Saturday, February 27, 2010

We have a roof!!!

So today was a great day as Chuck was able to send out pictures with one of the men in the village who was coming out to get supplies for him. 

I am so excited to see the progress they have made this week.  And even today they have accomplished so much more.

So here a few shots for you to see.

By Wednesday afternoon they had this much done.

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By Friday afternoon they had this much done.

100_1989Today they were finishing up the roofing on the second floor and then starting on the siding.

Doesn’t it look great???

So here are some pictures from the inside.  For those of you who don’t know what the floor plan is, it will be hard to visualize but some of you just might like to look anyway.

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So the picture above is looking into my dining room, kitchen and eventually pantry.  On the opposite side of the center wall will be our bedroom, bathroom, schoolroom and living room (can’t see in picture).  Chuck is standing in the office taking the picture.

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This is the second floor.  Chuck is standing in the front corner from what will be a bedroom for a school teacher.  The first room down the hall will be the girls room and then the boys room at the end.

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This is the back corner of the second floor.  Standing in the boys room.

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Just another couple of views of the house.  

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Praise the Lord for all the progress all these men have been able to do.  Continue to pray for them as they work for another week.

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Making progress!!!

Since my last post so much has happened!!!  I will try to fill you in and not be too long!!!

So the first floor took longer then they expected but the flooring was put down and then the first floor walls went up.  All this took just a week to get done.

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It was so very exciting to see our house start to take shape.  Not all the interior walls were finished when we came out of the village, so Chuck was so kind to lay out some chalk lines for me to get a feel for where everything will be.  What a nice hubby I have!!!

While all the faming was going on, 3 village men worked with the thickness planer and electric hand planer to get the siding ready for the house.

DSC06198Erik spent several days working along side this guy, teaching him how to run the thickness planer.  We are very thankful for his eagerness to work and willingness to learn.

Chuck tells me that most of the siding is ready to go up now.

This past Monday was the end of our 4 weeks in the village as a family until after the baby is born.  We had planned to stay an extra week but decided that is best to be out sooner rather then later as we didn’t know what the weather would do.  This time of year is usually very wet in our area.  This makes the roads a muddy mess, making it impossible for a vehicle to get in and out of our village.  But with the last 3 months being unusually dry, the road is in great condition. (For a mountain road!)  We praise the Lord that we were able to ride in and out of the village.  I really don’t think I could have done the hike out at 33 weeks pregnant, and I think my doctor would not have been very happy either!!!

The Lord worked out all the details for people coming in and out of the village.  Adam and Robert needed to head out of the village with us and at the same time 3 men from New Zealand came into the village.  It was perfect timing.IMG_3465

IMG_3466The jeepney was loaded with 5 guys, their tools and belongings.  Plus 40 sheets of plywood that are for the second floor flooring and shutters of the house.  Along with that came some gas to keep the generators going for all the equipment.  All this was made possible by a generous gift from the people at Adam and Roberts church, Bethel Evangelical Missionary Church in Lion’s Head, Ontario.  What a huge blessing and answer to prayer that was.  Their gift also purchased the sheet metal for the window shutters and will pay for the wages of the village men that are working for us.  Wow, God is so good to us!!!

Here are Adam and Robert on Christina’s porch.  They are worn out after a week of hard work in the sun.

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Now here is their relief crew!!!

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Don’t they look ready to get to work???  I am afraid they won’t look so energetic when they come out next week!

You may recognize Bob on the right.  He is a fellow missionary that has been helping us off and on with the building of our house and Christina’s house.  He was able to greet these guys and bring them into the village for us.  Thanks Bob!

In just 4 days, these guys were able to get the 2nd floor joists up, the 2nd floor walls up, the rafters, and roofing on the first floor done and the rafters on the second floor done.  (only half the house has a second floor on it)  I will post pictures as soon as I have some but it might be next weekend.

Thank you for all your prayers.  Continue to pray for all these guys as they work.  Pray for health for them too.  Along with these 4 guys, is Erik, our co-worker, Chuck along with Ryan, a missionary that is planning to come to the Philippines to work once they complete their partnership development time.  That’s 7 guys working hard to get our house closed in!!!  God is so good.  And that is on top of the other 3 guys he already used in the last 5 weeks to help us.

Men at work

I just wanted to post some pictures of all the work that was done last week as Adam and Robert were here with us.

Here they are hard at work!

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Does that look straight to you???

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Several of the water pumps in the village were broken also.  Robert was a huge blessing to the village people as he repaired 2 pumps and took apart another one to find that it just needed to be replaced.  Just before they left to return to Manila Adam purchased 3 new pumps for the village.  Chuck hopes to get the one that is completely broken replaced before he comes out next week.  What a huge blessing this is to the people in the village.

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DSC06238Another day some men came to Chuck to see if they could get some help as a vehicle that had come into the village to get bananas had broken down.  Robert again was rather handy with knowing how to help them and the vehicle was repaired. DSC06182 DSC06187Not everything is all work.  Here Adam is learning how to play a game similar to jacks with the village kids.  They use stones and sometimes a little ball.

IMG_3343 It didn’t take long for Robert and Adam to find out that relaxing in a hammock is a very nice thing at the end of the day!100_1864 100_1863

Thank you so much Adam and Robert for all your hard work.  Thank you for the fun times and all the laughs too.  Thank you to Bethel Evangelical Missionary Church in Lion’s Head, Ontario for sending these 2 men to us.  What a blessing and encouragement they were and are to us.

So what did the ladies and kids do???

Every time we are village we spend much of our day just doing daily tasks.  Everything just takes longer to get done.

With no rain, we needed to haul water from the village pumps to do just the simplest things.  We had to keep a bucket full of water by the kitchen sink for dishes, by the bathroom sink to wash hands and by the toilet to flush it.  Plus we needed water available for baths for those dirty grubby men and children.  We also filtered water for drinking constantly.  It is amazing how much water those men can drink.  We just don’t think about how much water we use until we have to pump it and carry it to the house.  Here is Hala doing her part carrying water in a pail on her head, just like the village girls do.

DSC06275This time I decided to start to train some house help for me.  When we move into the village I will have a new baby and 5 other kids to take care of plus the task of starting language study.  I need all the help I can get.  So on Saturday's I had a young girl come to learn how to make bread and make simple meals.  We also made some cookies too.  I was able to teach her to clean the bathroom and even how to clean the floors.  What a blessing it was for me to have her there to help.  Simple things to us were not so simple to her.  For those of you who bake, you know that 3 tsp equals 1 tbsp.  You also know that 1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup equals 3/4 cup.  She did not know these things, let alone what measuring cups were.  We had lots of fun together trying to communicate.

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Jessica taught the kids every morning and into the afternoon but once she was done that she headed to our house to help out the men as they worked.

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Christina worked along side the men all day, everyday.  She was a huge blessing to them.

IMG_3431 IMG_3362The kids did their school work and then were off to play with their friends.  They made a fort, rode water buffalo, played new games and coloured with the kids.  Sophia became a visitor to many people this trip.  She kept trying to head off to visit other houses when I wasn’t looking.  She is feeling very comfortable in the village now.

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DSC06189 We were also blessed with being able to see a new baby that was born just a week before we left the village.  What a sweet little girl Queen is.

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Chuck also turned 35 years old while we were in the village.  Notice all the smoke from those candles!!!

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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Will it be a house???

Last Saturday began as a somewhat slow day for us in the village.  Chuck started with some texts and later some phone calls to see how the plans for our visitors/helpers/workers from Ontario were going to get into the village.  We had hoped to arrange a vehicle to get them in here the same day they flew up from Manila.  By noon it didn’t look like it would happen.  Then suddenly, it all come together and a mountain jeepney was available to bring them in.  By 3 pm they were loaded up and ready to come.  We figured it would take 2-3 hrs to get here.  Then at 4:15pm a large jeepney pulled up with a couple of white guys from Canada!!!

What a busy evening we had as we got them settled in and showed them around.  We were blessed with some pizzas from our co-workers, that they bought for us to have for supper.

Then the work began.  We figured it wouldn’t take too long to get the plywood down for the first floor and then the walls could get put together and up.  But that wasn’t what happened.  The floor joists had been put up back in August when Chuck’s dad was here and since then they have had lots of time to dry and curve and twist and bend!!!  We really don’t want a curvy, wavy floor.  So from there Adam and Robert (those white guys from Ontario!), began the job of levelling out the floor joists and laying the plywood. 

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After 3 1/2 days the floor was finally down and at the same time Chuck had all the main walls laid out and cut to size.  They just had to be put together.

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So today they started to put the walls together for the first floor with plans to stand them up tomorrow.

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Christina and Jessica were also able to lend a hand in getting all this work done too.

This is so very exciting!!!  We will get a house!

Please pray for the rest of our time in the village.  We leave in just a few days, (the kids and I.)  Adam and Robert also will go out of the village with us and will head back to Manila and then to Canada in the middle of the week.  As Adam and Robert leave, we have 3 guys coming from New Zealand for almost 2 weeks, plus another missionary here, Bob, and another missionary that is on his way to working full time here in the Philippines.  So with Chuck and Erik, it will be a total 7 men working on our house to get the rest of it closed in.  Stayed tuned for more pictures!

Shannon (resident cook and cleaner!)

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Siding, siding and more siding to come!

It has been a busy few weeks for Chuck and the guys as they get as much prep work done before our helpers come to put the house up.

This week the planer parts arrived that we needed to fix the thickness planer but as it started to work on just a few boards, it broke again.  We had ordered extra parts just in case but the part we needed was the one part that didn’t come!!!  Thankfully we have been able to temporarily fix it so it will work to get some work done until the 2 guys come from Lion’s Head, Ontario, next weekend.

So here is what Chuck has been working on.  This is siding for our house.  It is a lot of wood to be milled down.  100_1769

The spot that is empty also was full of boards but they were working on it when I took the picture.  Plus there is still about another 500 board feet that is still to be delivered!!!

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Here is a glimpse of some of the wood that has already been milled and cut to size for the house.  There are many piles under the house of wood to be used.

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Working hard

Just a quick update to say that the work continues on getting everything ready for putting our house up.  Chuck and Grant have been working hard all week milling wood, cutting it to size and stacking it up.

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Next week our good friend Grant heads back to Mindanao and Erik will come back in.

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It has been great to re-connect with Grant as we don’t get to see him very often.  Pray for Grant as he has been waiting on co-workers to start a new work of tribal church planting on Mindanao.

Please also pray for Chuck as he has hurt his knee.  We are praying that a day or two rest will help it to heal.  Pray for healing for him please.