Blessed Week

What a great and energizing week! My supervisor Graham came with a friend to check in on me and the progress made with Water Harvest International. As you have read in my last post, I was struggling with fatigue. Graham and Emily helped to bring new ideas, enthusiasm, and encouragement to me during my struggles. I now feel ready and excited to face the challenges and work ahead. I know many of you have been praying for me which I'm sure was the main reason behind my new strength. Graham's friend Emily with her fun-loving attitude and awesome sense of humor was a delightful addition as well.

During the entire trip, God's protection surrounded us. If it wasn't for this Divine protection, the week would have been disastrous from the start. As I was driving Graham and Emily back from the airport a couple of kids ran from the tall grass lining the dirt road directly in front of my truck. It was a smooth road so I was traveling at about 30mph. I slammed on my brakes as soon as I saw them and would have run them both over if the kids had not have dove to either side of my truck. I skidded past them and came within a foot of running over their legs. If the kids had not have dove, I would have, without a doubt, killed them. Besides that, God also protected us as we drove deep in the bush where at times I couldn't even anything in front of me because of the tall grass and had to rely on people guiding me from the back of the pickup.

Besides that first scary episode, the rest of the week went very well. Graham, Emily and I along with my two employees George and Asiki conducted site surveys around different villages in the area. Most of the places we went to are in desperate need of water and most were located in very remote locations where we had to drive through shallow and rocky stream beds, along footpaths, and even through high grass where there were not any roads or paths at all. By the end of the week, I believe we came away with a better idea of the problems we will deal with and a greater sense of where and how we plan to drill.

Also during the week, David came back from Kapoeta and brought a woman named Michael with him. Michael is from Texas and will be in Kajo Keji until January helping out the woman's ministry at the church. It will be nice having another American around for awhile.

The house am compound are coming along well. The roof is going on the house this week which will just about complete the house leaving only some finishing work to be done. I need to build the separate bathroom and kitchen before I can move in though. The second container with the pumps should be in early next week and the casing should come in about the same time. HOPEFULLY, by the end of the month we will be bringing water to the people. I also bought a bunch of mahogany lumber this last week since they were cutting the boards from a mahogany tree they chopped down right down the road from David's house. I also had them cut me two giant 9x9x10 posts. I'm going to use those for my gate posts. The best part was they only cost me $25 each! I also got plenty of other sizes to make furniture, doors, and shelves. Later on I came back and asked the guy what he was going to do with all the scrap pieces and he told me he was going to sell them as firewood, so I bought them for the price of firewood and will use them to make benches.

All-in-all this was a great week. I'm staying in Moyo tonight to get some good food, rest, and so that I go to the bank as well as get supplies tomorrow. As I am writing this, I can hear beautiful hymns coming from a nearby abbey. I think I'm falling in love with Africa all over again.

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