Friday's events

Paul rented a taxi for our personal use this morning to take the ladies to the Rock of Ages nursery school that Betty (Abdu's wife) started in the town of Mbuko for the children of the prostitutes. There were two classrooms, the Baby Class that had 3 and 4 year olds, and the middle Class that had 5 and 6 year olds. The children recited poems (bible verses) and sang songs for us. Then they wanted us to sing for them, and we were totally unprepared. We all searched our memory banks for children’s songs. The only one we were ready to sing was “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. Then we gave them all the red & yellow, black & white bracelets that Lisa and Jodi made. Erna Sallaska had sewn bags and provided school supplies for us to take along. June Hiebert DDS had sent toothbrushes and toothpaste, plus we had some little beach balls and rubber spikey balls. The kids loved their bags. The biggest prize was the blow-up beach ball which they called balloons. Unfortunately we did not have enough. One little boy refused to go home after school as he was waiting for a balloon. We finally found some stickers that Betty showed him and then he was willing to leave. The teachers sent the children home and then some of them came back. They couldn’t get them to leave! There was one child that has HIV and we had prayer for him.

Meanwhile, back at the Compound, the men had set up a tent early in the morning so they would have protection from the sun while they work on the desks. They proceeded to design the desks and were teaching the local young men how to use the power tools that we brought along. Robert came from the school and made recommendations about the proper size for the desks. Apparently the size to fit Don Neufeld was too big! It took several tries but now the prototype has been built. Now the battery chargers once again are not working right. We hired a welder who is a perfectionist and our guys are not cutting the iron straight enough. The heat is setting in. The plan is to build the frames and paint them, cut the boards for the tops and then rent a truck to haul the parts to Bukeeka to assemble at the school.

Grace, our cook, has been preparing wonderful meals for us. We found out she has given up her apartment to a friend for two weeks and is sleeping outside at the church. We gave her some foam rubber we had used for packing and she had a more comfortable night's sleep last night. We offered her a place to sleep at the Compound, but she would not accept.

The ladies rode the bodas back to the market this afternoon to get more fresh pineapple and look at souveniers. Don has again been busy playing plumber and has made some improvements on one of the showers.

We finally got the Magic Jack phone system working better and Jodi & Lisa were able to check in at the church office with their mom.

More later!