Our WORK

I would hate for you to think that all we do is play so this post will be dedicated to the WORK we do in the Africa Southeast Area Office. Elder Kinghorn and I leave the house every morning,  Monday through Friday by 8:15 to work in the Area Office. Most nights we return home by 5:30 or 6:00. Some days we force ourselves to leave by 4:00 or 4:30 so that we can do our grocery shopping. Our mission call is to serve as Area Welfare Specialist (AWS). The Lee's, who our the friends that invited us to come to Africa are also AWS. The four of us support 13 Welfare Services Couple Missionaries who serve in: Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Lubumbashi, DRC Kinshasa, Rwanda, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Zambia, South Africa, Gabon, Tanzania, and Madagascar. The couples develop Area Initiative Projects and also help support Major Initiatives that the Humanitarian department at Church Headquarters initiates.

Our job is to train and support the couples with the work they are doing as Welfare Services Missionaries. Bruce works with Finances. Our office processes the request for all 13 couples for the funding of their projects. My job is reviewing the project request and submitting them to our Area Welfare Manager for approval as well as reviewing the contracts for each project submitted. We work very closely with the Lee's as well as our Area Welfare Manager.

The Area Office is a wonderful place to work. We are blessed to begin each week with a Monday morning devotional that is usually attended by a member of the Area Presidency or the Director of Temporal Affairs.  I personally believe that the best part of our mission is when we have an opportunity to travel to train and support the Welfare Services Missionaries.

We recently took a trip to Rwanda to train Terry Lieble and Dr. Peggy Toro who are the new couple serving as Welfare Services Missionaries in Rwanda. We had the opportunity to go with them to see one of the projects that had been done by the previous couple. It was a rain catchment system and water storage tanks.

Elder Lieble and Sister Toro with members of the water committee and their interpreter.



My favorite part is always meeting the local children

 

Then we headed off to Mozambique to train the Pond's who are the new Welfare Services Missionaries in Mozambique

Mozambique is a very colorful country
We saw some interesting sights on our drive to Church

 

We are very blessed to be called to serve in Africa Southeast as Area Welfare Specialist.

We love to work with the couples as they develop projects. It is really fun when they share the joy they experience when a project is completed. Each month the couples send us monthly reports about the work they are doing. Thanks to the generous donations of members of the Church all over the world the Welfare Services Missionaries are able to develop projects that relieve suffering, help the people of Africa become more self reliant and provide Christ like service.