We are all fairly well. Israel is a bit sick. It probably doesn’t help that he tears around outside most of the day in the dust and poo from various different living organisms. Samuel has been away for another 4 days trying to run some semblance of a building program. His latest pull-your-hair-out drama is the windows and doors. It was eventually agreed that all the windows and doors need replacing. He arranged a subcontract through the building contractor to get them professionally made. Both the contractor who is a Timorese architect trained in London and the head carpenter came on site to measure up the doors and windows. Now they are being delivered on site only to find that many of them are 10-15cm out in width and length. This turns a window installation job of 2 hours into 8 hours in this country. Its just a major hassle that wouldn’t have to happen if only they could use a tape measure. I will learn my lesson one day I suppose.
Friday, 20th, May, was the 9th anniversary of “The Restoration of Independence of Timor Leste”. They put in ‘restoration’ to make the point that they got independence for a few months back in ‘75 only to lose it again to the Indonesians.
The Mission Base (which is about to undergo a name change) is chugging along without much involvement from Samuel. We just check it out once a week, suck in our breath at the interesting building techniques, and go “cant wait to move in”. Check out the movie if you can wait for the download.
We still distribute some Bibles. We are waiting for a big wig in the Nazarene Church to come and talk about the design of their complex. There’s a bit of a design here. Its Samuel’s first go at using a real CAD program.
Sese, the evangelist, got a motorbike and is able to get around and visit different places and villages. He also has connections to the Catholic Bible publishing group which can give me a way in to get Bibles.
We gave Mateus a small loan to buy materials to help build a school in the mountains and this is moving along.
We are involved in other odd jobs whenever people can nail us like advice for a microfinance org on solar and battery backup power systems so remote workers can crunch numbers using excel on a laptop and print forms for village applicants.
1 comment:
Glad to hear from you all and see that things are going along well. Kitty is growing fast and has obviously won Serenity's heart. Very sweet. House looks like it's going well. Hope it will be finished soon...
Cynthia, even though you've won the kitchen and laundry as your proze, your upstairs has a million dollar view - absolutely gorgeous! I don't know how you can get anything done! I'd just be standing around all day looking outside and thinking how pretty.
Hugs to you all, Missy.
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