Of course Brian isn’t as far on the house as he would like to be. But then he remembers that everything that has been done has been done by hand, shovel, pick ax… They got the back hoe fixed so it runs, BUT the hoe part doesn’t work, only the loader. So now Brian also has the workers hand digging our septic. Lewis was supposed to pick up our door and window frames today and bring them back with him tonight. The first team left the school yesterday to fly back today. As of right now they have probably been in the air for close to 16 hours already. Brian has been helping Paul some with the library that is being built. There is a church (in Georgia I believe) that is raising money, purchasing, and collecting books to send over to fill the library. Since Kevin left, Brian is now the guy who can operate the backhoe, so he needed to do some work there. Sounds like tomorrow they will be loading river sand, floor sand, and something else. Brian will load the truck, and then the workers will unload it (by hand) where it needs to go. Apparently the dump truck driver called and said he couldn’t be there, so it will be a long day of shoveling! The footings are just about ready to pour and he is starting to put the water line in to the house. As I said they are digging the septic. It looks like everything may be all ready to happen at once, once it is ready. Blocks have been starting to arrive now, so we can get some unloaded at our house. The cement mixer needs a piece welded, so there is even a possibility that the cement will have to get mixed by hand too. Seems everything on this house will end up being done by hand! There is a possibility that about 2 weeks from now the teams will be such that Brian could have all the brick layers and national pastors helping him for a few days. That would be wonderful! We’ll pray that happens! It will take about 3 days to fill, level, pack, and pour the floors. Then he will mark the cement for the inside walls and they can start laying inside and out at the same time. Once they get going, it doesn’t take that long, but he must have all the door frames and everything else on hand ready to go in. We do have a patio/glass door in the container, so I am not sure how that will work. But it has it's own frame, so they can figure something out I suppose. Once they are done with the walls, Brian can begin building the roof tresses while the plasterers do their job. Everyone would like to show some progress on the house. Brian’s parents will be at the school on Tuesday, and numerous people at the school have remarked that they would like to show some progress to his folks. Everyone also seems to be coming to check often. Lucy has taken all the ladies up to look and some of the local villagers have made their way back there to check it out. He said it seems a little like the blind leading the blind sometimes building this house. The gentleman that was going to help a great deal with this had to go home. But God has been faithful and providing people who seem to be able to help with the next step at just the right time.
Brian says the days seem to go by quickly, but the nights are long. Pretty much the same here, but the days even get long for me sometimes when we don’t have anything in particular to do.
Brian has been told that Zambia (called the “Real Africa”) is the most hospitable country in the area. People know when they get to Zambia it doesn’t matter where they are from. Zambians though, are really not welcome in many of the area countries, with the exception of Malawi.
Our container is currently out on the Atlantic on its way to Valencia, Spain where it is due to arrive on June 5th. From there I am assuming it goes over to Egypt and down the Suez Canal to the Red Sea and down to Tanzania. I can’t figure out any other possible route it would take. Arrival time is scheduled for June 25th in Dar Es Saleem, Tanzania. Never thought of it before, but it would have been cool to put some type of GPS bug in it and really track it!
Please pray for Brian in this next day and a half especially for his preparation for preaching on Sunday. He hasn’t had time to really dig in as he would like to. He has some Scripture and direction. He says it almost seems God is keeping him busy so he doesn’t have a lot of time to do it and end up relying on himself and not God. Pray that it would all come together. Brian feels a call to preach, but over here in the States, he’s “not qualified”; doesn’t have the certificates/degrees/pedigree. (yes, i double checked that i should be writing this stuff!) So what does God do? Takes him somewhere where he is expected to preach, regardless. He is their missionary, and he is probably going to be preaching a lot. Once we get there as a family, we will be traveling to all the area churches to get to meet people…and preach. In the back of his mind, he figured God would send him on this route to bypass the route needed over here. Most of these national pastors see themselves as farmers; they pastor a church, but they farm, just for their own food. They very plainly and happily identify with the farmer coming over from the States.
Pray also for his parents flying for the next 2 days, and for their time in Zambia.
Another request would be wisdom, discernment, humility, and timing to talk to Lewis about some of the workers and some things that he is seeing.
Oh yes, and the Gospelink container is still sitting at the shipper’s place in Lusaka. Don’t know what the hold up is, but it is not getting out to the school. It seems this is the shipper’s problem, not customs, or Gospelink’s, so we will pray nothing like this happens to us.
Brian has been able to share his testimony and some words of encouragement with some of the US team members too and he is exciting and encouraged by being able to do that.
Brian asked if I want to know about the snakes…no, not really. Let’s see, they do have black and green mambas, pythons, and a green poisonous tree snake he didn’t know the name of. I told him to work on finding that out so we can see about getting anti-venom kits. The tree snake is a quick bugger that leaves you alone unless you provoke it. Let’s see, little boys…yup, better be sure we are prepared. They don’t like it if you keep the grasses mowed down, so we are definitely doing that. There was a gecko visiting him on the wall as we talked. They also said during the rainy season when the Chongwe River is up they do have crocodiles, and they killed a scorpion the other day while digging footings. He said the bugs aren’t too bad as the bats pretty much take care of them. And just how many of you are squirming at the thought of living with all this stuff? Part of me wants to, but what good would it do? What can you do about it? This is where we are going to be, so I guess we’ll just deal with it.
Zack, the guy from Iowa who spent nine months at the college last year stopped by. He will also stop again on his way home in a few weeks. He and another guy are moving to Seringue (?) to help an orphanage get started; they plan to be there from August to Christmas time. He was also able to meet another one of Gospelink’s board members.
Let’s see-garage sale is going well, even though it hasn’t started! My treadmill sold-thank goodness. Would have really been a picker to take it into town and then not have it sell! Girls have a piano recital in the morning, then in the evening they are going to their friends’ dance recital and staying at their house, then they leave for bible camp on Sunday. Just me and the four younger ones for a whole week.
Guess that’s about it for now.
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