennis likes his Merrells for the same reason.



A typical selection of footwear

 Everyone else, men & women, pretty much wears sandals, with the vast majority wearing regular rubber flip flops or some variation of it. I don’t know how they do it on the hills, the cobblestones dirt roads, and playing basketball!! But it is warm daily here, so sandals are the order of the day. And admittedly, in our apartment, the rule is no shoes on the tile floor. Much cooler!

Sounds

1. We begin and end our day with reveille and taps from the nearby military facility. They start at 5:50 am and end at 10:30 pm. We know if we hear the last taps, we are late getting to bed!
2. Busses or military trucks with soldiers in the back traveling on cobblestone streets are quite noisy going past our front door - especially when the vehicle rattles anyway. The windows are ALWAYS open for any fresh breeze. So we hear everything.
3. Cabo Verdeans can be quite loud. When they speak loud, it is loud and the time of day or night doesn’t really matter. They also like their music loud. Fortunately, it is not a real problem at night.
4. Since everything is concrete (inside and out) - houses, sidewalks (when there are some), roads - any sound echos and is amplified. The church chapel is very "alive with sounds" with no fabric to absorb the sound, including the noise of the street outside or the 3^rd Branch beginning their Sacrament meeting on the second floor above us. Because there is no air conditioning, the windows are open to allow for some cross ventilation. So, sounds travel! But the congregation sounds great singing!!
5. We hear no birds or other animals except dogs. The only animals we have seen are mostly hundreds of stray dogs (and they generally are quiet but with occasional choruses) and a few cats. There are 2 small birds almost always checking the sidewalk in front of our apartment.

6. The daily pass through of students, ages 12-18 are loudest, going past our house to and from school. See #3 above. There are three sessions of school in the nearby secondary school, which means around six times per day we hear them.
7. Advertisements with trucks going through town with the speakers blaring. Or a single walking person will be banging on a drum. It is to remind people of the upcoming festival.

Sun
Our last "S" word for today is Sun. It is everywhere in Cabo Verde. It is why tourists come here. It is bright, warm, welcoming, and quiet. Ahhhhh. Put on the sun screen and enjoy.

There she goes for one more day

There are more "S" words like sleep, scenery and sewing, but this is long enough. Just know we are enjoying all our "S" words!