bombs and tanks

Hey guys

Wow, what a action packed few weeks it has been. So as you know we moved to our new site a few weeks ago. Stressful but all in all it went pretty well. The compound is now starting to take shape and things are being tidied up slowly. Nearly all the bunk beds that were laying out in the grass have been reassembled and placed in houses and nearly all the kids are out of the tents. Our latrines are finally finished! praise God! and the kids have been doing a great job slashing the grass around the compound and have even managed to make a soccer field and are working on a volleyball court. 

Shoots of green grass have already started appearing on our charred grounds after the fire last saturday and clouds are beginning to form so the rainy season looks set to start soon and will last till about November : ) So I guess I better get serious about getting the gardens ready!

We were visited by the Ministry of Agriculture though on the first day we moved to our new site, to tell us they actually owned half our land from before the war and were reclaiming it to plant maize. What??? So John our government liaison has been trying to sort that one out with the local government officials and the chief of our area. Meanwhile we have had to move our school site, which delayed building by about a week and with school starting Monday we really have no where to hold classes. We are going to start by meeting under the mango trees but with the fire the kids will be sitting among ashes and all the leaves are dead so with a few big gusts of wind they will soon be gone and we won't have much shelter. So I have been trying to find tents or some tarpaulins to hook up but it is hard to find the resources especially since there are many refugees coming up from the Congo as they fear the LRA so all materials are going to them. So please pray we don't get any rain till the school has some roof's on and that the leaves don't blow of the trees until then either. 

I have also been meeting with the school teachers, going over lesson plans and some creative teaching methods. It's been really hard. I don't get the feeling that many of them really want to be teachers as the lack of enthusiasm is incredible. I am really praying they will find a love for the job but I think I will have my work cut out for me for the first month or two. You could also be praying for our headmaster that he would rise up to the challenge. He doesn't really have leadership qualities and I don't really know why he is in the job, but I hope he will increase in confidence and take a more active role rather than relying on me. 

Chris has had a pretty bad run. First he got staph infection then he crashed the motorcycle and got some nice road rash on the elbow and smashed his thumb with a hammer hard enough that it is still black. The following day he stepped on a rusty 20d nail, which he then ignored and tried to walk off. This ended in his foot going into some sort off shock, and one very painful trip to the hospital, with a follow up visit for a tetanus shot. Then two days ago after a visit to the clinic he was diagnosed with Malaria (at quite a high count) so has been sleeping it off pretty solidly. So please, he needs your prayers. 

Patrick, our founding director died last Sunday night just after I sent out the prayer request. He was young and left behind his wife and child of 1 year. It was so sad to hear the grief as our compound manager told our family the news. The women hear just start wailing and screaming and thrashing around on the ground, some rolling in the dirt. It seems like it is cultural but many christian leaders think it is of bad spirits so discourage it. Our kids were pretty good though, they expressed their grief like that for about 1 1/2 hours then joined the boys around the fire and they spent the next 2 hours in singing and worship. The next day I had to drive the kids to see him, and again their was much mourning and crying over his body. They lay a sheet over the body so just his nose and eyes are exposed and laid him on the veranda with a mosquito net over him. Then I had to drive around town getting food items for the burial service the next day before returning to take kids home. The next day I again drove the kids over for the burial service which was about 5 hours long. There was a lot of preaching and some story telling, but all in all it was very positive and many people praised Patrick's life. I know many of our kids have found this very hard as well as our Mama's so your prayers as always are appreciated. 

 

So with school starting this week I think I will be very busy. Jennie is also away at training all week and she pretty much runs the show so now a lot of things are falling on my shoulders. With Chris also being sick I think I need a lot of grace and prayers, so thank you for those. Any prophecies would also be appreciated : )

Oh, I finally got out of Yei today. I got to go with some of the Samaritan Purse boys today and check out some the churches they build. We were also checking out potential church sites, visiting congregations that meet under trees etc... It was nice to get out. I did see a truck though that had been blowing up by a land mind that was actually on a school soccer field. It was scary to see just how much it had destructed the truck! and I'm so grateful it never went off with kids all over the field. I also saw a few old tanks from the war and an un-detonated bomb laying on the ground surrounded by tape to ward off anyone from touching it. Reminders of war lay everywhere and it is scary to think it could begin again - God forbid.

So that's a pretty good overview I think, sorry it's been a while. Will come again next week I hope : )

Love Amy

Fighting Fires

So today we fought a 40 acre fire! Yep, on our land. Some kid lit a
fire on the fence line and it spread like crazy. I feel like I have
run a marathon. It is very exhausting and incredibley hot work trying
to beat out a fire with branches. It's hot enough being out in the sun
here but trying to fight fire for 5 hours gives one serious
dehydration!!

The cultural differences here have been slightly frustrating... to put
it mildly. It's so hard dealing with people stuck in such a poverty
mind set and they don't seem to want to change. They laugh at any new
idea and if anyone suggests things that they haven't learnt before,
they laugh and scoff. Arghhh, so annoying! I think Chris has had to
deal with it more than me, but we all have our fear share of
frustrations for sure. My job for the next while is try to teach the
primary school teachers that its not that hard to teach one class, as
in the past they all just teach a few subjects like you would in high
school. I am trying to encourage them to take on one class since the
curriculum is so easy as it would be so much easier to keep track of
the kids progress and easier for discipline. Please pray for me on
that one, that I firstly have the knowledge and skills to pass on and
secondly that I would have the ability to convince them that this is a
good idea.
I'm also supposed to be getting a garden started soon so need
knowledge and skill for that one, and most of all energy. The heat is
so draining!
Lastly I am looking at starting up a vocational centre, once the major
parts of the school administration are out of the way. This requires a
lot of wisdom...

Our new compound is great. Well it's great to get out of the tent, I'm
enjoying having a bed and a house to hang out in. We do have to share
our house with the office which isn't always that great and the kids
are quickly plowing up the grass to create yet another dust pit, which
I have tried to stop a few times. The place is still a construction
site and our latrines aren't yet finished, as they were supposed to be
over a week ago! Some kids are still in tents and bits of bunk beds
are still strewn around the grounds waiting for houses to move them
into. The kids were doing lots of slashing around the grounds to
create a fire break, but unfortunately that didn't work today as the
wind just keep moving the fire forward and it jumped the firebreak.
We don't have power out there, but have got a generator working which
is great. It runs for a few hours every night just to charge up
equipment. Light is by candle light or lantern, quite ambient, but a
little hard to cook by : )
It's exciting having all that land though, so many possiblities.
Michelle has great vision for the place so it will be great to see it
grow. Chris has started building the school this week which is awesome
as we start in a week. Classes might be under the mango trees for a
little while : )

On a good note, I did get the giant boil under my arm lanced.
Beautiful. Quite a painful experience but it's so much better now!

I also got my drivers license and have been having great fun buzzing
around on the motorbike. I've also been driving the old land rover,
called lemonade, cause its such a lemon! The roads here are so...
bumpy and it can be very challenging finding a good route. Been
entertaining for sure. I tell the staff here that at home people go in
search of roads like this in the weekend just for fun! I tell you it
soon gets tedious and I just can't wait till wet season!!!! not

So sorry this letter is slightly depressing. Been a hard few weeks,
appreciate all your prayers : )