There’s a bad shadow but you can see the kids playing and some laundry in the background.

Sorry I am late to post this…it has been a crazy past couple weeks. But the mission was successful! The area between the church and the center is completely cemented. This provides a place for the kids to play ball and the women a place to wash clothes. It has done its job of reducing the amount of mud tracked into the center as well. And it was finished just in time for rainy season…I think I would be going crazy right about now if it hadn’t seeing as how we get daily downpours that would have turned this place into a swamp. Thanks for all of your prayers on this project!

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Losentia is another one of our newer additions to the center. She is 8 years old and Marie Elande’s older sister. These girls must get their smile from their mother because Losentia has a beautiful toothy grin as well. During English class we occasionally do mazes or puzzles; she is quick to figure these out, she definitely has good spatial skills. Whenever we play ball in the newly finished courtyard she inevitably gets hit in the face. It could be a soccer ball or little plastic baseball, whether she is playing or not, she is getting hit. Thankfully she has a good sense of humor and is able to laugh it off. Most mornings she is one of the last kids running to school. I don’t know what she does all morning, my guess would be talking:) She has made much improvement in her handwriting. She still needs to see her name and copy it but she is getting better about writing her s’s the right direction. Hopefully soon she will be able to write her name without using a reference.

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Things are progressing in the No More Mud project. The majority of the cement has been poured, the tank has a lovely support wall around it, a portion of a retaining wall is being completed (why it was left undone in the first place who knows)… Overall it is looking like we will meet the deadline of finishing this project before the mission teams arrives on Friday. Thank you for all the prayers and keep em coming!

From this vantage point the church is up to the left and the center is on the same level to the right.

One of the guys hard at work stacking rocks to complete the retaining wall that will prevent runoff from the road from pouring down our way.

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The guys made a nice cement/rock/block reinforcement wall for our tank and got quite a bit of cement laid out today. Pray for more sunny daysnlike today so things can keep pluggin along.

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Standing in my new room, yet to be moved into, looking at the area to be cemented.

Not really sure how to explain this but they are taking measures so if we choose to build an additional room in the future we won’t have to smash up the cement to do so.

Yesterday was the official start to the N.M.M.M. All went well until of course it poured last night. One poor guy spent all day yesterday digging out a ditch where they will finish up an already existing rock wall. This morning it was completely filled in with mud. Please pray for lots of sunshine, especially as they will be pouring cement relatively soon. If you want to contribute to this project, you can do so through my donor site. Just add a comment to your one time donation specifying it is for the cement project. You can also email me to let me know you donated and I will make sure it goes to this project. Thanks!

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My No More Mud Mission has begun! There is an area between the center and the church that any pig would love. With enough rainfall it becomes a mess. Unfortunately this is the area where our water tank is situated and where our clotheslines hang. Mud is tracked into the boys’ and girls’ rooms constantly, even more so now the rainy season has begun. In order to help reduce the frequency of muddy floors, we will be hiring a team of local masons and laborers to cement the entire area. Not only will this help things appear cleaner, it will hopefully improve sanitation in the center. No mud, no germs. Plus, this will be a nice area for our kids to play, sit, do their homework, jumprope, dance, whatever their little hearts desire. If anyone would be interested in donating to this No More Mud Mission of mine, I will put up some information soon about how to do so. And of course prayers are always needed. Clear skies, lots of sun, no injuries, no surprise expenses, all things we need to get this project done (and before the mission team arrives…no pressure). Thanks everyone!

The area we will be cementing…you can imagine all that dirt turns to mud quickly on a rainy day.

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Marie Elande is one of our newest additions to the center. Her mother brought her and her older sister here a couple months ago. She is 7 years old and has a beautiful smile. During church, I always see her swaying back and forth, arms raised to the sky during worship. She reminds me of the kid Pigpen from Peanuts because I swear this child cannot keep clean for more than a few minutes. During English class she always sings the loudest and is improving her vocabulary every day. She struggles to remember all the colors but she definitely knows all the shapes. When she first started English class she could not write her own name. Now she puts her signature ‘Ma’ on all her work. I work with her on tracing letters almost every day so hopefully she will be able to write her name with ease soon.

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Around 7pm last night this was a very true statement. An hour long downpour brought the blessing of a full water tank but unfortunately it also brought a ridiculous amount of water into our front door. Because the center is located below the road, meaning you walk down a slope to get to us, all the water from the road rushed our way. I had no idea what was going on, just sitting in my room silently marveling at the force of the rain, until I happen to go outside my room to check on everyone. The boys room was starting to flood and the girls’ room was already ankle deep with filthy water. And the rain showed no signs of stopping. Most of the kids thought it was exciting. Somehow Ezekiel and Ednel slept through the whole ordeal. Francois smashed small, ground level holes in the back walls to give the water a place to go. The women were frantically getting all of the bins and boxes of belongings off the ground. Me and the older girls were using small buckets to bail out the hallway. At one point I started kicking the water towards the door. The older boys placed empty buckets wherever they could catch rain. It was a busy hour.

Boys’ room this morning.

After the rain finally stopped, I talked to one of the construction workers who happens to be staying here during his time working on my room (Pastor Justin’s nephew) about building a small, 3 ft wall where it seemed much of the water entered to prevent this from happening again. We have cement and sand leftover from my room which is basically finished so we only needed to buy 40 cement blocks. Hopefully that wall will be up by the end of the week.

The girls’ room this morning.

Today was a massive cleanup extravaganza. Because so many of the kids uniforms got wet they stayed home from school which is just as well because there was much to do. Every single room was cleaned with water and soap. Any clothes that got wet were washed by some of the younger girls. The older girls helped get their room back in order. The older boys helped me move small rocks onto the muddy parts around the water tank and steps to prevent more mud from being tracked inside. Everyone helped in one way or another. Except the little ones. I spent the day yelling at them to get away from the mud and to go wash their feet, etc. All is clean now. Pray no more rain for a little while until we can get that wall up at least. While it was a nice little band together moment I would rather not have to relive it anytime soon.

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Thanks to everyone from St. Johns Lutheran Church who donated clothes (or money to buy new clothes) for the kids. They’re the best lookin kids in church

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This morning Francois approached me and said there was a problem with the cistern. Back up one day: yesterday we finally had a truck who was willing to deliver water in our area unload 3,500 gallons of water into the church’s cistern and our tank. I followed him up to the cistern and when he opened the hatch it felt like someone had punched me in the stomach, I couldn’t breathe. At least half of the water was gone. What had held close to 3,000 gallons of water just a day ago now held a little over 1,000. The cistern must have a crack or crevice somewhere along its interior that allowed the water to seep into the ground overnight. While this doesn’t seem like a huge deal it was definitely a huge blow to my spirits. Water is a daily struggle for us. Bathing 18 kids plus cooking and cleaning and flushing toilets requires a lot of water. Sometimes kids are late for school because they spent most of their morning waiting for enough water to be brought up from the river for them to bathe. You cannot imagine how ecstatic I was one FOHO donated the money needed to purchase water and my friend Simon arranged for a truck to come up to us. The morning the truck rolled up all I could think was, “Okay our struggle with water is over for a little while. Things will be easier for a little while.” I was so wrong.

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