Chronicle for 2010-07-14

I was really tired today, it was hard to get up. The morning started with Nathan trying to run down and catch a rooster that was crowing early. His attempts were in vain as the rooster could outrun and out turn him, but it did add to some comic relief for the day.
The electrical in the warehouse was finished by mid morning. Brittany filled the dehydrator with some fruit and it will be interesting to see how the drying process goes with all of this humidity in the air.
Steve and I headed down to start running wire in the new staff house. This will be the sixth staff house on the campus and has been built from ground up, where most of the other staff houses were existing structures that needed to be rebuilt. Steve is an electrician and it was fun to learn from him. The house was full of people doing various things, except for Steve and I, everyone was part of the local work crew. Along side us doing electrical, there were people plastering block walls, installing windows, and various other activities. It was the Liberian version of Home Makeover. It is amazing what these guys make do with. The most impressive adhoc trick I have seen yet is a c-clamp made out of rebar. Something else i learned yesterday is all of the block they use in the house is made on site, i plan to take a look how they do it in the next few days.
Lunch was with the teaching staff and students again. We had palm butter with fish (talapia harvested from the fish ponds). As we were finishing lunch there was a huge downpour of rain. All of the roofs on the structures are made out of zinc sheets and when the hard rain hits them in a large room it is deafening, could not even hear the person sitting next to me.
Sheri shared some great news with me at lunch. Much of the land in Yekepa is leased by a large mining company. The local general manager stopped by to visit Del today and he brought him over to meet Sheri. They were discussing her library project for www.lovingthroughliteracy.com and he loved the idea. In fact he donated the land and the shell of a building that is on it for the project. In fact he was so enthusiastic, he also wants to look at replicating the library in a few other Liberian communities where the mine operates. Praise God! I have offered to help Sheri build out a long range plan for the program so we can ensure it will be sustainable and have the long term support required. I plan to sit down for a few hours with Del and Becky to make sure we understand the hurdles of staffing and running the library here. It is awesome to be partnered with such faithful and visionary people as Nils and Sheri Wang.
Tonight we are headed to bible study with Nathan and Julia (one of the professors here). More to come later....

Sent from my iPad