T.I.'s monkey

Pouring floors

Zach admiring the finished ring beam

Children at the baby home

Bev at the Baby home

Our first highlight of the day was an appearance by the local monkey in the front yard.

This morning Bev and Ginny had the opportunity to visit an orphanage that specializing in babies. What an amazing place this is. They have 82 children primarily under the age of three. The organization is very impressive. You can see more about it at rehemaministries.com.

The work at the site continues to progress slowly. The forms for the ringbeams in building 2 are almost complete. We hope to start pouring tomorrow or the next day. Most of the plastering on the walls of building 2 is complete, just the front two rooms are left and we have begun to pour the concrete floors. A couple of the team members have been feeling under the weather but still insisted on showing up and putting in a good days work. We are all feeling the pressure to get our task completed. Our goal is to have the 1st building ready for the family to move in. Adam will be staying on another month in Kenya to see the entire project to completeness. Jim Weick will be arriving Saturday to help out. The 2 of them will be team #5. We might not see the blog posted as often. Anyone else want to come out and help?

Back to Work

Monday and another day back at the job site. The team was eager to get started waiting at the gate for the matatu. That early energy faded as the day wore on but quite a bit was accomplished nonetheless. We did not have any rain today so we didn't have any interuptions to our work. The forms for the interior tie-beams in building one were removed and the lumber shifted to building two. The tie-beam forms in building two are nearing completion and we should start pouring concrete tomorrow. Screens have been placed across the gable and eave vents of both buildings in preparation for plastering. Four rooms have been plastered in building one and part of the team has started setting the forms for the floors in those rooms.

When we returned to the TI compound we were greeted with hot showers, clean clothes, and a delicious chipati and potato stew dinner. Life is good!

A perfect day

Martin's sketch of Dolly Pollock


Martin's sketch of Ted Pollock


All of the kids


The whole faimly


New record 24 in the Matatu

Today was the day we waited all week for. We went out to visit the Kids of the Kingdom. We got to the church before the family and then one by one they arrived to welcome us. Each one stopped to greet every one of us. Some where in the middle the generator, keyboard and very large speaker arrived. The church congregation was made up mostly of family, with a few friends and relatives. The service was led by Martin, the keyboard played by Bill (Martin and Ruth's son), the music and dancing led by Carolyn and Faith (Martin and Ruth's daughters) and performed by all of the children. What a wonderful, joyful service of worship and praise. It is hard to describe but something we will cherish forever.
After the service we went to Martin and Ruth's home where we were served tea and sandwiches. We then gave out gifts to each child. Leah had made a special bag for each with their name and we filled each with an item of clothing and other gifts that had been collecting by all the teams. The children were all so excited and grateful. We took individual pictures of each child so if we can read the name we can remember each one. The children all went and put on their new clothing on. They then formed a line and burst into a thank you song and dance. How much joy they have to share!
On our way home we set the record for the most people in the matatu, 24!! It was definitely a perfect day.

Saturday so much for a day off

Saturday was another day that we ended the day a little early, we stopped at 430pm to have a special treat and go out to eat. But we were able to make progress on the building none the less.

Tom and Dave, with the help of Leah, continued their work on the ring beam in building two. Zack, Ginny and Heather started to take down the wooden frames of the ring beam in building one, but the Kenyans were using them for support of scaffolding and they were afraid to take it all down and have the ring beam not be set enough to support them. So once that was taken down they went in search of other tasks. Heather helped Penny to lay out the rebar for the ring beam in the kitchen building, while Ginny and Zack worked with some Kenyan kids to sift piles and piles of sand for the plaster mix. Bev went around cleaning the place up and finding jobs that needed to be done that it seemed no one else wanted to do. Adam as always went around make sure that people were on task and if they didn't have a task found them something to do.

Since the walls were up in all the building the Kenyan workers started on the immense job of plastering ahead of them. They were able to get the outer walls in the back 3 rooms plastered and looking good.

At around 4pm things were starting to wind down and the clouds were starting get dark and move over head. So we started to make preparations in case it rained, which is sure enough did. We were grateful for the moat that had been freshly dug around the entrance/doorway to building two. We had also covered a dry mix that had been made by the Kenyans and not used hoping that it would not go to waste (we'll see how well it worked come Monday morning).

Shortly after we dug the moat and covered the mix it started to POUR! Probably the hardest and longest it's rained since we have been here. We had to wait a little while on Robert to get there so that we could head back to the compound for our dinner out.

On our way back we saw a small truck struck on the side of the road because his back tires had gone off the road. So we decided to stop and help push him out, I'm sure that it was quite a site to see four white guys stop to push a Kenyan out of being stuck (we figured it was the right thing to do because earlier in the day we got stuck for out first time on the muddy road out to the site).

After that we made it back to the compound and rushed to get showers before heading out to a very special meal at a guest house just down the street.

All in all it was a great Saturday where we were able to get work done, but also enjoy some time just spent with one another and the people on the TI compound where we are staying.


Rain delay


yes... It really was raining

The Never Ending Tie-Beam

Another beautiful day in Kitale - no rain to speak of. Work continues on the buildings with most of the visible progress being accomplished by the local masons. Team four finally finished the interior tie-beams in building one, both forms and concrete. Halleluya!! Now on to the more challenging building two. The floors in building one are ready for forms but will have to wait for the plastering to be finnished. The kitchen is also ready for the ring-beam.

On a side note, my suitcase finally arrived. It has become a running joke that whenever there was something that we needed but didn't have, someone would say that Tom has one .... but it is in his suitcase. I guess we can't use that excuse now.

Today we left work early, 5:00 pm, for a BBQ at the TI compound with most of the local missionaries and NGO personnel. As usually the food was delicious, especially the goat.

...and the rain came

Pouring the tie beams


Progress of the dorms


Mary and Ruth

We are now road building as at the end of the day we loaded up the wheel barrow with broken bricks and filled holes on the road to Martin's new home.
Dave a Tom have been working very hard to form up the remaining tie beams. In dorm one there isn't enough lumber so they have been gradually taking the planks from the scaffolds.

Now at 6:00 pm the truck arrived with more lumber. We are now able to begin forming the floors. The walls on the kitchen are to the top of the windows and doors.
The concrete mixing went well today. Each wheelbarrow of sand and gravel was level! We had a line of kids and a couple adults to hand the buckets of concrete up to our amazing team on the scaffold!(we even have four buckets).