Home Improvements

 

Living in the bush always leads to unfinished projects…Amber and Jako’s house (which they have been in for over a year) still was lacking inside doors, curtain rods, electricity in room, lights in rooms, ceiling boards, a finished guest toilet, and a finished guest shower. The goal is to get all these things completed before the baby arrives in December, along with all the building of the furniture for the school. Obviously Jako needs to be involved all around to get things done…so as soon as we got back from South Africa we went to work on the house. My thinking is that if I help him get the house things finished, Amber will be very happy and then we can focus on building furniture for the school.

In the past couple weeks, God has allowed us to make very good progress: Jako and I were able to finish the guest toilet (with a small basin), finish the guest shower (also with a small basin), put on all the inside doors, put lights in every room in the house, run electrical wiring to  every outlet in the various rooms, install curtain rods, put up curtains on every window, and handles on most of the doors.

With all the projects we have going on; two missionaries from town came out to join us for a week to help out around the house. These two girls have been such a blessing…they organized and inventoried all our paint to see what was available, they varnished all the doors in the house and the outdoor ones that needed it as well, they painted the inside doors, organized and cleaned the kitchen, help prepare daily meals, helped with laundry, inventoried medicines at the orphanage, worked hard on our orphanage spring cleaning frenzy, and they are planning on painting the bathrooms before going back to town. They were able to move our home improvements along much faster than we would have been able to without them.

The one thing I have learned since being here is that it is very hard to actually finish something you start in a timely manner. Often, no matter how much you plan ahead, something is bound to go wrong and being out in the bush, the materials you might need are not easily accessible. God is definitely  teaching me patience and to work with what we have…there are no Home Depots where you can go to get quality materials for projects and since nothing is ever as it should be, it always takes hours to make a new plan in order for the materials we have to work. Despite all the “TIA” moments, we are making progress and whenever Kalomo gets more wood, we will be able to order supplies for the school furniture and get to work on building shelves, cubbies, tables, and other things needed to get started.

Please continue t pray that we are motivated to keep working diligently, even though things don’t go how we planned. Pray that we have strength to finish everything before our departure to South Africa for the baby. Pray that we remember that we are working for the Lord and only Him…that  everything we do should bring glory and honor to him and him alone!