Doors and Glass Being Installed

Well, today is July 22 and work is going well. We were up again at 4:00 am Wednesday morning to burn grass and brush that was slashed earlier. That makes 4 times we have burnt this year. We will probably burn every Sunday morning and Wednesday morning until all brush is gone, which I don't see any light at the end of the tunnel. We have a lot of grass slashed and some more to slash. Janet bought two small pieces of property that connects to our property that we have to make fire breaks around. We had slashed around the first piece (about 10 acres) when she bought the other piece connected to the first piece (which is between 3-5 acres). So, needless to say, we slashed part of the first boundary when it wasn't necessary at this time. Oh well, work goes on. The rest of the fundis have arrived so we have, I think, 12 fundis here working. The boy's dorm is completed up to the ceiling and roof which still needs to be installed; the first house is near finished to same point. In fact, it should be done today to that point. The girl's dorm, being built up by the church on the new piece of property has footers completed and will be ready for pouring the floor tomorrow after we fill in area with dirt from the gravel pit.

The fundi which makes our windows and doors is here and has installed our doors, (on finished buildings) and shutters so that we can open windows. Janet has bought the glass and the fundi is installing the glass in the classroom building now. Things are really looking good. As soon as we get the glass in our new sewing room, our bulging sewing class will move to the new classroom. We have 11-12 girls staying on campus. The overflow is staying in the church. We need the dorm already, but of course it is not ready. We will be using one of the classrooms as a girl's dorm until we get the dorm finished. Another problem we have developed is that some of our sewing students are mamas and they have their baby with them; I think we have 3 or 4 babies crying, playing and jabbering through the day in class. Janet and I have been working and setting up a day care in one of the rooms at the church (in fact it was Janet's "bedroom") so that the babies can stay there during the day. We have rearranged the storage room at the church so that we can accommodate Janet's bed, the other girls beds, who is also staying in the church right now are in the sanctuary. I don't know where they will go by Sabbath. We'll see……

Oh, I did want to let you know that the posting of the blogs are easier now. It works going through Word and choosing "blog post". It posts directly to our sight after a little set up. It is fantastic. I just have to take the time and get the blogs typed up.

I just finished a book in which a quote from Thoughts From the Mount of Blessings was reinforced over and over again and I wanted to share it with you. "The Father's presence encircled Christ, and nothing befell Him but that which infinite love permitted for the blessing of the world. Here was His source of comfort, and it is for us. He who is imbued with the Spirit of Christ abides in Christ. The blow that is aimed at him falls upon the Saviour, who surrounds him with His presence. Whatever comes to him comes from Christ. He has no need to resist evil, for Christ is his defense. Nothing can touch him except by our Lord's permission, and "all things" that are permitted "work together for good to them that love God." Romans 8:28. {MB 71.2} Imagine, everything that comes our way comes through Christ first and He allows only what we can bear. When I contemplate on this thought, I realize that we have nothing; NOTHING to complain about for all things comes from Christ. His will is being done in our lives to develop our characters for heaven. If we are trusting in Him and want to do His will, we should rejoice in all things. Not saying we have to enjoy all things, but we should rejoice and be glad for Christ is working in us His will. Sure our choices changes what comes, but Christ is still in control of all things.

My prayer is that you will think on these things and rejoice in the Lord.

That is all for now, signing off in Mago….

Deniece

Busy, Busy, Busy and Did I Say I Have Been Busy?

That describes what it has been like for the last 2-3 weeks. Janet arrived with some fundis and also with her daughter in law, Antonette with her three daughters. Jason was away building one day churches for a couple weeks so Antonette decided to come and help where she can. She was a great help. Guess what she helped with? Janet brought some window shutters so that we can open some of our windows and they had to be painted with the brown oil base paint I have been painting with for the last few weeks. So we worked on that and as I said she was a great help. She did most of the painting for I was off at times doing other things that needed to be done. I think we had 40 something shutters to paint and we got them done. She also taught health classes to the sewing students.

Our sewing students graduated – we had 11 that graduated on Friday, June 25. The next day, Sabbath, we had eight people get baptized; four from sewing and I think we had a couple from Lupalilo and also a couple of boys from our carpentry class. It was great to see the commitment that was made from these young people. Janet handed out bibles and also bible studies for them to share the gospel with someone and then challenged the congregation with the bible studies also to see who will work also in sharing the gospel. She handed out over 40 bible studies just to the congregation besides the eight that went to those that were baptized.

We have nine fundis working here now and today (Sunday, July 04, 2010) we poured our second flooring in the second of our two buildings we are working on. We have brought gravel, bricks and had sand delivered to the sight so that they can work continually. We also piped down water from our spring water tap that was by the house. We have had a problem with the water. We had a diversion before our dam that collapsed and almost dried up our water before the dam. The pipe was exposed and so we built a wood barrier and put dirt behind it to block off where the water was going so that our dam pipe would fill up our settling tank. This worked for a while and then we ran into more problems. We ran out of problems again and Janet walked out to the spring and dam. We ended up with mud above our 2" pipe in the settling tank. Janet worked with it and got the dirt out, but it was slow going there for a while. But prayer and a little work got us the water we needed to finish the job.

Talking about prayer; I was thinking about that today before we finished the job. The Lord is waiting to answer our request. I was thanking the Lord for His blessings helping me with the first onslaught of water problems and then we had it again. We get tested time and again and we need to show patience and perseverance when things go wrong. I prayed for strength, He gave it to me, both physical and spiritual. I prayed for wisdom, He gave it to me and I was able to fix the problem. I prayed for patience and He gave it to me and as I was contemplating on the many blessings, of course we received more problems. But God is faithful and answer our requests if we just put our trust in Him. He is there for you also. Sometimes it seems He is not answering or listening but that is where trust comes in and waiting on the Lord. My prayer is that we realize that He is there and we just need to trust and obey.

That is it for today and I am signing off here in Mago….

Deniece