The wall project is in full swing. Sixteen workers showed up this morning; this included Nazo and Mr. Iddrisu. Of the 16, six of them were women. Nazo’s wife Amina was among the workers. Red also stopped by to check on the workers. He is dying for us to pay him for being the foreman on the job. Yesterday we worked out a deal. He wants the trailer that my brother Buz made when he was here a few years ago but he never seems to want to let go of the money to buy it. In the past he has not had a real need for the trailer but now he wants to use it for a workbench to do his welding and bending projects. He tried to beat us down on the price; we told him that we would give him the trailer for his help with the wall project. That is a win- win situation for both of us.
The masons got 10 sections of the wall finished today and the “T” post for hanging the razor wire installed. It looks so good! We are so excited because it is tall enough that no one can look inside and see what is going on with the property! We hope this puts an end to people trespassing on the property. They added 40 blocks to each section. We expect them to complete more sections tomorrow because they know what they are doing. They finished the 4th section and we noticed that the wall was seriously leaning to the inside of the property. The mason who was working that section was not happy when we told him it was unacceptable and had to be fixed. The only way they could fix it was to take down 3 courses of cement block. It was a waste of mortar but at least the wall is now straight.
The workers like cold water but we are struggling to make enough frozen water to keep the drinking water cold because the electricity keeps going low and it was off for a while today. We decided that we would save the frozen water for tomorrow after the temperature gets high. The morning water will be cool but not cold. The high temperature today was 106 degrees with a heat index of 113 degrees. Nineteen people can drink a lot of water when the temperature is that high and they are working outside all day!
Kyee, one of the Church members from Kulkpeni stopped by this morning. He is deaf and a little slow mentally. He brought his bicycle for us to look at. He had made many repairs to the bicycle, he had the fork and the shaft that holds the seat welded, the seat was worn, the head light and generator were missing. Steve was going to give him the money to make a few additional repairs until he found out that the bicycle had no brakes! None! At that point Steve decided to just give Kyee a new bicycle. We had bought a couple extra bicycles for the evangelists and Church leaders so he got one of them. When Kyee left the mission house he was all smiles. We told him to take his old bike and use it for parts because the tires were in pretty good shape.
Thank you for all you do for us and for the work!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
