One of the big Acacia trees, (not sure of the spelling), in the backyard between the Child Center and the mission house has died. It had a parasite sort of like mistletoe growing on it but we were not aware that it was dying until we noticed the bark peeling off of the trunk. The tree was close to the cement wall and we were afraid that if we let it fall naturally it would take out a huge section of the wall. We also noticed that the fire blight had come back to one of the big mango trees behind the Child Center. We took Mr. Oldman a sack full of mangoes for his children Sunday and asked him if he would contact the man that cut out the fire blight before and see if he would climb the dead tree and top it so we could fell the trunk. Mr. Oldman and the tree cutter came today. After cutting off a few branches of the tree beside the one that needed to come down, the tree cutter proceeded to climb the tree. The tree’s lowest branch on the tree was too high to reach with the ladder so he climbed to the top of the ladder stretched and caught the branch and climbed up the trunk like a monkey. The man needed to take a rope up with him so he could attach it to one of the upper branches and we could use the truck to pull the tree and keep it from falling on the wall. The rope was a huge rope probably an inch across and 30 feet long; he wrapped the rope around his neck twice before he started climbing. I told Mr. Oldman to make him take it off because if he fell it would hang himself! What in the world was he thinking wrapping it around his neck? After he pulled himself to the fork of the tree he pulled his 3 foot long machete out of his shorts. Is he crazy? Does he have no fear; no sense of safety? I guess the saying is true, “God takes care of those that can’t take care of themselves.
The first big limb that he cut fell on the wall but it did not do too much damage. It knocked down a section of razor wire and knocked off a few blocks from the first row. After he got the rest of the limbs down Steve was able to use the electric chain saw to wedge the tree trunk and we pulled it down with the truck. Our brother-in-law Charlie gave us the chain saw; we love it!
Dawda the mason was patching whole on the new portion of the wall at the back of the property today so when he stopped by for his pay we showed him where the tree knocked the wall. He is going to come tomorrow and put the blocks back up.
This afternoon we were trying to get the tax stuff ready to pay when we realized that we had to help all the employees fill out their annual returns and that we had to fill out one for the Child Center. I thought that they were due at the end of March which made me sick! We rushed to the tax office and were relieved to find out that they were due at the end of April.
Please keep us and all of those that are working here in your prayers!
In His Service,
Steve and Kandie
