Well, we are now living in a two room suite in a large community! Wow, it has been exciting to see this place fill up with people eager to learn more about the Lord! From the children’s perspective, 3 families came with three 3 yr old little girls, plus 2 neighbor girls around there age, Victoria and Clara have lots of friends to play with! Victoria is thriving on it, complaining when she has to come in for afternoon rest time and bath time/bed time. Clara enjoys it some of the time. Other times, she puts around our rooms, enjoying alone time, finding things to organize in our still disorderly – in the state of unpacking- rooms. (Today she found some little children’s books I had that all fit in a box and she nicely put them all back in.)
Dona Maria (the lady who helps us with our house work)rides her bicycle (which she got early May) all the way out here to help wash clothes and carry water from the well to buckets in our bathroom (since the water tower with the water tank fell down the day before we moved….after Victor had spent hours and hours fixing up the whole plumbing system to have running water).
A few students couldn’t come at the last minute, but it looks like we will have 19 students, a good number (plus 11 children, including ours). It is cold here….since we are situated on a hill, with the wind blowing up off a large pond below us. So we have hung grass mats around the outside gazebo where we eat and have hung transparent plastic over the windows in the classroom.
Yesterday, a man trained by other missionaries, came to show the students how to build a wood stove that conserves heat and greatly reduces the amount of firewood needed. This should help cut down our cooking and heating bathwater expenses.
So today Victor rented a huge truck for $100, got a license to haul firewood, and took over 15 guys out (mostly students) to the bush 30 kilometers from town and cut down loads of dead trees. He said the guys worked hard and with a great attitude! We should have enough firewood to last the whole school, hopefully!
Balbina, the wonderful wife of our YWAM leader Dinis, awoke at 10:30pm one night to make tea for students just arriving. Our wonderful staff ladies from England and Holland are working tirelessly making menus and figuring out budgets for the kitchen. We are feeding 40 people a day. I get up each morning to make a big pot of porridge (ground up corn, peanuts, beans, and soy) for the 11 children, 3 nursing mothers (counting myself) and one pregnant lady! Frank, our Dutch staff, bought some carpentry tools in Malawi and has spent the last two days trying to get 4 tables put together. Victor will leave at 6 am tomorrow to pick up the 20 chairs we had made that will hopefully be ready for our first day of class tomorrow.
It is always a challenge to get the schedule going and everything running smoothly, but so far things have gone pretty well. Most of the students arrived one or 2 days earlier than we had planned, so they have been sitting around a couple days now and are ready to start. What do African women do when they are away from home with very few responsibilities? They braid hair, and unbraid hair, and braid more hair….their hair, their friends hair, etc. I joined the party, having to braid both the girls’ hair. With one other lady helping me, it took half the time.
Well, hopefully this gives you a few word pictures of what is going on here………. More later. Thanks so much for your prayers.
Love,
Lori for all of us
