pics

The upcoming house and a not so good pic of a giraffe from the porch of the house.

Maintenance

The theme of the past few months around the property has been doing maintenance on things that needed updating and refreshing. When we bought the property we didn't realize that our water had a high mineral content. Within 5 years, all of our metal cisterns on the toilets rusted out so we just put in new plastic ones. This week we have been focusing on my parent's house since I will be moving out soon. We painted a good bit of the house and did a few major projects on it as well. It was a lot of work but things turned out really nice. My house is coming along as well. The roof work started yesterday and today the trusses are going up. Next week I will bring in 3 or 4 masons to build up the gable walls.

Do pray for nice weather tomorrow. I know we are wimps but it has been in the 50s and 60s and we have baptism in an outdoor pool tomorrow (unheated) so it might be quite an unforgettable experience for those getting baptized.

Chinese puzzle

Today mom and I took a whirlwind trip around Nairobi trying to get different things for the house. They have just started importing the veneer furniture that comes in a box which is a lot cheaper than real wood since real wood is a scarcity here. Mom needed a desk so we decided to give it a shot. All I can say is I wish the desk had stayed in China. We opened the box to find no directions but we did find a chicken feather hidden in the misc pieces. Guess the chicken feather was meant to give us good luck. After an hour of dad and I trying to sort out the puzzle, we gave up for the night. Maybe the feather will bring us better luck tomorrow.

Honeycombs

Yes, I could hardly believe my eyes - honeycombs on the shelf in the local supermarket. Is this still the Africa I grew up in where we bought our fruits and vegetables in an open market and our meat at the local butchery? Well, I guess when I paid $6.50 for the box I realized that I am still in Africa but things are changing here.

On to other news. . . We had good services at church. A Kenyan missionary to Tanzania that our church supports came today and gave a report. It is exciting to see an African family going as a missionary to another African country. Next week we are having a baptismal service with 5 signed up to get baptized. This week will be a lot more work on the house with the roof hopefully getting started.

One prayer request - one of our Sunday School teachers I had mentioned a couple months ago has sickle cell anemia - Roslyn. The doctors say it is amazing that she has lived this long as she is in her late 20's and 21 is the average age for the disease. She just had a relapse so is at home until she can recover.

Bribery

The latest survey on corrupt institutions came out yesterday and the Kenyan police made the top of the list for the 7th year in a row. The survey said that 93% of people who interacted with police were asked for bribes. The report also says that people bribe for basic needs such as health care and education.

Braces

One of the teens working with me this week wears braces. It was pretty funny yesterday hearing the workers trying to figure out what they were as they had never seen them before. They thought he had something stuck in his mouth. I am not sure they still understand why somebody would tie metal in their mouth to fix their teeth.

Upcoming week

This week should prove to be a busy but profitable week. Mom has her monthly ladies meeting tomorrow after church. She has gotten the ladies excited about their meetings and the ladies are quite organized. After church 2 older teens from church are coming to spend a few days here at the camp to help with any jobs I find for them. They don't know it yet, but I have a large list to keep them busy.

On the house - I am hoping the subcontractor doing the roof for my house will start sometime this week. I am ordering windows this week and finalizing finishing details.

This Saturday we have Sunday School teacher training which a missionary helping at our church is teaching. We are hoping for a good turnout to help with the classes.