Friday, April 18 Michael

5:30 wake up for 6am devotions. They ring a big bell and the people make it in for morning prayers. The church building is open qnd fairly new. Not sure what the devotions were about but it was somewhere in Revelations.

We spent the moring working on the water well down at the farm. The irrigation system is a top priority as it makes it impossible for crops to grow without water. Up to this point, they have been walking pails of water up from the stream to the field. We got some good time to interact with the locals and even clown around a bit. I know, shocking that Patrick and I would clown around. Patrick helped clear some growth out of the well while I took a machete and cleared off over growth around the well. We both then took machetes to over growth and cleared a path to the road. (Cool pictures to come of machetes).

In the afternoon we cleared jungle to prepare for a pig pen. The growth was well over 6 feet high and we cleard a large area.

Cool thing about how they work, they work hard in the morning then break for lunch and rest. Then pick it up again in the afternoon. We were all about the rest!

We were going to go into the village but the truck with our supplies arrived. We took the supplies, mostly for irrigation, down to the farm so we could work on it the next day. We had a generator repaired so now we can have some light in the evening. We also bought a fufu machine for womens ministries of the Salvation Army. Fufu: take kasava and soak it water, then dry it out, then pound it by hand into a power. This machine will grind the kasava taking the pounding part out. The women will be able to produce more kwanga, a staple, and also charge in the village to use the machine.

Francis , main translator and friend, was a huge help. He stayed back in Kinshasa and made sure all of the supplies made it to us in Mato. When we left the truck it was sti!ll being worked on. Unfortunatly we could not stay with us as he is preparing to go to South Africa for some schooling for 3 months.

Pictures to come tomorrow.

Grace and Peace,

Michael