From the ground up

After a week and a half of shovel, jembe and roof, there have been times that each of the team has been thoroughly exhausted, not used to the 7000‘ elevation. . We have moved approximately 6000 cubic feet of dirt to level the southern dormitory. The dirt was extracted from 2 enormous termite mounds. Today, we completed the first full day of building footers in the northern dormitory. There is 400+ feet of rough footers almost 3‘ deep in the building. We have leveled the southern end of the building's perimeter and hope to complete the leveling of remaining footers in this building on Friday.
We have developed a wonderful relationship with our lunch cook, Jane. She is from Elderot and fixed us a lunch today of Thanksgiving proportions. It included sliced oranges, mango and papaya, spaghetti, rice, avocado salad, chipati and chicken stew. Jane will get my boots.
Mike and Evan, the interns, returned from their excursion to Kisumu, on the banks of Lake Victoria. Other than cramped matatus and Mike’s affinity for mosquitoes , they had good reports of baboons, pizza and World Cup.

Dave was wrong... as usual.

Yesterday we as a group got back on track with the project as we finished digging the footers in the first dormitory and continued the process of leveling out the second dormitory.

Early on in the morning, I (Tim) shared a story with the group members about a chicken who lived a year and a half with it's head having been cut off. Naturally there was skepticism about whether the story was true or just an urban legend. Without hesitation, Dave screamed that the story was not anatomically or phisiologically possible. I did my best to assure him that the story was completely valid.

It was not until later last night that Dave's skepticism was proved wrong via sources such as The Guiness Book of World Records, Ripley's Believe it or Not, Wikipedia, and a slew of other online resources. He has yet to produce a sincere apology to me.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_the_Headless_Chicken

Week two begins

This week began with everyone charged up from yesterdays visit to Soy, where we met the Kids of the Kingdom. Work started frantically with most of the team trying to get the footers dug for building one. This is no easy task because they have to be dug down three feet deep, while working at an elevation around 7000 feet. The rest of the team was working on bringing in fill for building two so that it would get a chance to settle before digging the footers there. Perhaps we started the day a bit too frantically because we were all out of gas by mid-day. with every bit of energy that God provided us we pushed on, and almost got all the footers to depth and removed a good bit of the dirt that had been piled up in the building. The roof on building three, the dinning hall was completed today ridge cap and all, and the only remaining thing for the roof on building one is the ridge cap. We would like to thank everyone for keeping us in there prayers, God bless.

American Independence

We awoke today with much anticipation and excitement because today we traveled to the town of Soy to meet Marting and his family at their home. Our bus from Kitale was filled with visitors eager to spend time with the children for whom we've traveled such a long distance.

After a joyful service, we headed to Martin's home and received exceptional hospitality. The time we spent with the kids helped us to understand what our project is all about. We are all so excited to see Martin's family move to their new home later this summer.

This 4th of July was spent in the company of dear friends we are blessed to have. We took a break from celebrating our nation to celebrate another. Martin and his family shine brightly in western Kenya and are well deserving of a new place to call home. Team 1 can't wait to get back to work tomorrow.

Saturday in Kitale

Ah Saturday in Kitale Kenya offers so much to do, part of our group took the day off for rest and recovery. The other part of the group went out to the project to work and set things up for the coming week! Building one now has all the rooms laid out and footers for under the walls all started. Gravel has been delivered, and sand cement and reinforcing rod are ordered and will be delivered Monday. Next week should see footers in and the buildings ready for walls to begin going up with the arrival of the second crew.
We are looking forward to visiting worshiping with, and eating with Martin, Ruth and the children at the present home location in Soy tomorrow.

Termites

Today the roof on the small building was started. However, the brunt of the work was leveling the ground of the two larger buildings. The first building we moved the dirt from one end to the other. To help pack the dirt we had our human "steam roller" Sarah who surprisingly lost her energy today. After completing the first building we moved on to the second large one. For the second building we had to move soil from a termite mound. Our fellow Kenyan workers used their jembes and plowed into a large termite colony. They began to eat some of the termites and convinced us to try them. It was an interesting experience and we have definitely learned a lot about Kenyan culture.

TacoThursday: great expectations of a hippo attack

Today started with one hammer and great expectations of finishing a roof. After petting Wakiel (the neighbor's cow) the day's productivity increased ten fold. We now have an official theme song thanks to Uncle Gene and almost an entire roof on building #1. Spirits are high - Kenya is awesome!