District Conference in the Jungle

Scott-

We now know what a district conference looks like in the African jungle. We held our first one last week.

Quick refresher: a district conference is the same as a stake conference, except a district is a collection of branches rather than wards. The presiding authority in a stake is the stake president. In a district it is the mission president, that’s me. So, we’re doing double duty here—mission president and stake president at the same time.

Our First District Conference in Moriba Town. Moriba Town District is a collection of five branches and a few home groups. Because of travel difficulties, we split the conference in two and held a leadership and general session in Matru Jong on Saturday and the same in Moriba Town on Sunday. Becasue it was a Saturday, we had a baptism, before the first session. Here are the newest members of our church in Moriba Town!

Okay. Buckle up your seatbelts and find something to hold onto. Here comes the five-hour drive to Matru Jong. We leave the mission home in Bo on a nicely paved road that quickly turns into a dirt road for the three-hour drive to Moriba Town. We then continue an additional 30 minutes to the river. We park our Toyota near the bank and climb into a canoe, where the paddler take us to the other side. We disembark on the opposite bank and hire a guy with a motorcycle to drive us into town. This is the normal route. But . . . we had a visiting area authority for our district conference from Nigeria and he was not keen on crossing the river in a hollowed-out log, so we drove the long way around, adding an additional hour to our drive. See the bank of canoe below.

The Roads Less Traveled. More than 90% of the roads in our mission go unpaved. There aren’t many cars in this part of the world, so why pave the roads? Out of 1007 church members in the Moriba Town District, only one owns a car. Maybe six own motorcycles. The roads aren’t bad, except during the rainy season, when the incessant pounding wreaks havoc. The problem is mostly with potholes that grow in depth and width and number until the rainy season ends. At that time, we’re told, a legion of men with hand shovels appear and do their best to fill the holes up one at a time. The route to Matru Jong leads us through minefields of potholes, large puddles, and stream crossings. It’s a beautiful and delightful drive in the jungle, except for the constant up-and-downs through potholes and jogs from side-to-side searching out the smoothest path. It’s a futile exercise: there is no smoothest path.

Speedbumps. Nature’s own speedbumps—potholes, puddles, and stream crossings, keep our velocity in check. But not to be outdone by mother nature, the locals add their own device to ensure no one accelerates through their villages, threatening goats who nap in the road and free range chickens--skinny and fast but dumb all the same. The villagers make speedbumps of clay. There are exactly 54 of them between Moriba Town and Matru Jong. How do we know, you ask? Kathy counted them. Every one.

The Big One. The potholes are easy to spot, full of water, reflecting sunlight. The speed bumps, not so much. Speedbumps are made of the same dirt as the road and are unmarked. If the sun or shadows are just right—they are difficult to spot. Like a speed trap in Mantua, Utah, the locals know where they are; guys from out of town have to keep a close lookout. No one snoozes on these roads. Kathy is my backup spotter. Every once in a while, the road is clear of potholes for a couple hundred yards. During these stretches I increase my speed to make up time. This weekend, accelerating through a brief stretch of potholeless terrain, I failed to spot a large speed bump until it was too late. We hit it straight on at 80 km per hour. The visiting area authority and our district clerk were sitting in the back seat. Kathy to my right. No time to brake. I tightened my grip on the steering wheel and blurted out Sorrrrrryyyyy as we made impact. Our front tires left the ground and caught air. An instant later, the rear tires hit the same bump and lifted the boot dropping the front back down, followed by the rear. The heads of both backseat passengers ricocheted of the ceiling of our Toyota and smacked their rear-ends back on their seats. I was waiting for our little SUV to break in two. It didn’t. It kept going. A credit to Toyota engineering. Nobody needed medical attention. A credit to strong African necks.

Matru Jong. At the end of the drive, we pull into the compound that protects our meeting house in Matru Jong and are welcomed by a picture of Jesus Christ painted by our Ceder City friend, Del Parsons. Our buildings could not look more differently, but the artwork is all the same. Complements of Church Distribution Center. It’s comforting to see something so familiar.

93% Attendance. There are 158 members in the Matru Jong Branch, 147 showed up for their session of district conference. Granted, there is not a lot to do in Matru Jong, but we were still stunned by the turn out. Some were investigators. No one came in a car, except for us. Everyone else walked or hired a motorcycle. We sat in a building without walls, except for the front and back. Bare light bulbs and fans hung from the ceiling, most of them worked. White clothes were draped over a line, drying from the baptism earlier that morning. There was a choir. They sang with full volume. We’ve never seen such joyous singing. The talks were nice. Kathy and I spoke. Afterwords we shook a lot of hands. These people are inspiring.

Moriba Town Leadership Session. The next morning found us back in Moriba Town. We met at 9:00 am in our chapel for the leadership session. It was raining, hard. When the time came for the meeting to start two people were present, besides missionaries and the visiting authority. We waited 20 minutes. A few more people showed up. The rain continued, hard. In a place where no one owns a car, and the only means of travel is on the back of a motorcycle or walking in mud, attendance plumets when it rains. We were worried about the next meeting. The Moiba Town church house.

The Biggest Building in Moriba Town. Anticipating a large crowd, we rented the biggest building in Moriba Town, Parrish Hall, which is owned by the Catholic church, for our general session. We drove to the hall and watched people and rain descend in a steady stream that never stopped. We were amazed. The rain was expected; the people were not. We couldn’t figure out how to turn the lights on in the hall. So, we sat in the dim structure for two hours. No one seemed to care. People kept coming. The chairs filled up. Our missionaries gave their folding chairs away and went searching for more. People were standing around the back and outside. The rain never stopped. We counted 535 people present from four branches that had had a combined membership of 849.

Afterwords, we greeted our African brothers and sisters until our visiting authority had to leave. I resented his need to rush. I wanted to stay until the last person left. It was a beautiful moment. Our hearts were filled with love and gratitude . . . until we remembered three hours of speed bumps and potholes awaited.