Month: August 2017

Unexpected Blessings

This week has been a wonderful (and busy) week on the farm! We’ve hosted visitors from America, Donny Lee and his wife, and a board member and his family. (We have never met his family before). I have chatted many times with Donny’s wife Patty and they have both been a great support long distance. She and I have become fast Facebook friends but being able to visit in person has truly been a blessing. Mike and family are a joy to be with, two teenage boys have really been fun, I miss our boys so much, they are now grown, one with his own family and both are far away. The funny and great things about them is they are so much like our own sons so Christian and I got a great kick out of being with them. They got to build tables for our Sunday School and desks for the kids at the school across the street. I think they were humbled when they visited the little mud-walled school, especially when they found out that it is a private school that parents pay for.

I don’t know how many children came yesterday, I can say a couple hundred at least and they all had a great time. Any time people come and show them attention just boosts their confidence and shows them they are worthy to be loved. I am so thankful the school let their children come!

You never know what blessings God has in store for you. I was a little stressed, and after devotion last night found the other women had some of the same concerns. You never know what to expect when meeting new people, hosting and hospitality is definitely not my calling but I got such joy cooking for them and visiting with them. They quickly became family! The two ladies won my heart forever when they spent 3-4 hours with Raelee and I at the rabbit house checking for sickness and putting meds in so many water bottles. They were such troopers and blessed me so much, We had things planned to do but life here doesn’t stop because we have visitors. I spent the night before stressing over the change in plans but finally decided I have to do what I have to do! They were great and it was such a huge help to Raelee and me! (It’s a big job caring for so many rabbits!) Patty still was able to sew curtains for our bathroom and kitchen and they will be a reminder everyday of her and this time of friendship and strengthening of our souls. Mission work can be very lonely and at times you feel like everyone has forgotten you (we all lead such busy lives), isolated because the people around you are so different and lonely for other believers so when we have times to really connect with friends who have things in common it really helps to keep going. We are very thankful to God that He sent us our new family!

Tomorrow we have to take them to the airport and send them back to the states, it is going to be so hard to say goodbye! I will be posting pictures soon!

Off With Their Heads!

We have been harvesting plants and grasses – just this week we cut our first hay and it is drying. I was sad to see them beheading our beautiful sunflowers but the birds had started stealing seeds so we decided it was time to cut them. We cut half of the stalks and dried them but we left the other half so we could give the rabbits fresh leaves for as long as possible. Raelee brought some leaves in yesterday to feed Ted and two baby rabbits we have inside and there was mold on them. We didn’t forsee that or we would have cut it all. We are now checking the rest of the leaves to see if there is any to salvage. If not we may have to either pull all leaves off the stalks if they can be used or just cut it all down and burn it. We have plenty already dried to add to the pellets, the rabbits go crazy over the sunflower heads but one feeding for five hundred rabbits and it would all be gone! We will grind the heads and seeds (of which there were many) and add a minnow like fish they eat here for protein along with another plant and make pellets with the equipment we bought for that.

We’ve harvested a lot of grass that is for the goats and bulls, Christian made a wood box that they pack the dried grass into and make bales. And this week our first hay was harvested. The rains have still been coming a couple times a week so we are debating on planting more sunflowers and hay. We have been communicating with a man that sells solar pumps so that we can put one on a well we have in the back and run drip irrigation so that we can grow during the dry months. It is a lot of work and we are very very thankful for all the help we have!

Our headless sunflowers!
Dried grasses
Packing the grass into bales
Dodo plant
Drying the sunflowers

Furniture Shopping

I’m not sure if I have ever posted pictures, I know in the early days I commented on furniture here. There are some very talented carpenters, upholsterers and furniture builders. You can find nice wood beds, metal beds, triple-decker bunk beds and more. And there is a lot of very flamboyant fabrics and shapes of couches and chairs. When we first moved here I said Elvis would love the furniture here! (If you’ve ever visited Graceland you would understand! Haha!)

“Sideboards” are very popular as most houses in rural areas still don’t have kitchens inside and this is what we would call a china cabinet. Dishes and such are kept in them. Vanity or dressing tables are very popular also. You don’t find many dressers with drawers though. Most prices are very reasonable unless you are looking for plain, more “American” couches and chairs, that can get pretty expensive. I have seen some very nice furniture I would like to have but I have a problem….can’t get anything that doesn’t come in pieces or boxed up into my house! The way our front and back “entry” area is there is no way to bring a couch or any kind of cabinet inside. That is why my husband made our couch and kitchen counters/shelves in concrete (termites are a problem here in the village so no wood cabinets)!

Anyway, here is some of the various styles of furniture found here, enjoy! 🙂