23 August 2015
The base renovations are moving along. Floors of the cottages & new dorm have been re-poured, the toilet block and cottages have been plastered & whitewashed inside and all window screens are being re-done. The outside of the main building has been re-plastered, dining windows & roof replaced, reception roof should have been finished yesterday with the dining gazebo to be started this week. Upstairs furniture has been repaired and new curtains and chair covers are being made for upstairs and once it is all done things will look very nice. We are still trusting God for another $1000 to complete everything. In the midst of all this, we are all feeling the stress and there are good days and not so good days—not unexpected in community living. More people have inquired about LDC than we have space to accommodate. Furaha Garden is full and Amani Acre has closed so I am not sure what the solution is at this point and I confess it is another thing stressing me.
Most of the staff were gone for a week in mid-July to Athi River for a Friend Raising workshop. They came back for a bit over a week and then several went to Rwanda for the Regional Staff Conference. Following that several staff had to be away on personal and mministry business for 2-3 weeks. All of that meant very few staff on the ground for about 3 critical weeks to follow through with work and supervising outside fundi’s (skilled workers).
On Monday (tomorrow) Richard, Erick’s contractor friend and the one doing most of the re-model, will inspect all of our wall prep work and then we ourselves will start painting undercoat on all the main building interior (excluding kitchen & fridge room). Once the undercoat is done Richard will bring in 2 professional painters to do the rest of the painting and while they are doing that, we will be whitewashing the outside of the main building. Hope to have all of the painting done in the next 2.5 -3 weeks.
Well, that is it for now. As usual, I am feeling the stress of lots to do and not much more time or money to get it completed but I hope to be more positive in my next message.
