I realize its been awhile since my last post- but I have an excuse!!! On Christmas day we picked up My sister Brenda and her husband Justin and their baby boy Colin in South Africa. Two days later we picked up Ricks brother Kevin and then squished all of them and us, all of our luggage (which was a considerable amount!) into (and on) the truck and then drove up here to the farm. It was a squishy ride for the three adults and two kids in the back seat, but we made it safely- Praise the Lord.
(not our vehicle, but ours was just as packed!! LOL) this is a scene we see nearly everyday!
After we arrived here, we gave everyone a day or two to adjust to farm life and intense heat, before we got to work getting things done! Its been awesome to see our family experiencing what we do here. Some of it isnt so glamorous, most is rather hot and dusty, but its important work that needs doing and we are glad to be able to share that with others!
Here are a few pictures from the past weeks- I hope to update more regularly now that we are settled with them!
Me and Tendai with Brenda, Justin, Colin and Farai.
Kevin, Tendai and Casamilo and Cerio.
Casamilo, Cerio and their sister Mariamo are living in the hut.... soon they will be living in that house in the background! YEY!!
Kevin helped Sowero take his maize and other food items back to his house. It was raining off and on the whole time we delivered Orphan food, but we weren't complaining since it kept it much cooler!
Brenda, Colin, Tendai and I spent a day driving Celestino (one of the mission's health workers) and Mathew around to visit some folks in need of home visits, delivering medical supplies to our other clinic and misc other errands. Here in Mucombedze community Brenda tried out the local water pump- did a pretty good job too!
At Baba Andreas' house Tendai wanted to "help" so Mathew taught her and Brenda how to take the kernels off the corn cobs. The first step in the process to get them ready to go to grinding mill and be made into maize flour for sudza.
She was pretty excited to help out!
While Tendai was helping Mathew, Celestino did his soccarista work,
and Ernesto made friends with Colin.
While we were off doing our visiting, Kevin and Justin were back at our house building bricks alongside our local guys.
Here is pretty much what the house looks like now, those blue boxes are the electrical outlets, which Rick, Justin and Kevin installed earlier this week. So exciting to see WALLS going up! Once they have finished this next row all the way around (it takes longer since they have to chisel every brick to go over/around the electical stuff) the walls should go up "chop chop!"
Getting the conduit pipes to just the right angle
Justin used a grinder and hammer to make space for all the boxes in the bricks. He has also been helping our coworkers Ron and Barb install plumbing for their shower and fixing a drainage problem of epic proportions (ok.. its not that bad but it seems like it is to me!) at our little cottage. Everyone is pretty excited to have a trained plumber on the scene- skilled tradesmen are ALWAYS a blessing this far in the bush!
We are very happy to say that we recieved a HUGE blessing this Christmas- our December mission fund report brought tears to our eyes as we saw that over $20,000.00 had been donated towards our building fund! Friends, that brings us up to the half way mark in fundraising! Please pray that we can continue to reach our fundraising goals so that work can continue. I (Heather) cannot wait to be in this new house, with room for Tendai to play, have guests over, have space to move and not have to trip over boxes of supplies! Im praying the house building goes miraculously fast, but I know that it will still take a long long time so im trying not to get my hopes up too high!
I hope your Christmas season was filled with family, friends and the Peace of our Lord. We are looking forward to this New Year and all the adventures that will come with it!
God Bless, Rick, Heather & Tendai
