Busy Is Better Than Sick!

February flew by, partly because for two weeks of it we were so very sick! I am happy to say we are all three well. Raelee had to visit the Dr. this morning to get a pocket of nastiness drained from the tip of her finger. We don’t know what she did, she plays so hard, but man did she scream when he was squeezing all that out! I think it shocked the Dr. He just hadn’t had the joy of inflicting a little pain on the pretty princess! Kids down the block heard her screaming! So, other than that, we are good. Just very busy.

One storage building is almost finished, it looks really good. It has taken a little over a month and they still have a little to do on the inside. Christian had to fire the workers while we were sick because no matter what he said do, they wanted to do the opposite. So, they were fired for a little over a week, brought back on one condition and have worked like they were supposed to in the first place!

Our new home is coming together, Raelee’s room is going to be plastered and then we have to paint. She wants aqua with pink polka dots. We’ll see! We also have to get the kitchen done but we have a working (I use that term loosely because we still have to flush it with buckets of water!) toilet!

We signed up 50 farmers to co-op crops. We pay the ploughing cost, good seed, fertilizer and insecticide and then split the harvest. Please be in prayer for us in this venture, at times it seems so overwhelming when thinking of all the factors, namely the weather. We are just at the start of the rainy/planting season and I am nervous! Pray that all the farmers are diligent and our supervisors honest in their work. Our goal is to help these people who couldn’t buy what is needed to farm by themselves, and to teach them to put back some for seed, and to eat or sell. Most are growing rice, most of the people in our village can’t even afford to eat rice so our prayer is to help them for 3 seasons to get on their own feet by saving seed, and money and then let them do on their own. And for us to break even so that we can help even more. Ultimately, it would be so awesome to make a profit that can then be used to do other projects. To help with education, have sewing classes for women and so many other things. I have been asked to teach a skill that can be taught to others and at first I was so daunted by that, wondering what skill I have that I could teach that would be beneficial to women here. Then I happened to see on my Jinja facebook group that a lady was selling her huge stock of jewelry making supplies. I gave all mine away when we moved, thinking that women here wouldn’t need me to teach them, so I was so excited to see her post. We went and I bought all that she had, so many paper beads that she made herself, plenty to help teach someone else. I had started making the paper beads just before we moved, after our son and daughter-in-law brought me a necklace from Africa. So, thank you Lord for reminding me I do have skills that will help someone else along. I’m not sure how much graphic design I can teach in the village! But I have decided to give typing classes – they don’t teach that in schools and it hurts me everytime I see a girl here typing with her thumbs!

We also plan this month to finalize the plans on the chicken houses and make a trip to Kampala to talk with a man that has been raising chickens here for a few years. So, all in all, March is looking like a very busy month!

Thank you for your prayers and your thoughts. We also now have a PO Box so if you are interested you can email me at rhondajwelch@gmail.com and I will give it to you. We have been told that if anything makes it to us it could take a month, but it’s worth a try to see!