The School Moves Along

I figured it was time to show that we are still working on the school. This week we made some good progress since we finished pouring the ring beam last week.

My first ever attempt at making trusses. By Tuesday afternoon James and I had the three of them up and they seem like they just might work. lol

It was nice to see that all the peaks lined up. Hopefully will make for a nice straight roof line in the end.

The two smaller trusses have a 7.6 meter span and the one across the corners is almost 11 meters. We built them on top of the wall rather then trying to lift them up already made. That made it possible for the two of us to be able to do it by ourselves.

The wood is black because we have painted it with used engine oil to protect it from Termites.

I thought I should get one picture in here to make it look like I am doing some work on the school and that I am not just the photographer. I am sure some of you were wondering:)

A couple gables up to match the roof line of the trusses.

There will be a veranda all the way across the front of the school. The roof won't stick out as far as the truss tails but I just left them long and will cut them all in the end to have about a 50cm over hang.

We have a very nice view to enjoy as well as we are up work on the roof.

We have laid 2,757 blocks and we only have 80 more to go. Yippe We have one more course of blocks to lay across this end wall and across the back wall.

In one week we went from looking like this minus the truss.

To looking like this. Thank You Lord.

I will be switching hats for the next week or two from a mason to a carpenter. Since making part of the kitchen in the Admin building about a year and a half ago I have been trying to find wood to make the cupboard doors. This week I finally have some and Praise the Lord it is already quite dry. It is hard to find good wood and nearly impossible to find dry wood ready to use. Thankfully all things are possible with God.

This is the kitchen I will be finishing Lord willing in the next two weeks.

Drying out in LIchinga.

Things here in Lichinga are very good. We are starting to see signs that the rainy season is almost over. We went for two weeks without rain but got a pretty good down pour Saturday. Normally by the time we are into April we don't see much more rain. It is amazing to see how much everything can grow in a few short months with rain. The grass all around our property is over six feet tall and will grow another foot or so before it is finished. Everything will remain green now for another month and a half before it starts showing sign of lack of rain as we enter the dry season which will go till October or November. Six to seven months with zero rain, it gets dry alright.

A typical Portuguese fried chicken meal, at a local restaurant.

The week before last I made a couple of beds. This one is for Howard you may remember me talking about him. In February of last year my friend Rudy and I helped a few others put a new grass roof on his house. He is a quadriplegic, so we try to help him out in different ways that we can. His old bed was made from bamboo and is was quite broken and his "mattress" was sacks sewn together and filled with grass. The grass was rotting and the rats were taking up residents in it.

Many of the village children crowded at Howard's "gate" to watch us put his bed together and put it into his house.

Peering through the gate.

His new bed, now with a foam mattress and all made and ready to be slept in.

We have been blessed with some more finances to continue with the school construction. All the walls are up to the tops of the windows and doors and all the steel reinforcement bars for the concrete beam are placed on top of the wall.

I am so blessed to have James to work with. He and I make a great team.

The forms all ready to pour the concrete ring beam.

Pouring the ring beam.

A Little Update

The school is starting to actually take the shape of a real building now. We have laid about 2,300 blocks with only about 500 more to go. We are now up to the tops of the windows and doors where we have to pour a concrete beam all the way around the building. There is a lot of work to go, but it is nice to see some progress.

This is James he and I are the one that have done all the block work, it is such a blessing to work with him.

February 28th will go down as an important date for me. I finally hooked up running water to my house. It is so nice to just be able to turn on a tap and have water and not have to bring it into my house in pails any more.

One day I was driving back from the Airport, with Antoinette and Miriam and we got stuck in the mud on our very poor road. They sacrificed themselves to get out and push and paid a great price as you can see especially Antoinette. She was a very good sport and laughed the whole thing off.

Last Sunday I went out to Lusenjawa village to visit the Paetzold family. They are a South African missionaries serving with S.I.M. The Lord gave an absolutely beautiful day for riding a motor bike out there.

This will give you a little taste of the scenery along the way. Sorry I hoped this would be better quality.

This is Alfred Paetzold just finishing up the Braai, (South Africans are well known for being meet lovers and they love to Braai or BBQ as some may call it.) he had finished the meat and was just cooking this bread similiar to light biscuits. Very yummy.

Here we are enjoying the wonderful food that Belinda and Alfred made, it was fabulous.

After lunch Alfred, Christian, Bernard and Stephen and I went for a bit of a hike. They are such a great family I just had an amazing day with them.

This was the view as I road back home. Lichinga is off in the horizon on the right.

I have a house mate now, as of just over a week ago. His name is Don Foster. We are getting a long so well and having great fellowship together. He is such a help, we had Victo, Chanito and Carlos over for supper on Friday and Don made this amazing Spaghetti for us all. He claims he doesn't know all that much about cooking but we think he is holding out on us:)

Don loves onions but doesn't care for the adverse affect they have on his eyes, so this is what he tried to help that.

We run the generator for an hour to pump water every day or two so we were taking advantage of a little power.

Lucia's House

On Thursday we went to the Village of Assumane to fix the roof on a ladies house. You may remember me speaking of a lady by the name of Lucia. It was her house that we were working on. Her house was built last year in the dry season. When the metal sheeting was put on the roof it wasn't overlapped enough. Obviously there was no problem with it during the dry season but ones the rains came they came right into her house. I was only informed of this a few weeks ago by Rachel who has Bible studies at her house on Friday afternoons.

God blessed us with a perfect day it was nice and sunny and dry. We had to all the sheets off and move them over so that they were overlap enough and then add a few new sheets as well.

Victo laying bricks on the back wall of the house. These bricks seal the metal sheeting down on top of the wall to keep the water out.

Some of Lucia's children

More children sitting in the front veranda.

Lucia preparing some potatoes for us, which were very scrumptious.

Joaquim and myself

More children, they love to watch us and help when they can.

The whole team of us that worked on the house.

We had a wonderful day working together, Lucia was very happy to have her roof finally fixed and we all made it home just minutes before it started to rain. Praise the Lord.