Working in a strange place, with a different language, a completely different culture is always a challenge. When we say “yes” to God, agreeing to follow Him anywhere (whether that is a foreign place, the grocery store, or the next door neighbor), to love the children he loves, we will face challenges. How we handle them changes us. And it changes all those around us. We truly become the hands and feet of our precious Lord Jesus. Philippians 2, says of Jesus,“He had equal status with God but didn’t think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a slave, became human! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn’t claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life and then died a selfless, obedient death—and the worst kind of death at that—a crucifixion.”
Miguel:
Had a rough day today (Wednesday)… confusion, changing of plans and missed communication. But first, we praise GOD for another day of life and all the blessings with in it!
Good news first. Desire arrived today! Mr Dale was able to connect with him this morning and to our surprise, he was on his way down from Kibuye, an answer to prayer. Thanks to GOD! We planned to shop for materials this afternoon, but that was postponed to tomorrow morning at 9 am and HAU arranged for a large vehicle to deliver all the steel pipe to our site.
To understand step-by-step how they built the Kibuye structure, Desire and I went over the construction of the array and I feel we have a good game plan. He plans to bring a team of 4 guys with him next week and estimates it will take 3 to 4 weeks to build. We spent the rest of the day in the field marking boreholes that need to be [corrected]. Yes, unfortunately there are many! The holes are finally dug, but not quite to standards. It will take at least another day to get them corrected. We were stressing the importance of having the holes line up perfectly and corrected north to south line up but, had no way to check east to west until they were finished. Found out late this evening that most need to be corrected. I will get this issue corrected ASAP.
I’m very great full to have Desire here to help translate and to explain our standards. He shares our desire for excellence and knows how to communicate it well. As we talked about the day, seems like the diggers I’m struggling with are the younger guys. I feel we need to remove them from the team as they are dragging the good diggers down.
Another’s issue we confronted is “sono tube” size. Specs call for the posts to be set in 24” x 24” x 36” concrete foundation. They started building 30 cm by 30 cm which is about a foot squared. By a meter deep. This is what they did in Kibuye. But, there is concern about the difference of quantity of cement that will be needed. Michael suggests we keep to specs. So that was the final decision. Passed the info to Gaspard and now we are all on the same page!
Please continue to pray for us. Feel the whole team here had a stressful long day but was grateful for Mr Dale and Desire’s company over dinner. We even had experimental chocolate chip cookies for dessert! And, some delicious mango!
IMANA ishimwe!! (Kinyarwanda language for “God Be Praised”!
Pray for Miguel, Desire, Gaspard, Jean Baptiste, Nora & the girls, the workers at HAU:
-Clear communication across language barriers
-Humility for all, no offenses, and all staying close to God
-God’s strength to overcome diverse and difficult circumstances, He has all that each person needs
-Schedules
-Wisdom, grace, love, humility to serve
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