Pouring Concrete

Its Monday and the job site is hopping. I was finishing the inground drainage plumbing and the construction crews were pouring concrete. The process is so different from what I am use to. Sand is brought in by a semi flat bed truck and unloaded by hand into different piles around the job site. The gravel is brought in by dump truck but I am told that they load the dump truck by hand. EVERYTHING is done by hand here. They put a certain amount of sand down on the ground first. Next they add the cement and last the gravel. Then they get buckets of water and start mixing on the ground with a shovel. After it is all mixed together, The shovel it into wheel borrows and take it to where it gets poured out. It is amazing how much they can get done in just one day! Take a look at this dudes arms. Do you think he works hard for a living? This physique is not with weights my friend. Keep these men in your prayers as some of them are Muslim and we need to show them the love of Christ with our actions and word. Have a wonderful day.

A Ride

We decided to take a little trip on the motorcycles a day this week for some relaxation and sight seeing. We went out this little dirt/sand road from behind our house and headed west. It had rained three days prior, so the road was not very dusty and was packed down. This made for a great and smooth ride. Angela took the scooter, Daniel took the little 80cc dirt bike and I took my TW. We were not gone long but had a nice relaxing ride until Angela's front wheel washed out on her in a rut. She was not going very fast and was able to save it but banged her calf on the footpeg which left a mark. Other than that, everything went well and fun was had by all.

Trip to Village

On Saturday, we had a group from the hospital go to a village to install a solar powered ultrasound unit and to visit with the medical staff of the clinic. Pastor Moisse went along also to encourage the new pastor of the CMA church there in that village. The trip took about an hour and a half to get there from Koutiala. Once we got there, we got the tour of the clinic. I wish I would have taken more pictures of the clinic. This is the only picture of us with the staff. It is amazing what the "head nurse" ( in the red ball cap) does in this clinic. He is basically a doctor. He performs minor surgery, dentistry, OB, pediatrics, and probably veterinarian service also. People come from all around to receive medical treatment of all sorts. The surgery table is made out of tube steel and all the lighting in the clinic is 12 volt dc battery lights. Keep the staff of this clinic in your prayers. All the staff is Malian missionaries. It is so cool to see the native missionaries with such a passion for their own people. Christ's love is freely given in conjuction with the physical help offered. Next weekend we travel 4 hours away to an other village clinic to install the same thing. Please keep Angela and the boys in your prayers also as I will be going over night on this trip. God Bless. Oh by the way, I decided to put a picture of what it looks like here in hot and dry season. This is a picture of Dan during a trip to the cliffs with our wives on the motorcycles. That was a fun little trip.
Thanks for all your prayers.

A Little Trip

This last Sunday, a group of missionaries from Koutiala went to Seagou to get a way for a little while, get some good food, swim, and to relax. While we were there, we celebrated Jeffrey's birthday. We had cupcakes, cookies, and cake. Jeffrey received some cool gifts also. He got a sheath made for his malian knife, a millet pounder basket, pop bottle caps ( the kids use them as money between themselves), money, the watch that he lost, and a little batman figure. We do not get to go some place to relax very often because there is really nowhere to go. When you live in a third world country, you have to just make do with what is around you within a couple to three hour distance. The fuel prices limit you also. The diesel for the truck is running around 5.00 dollars a gallon plus we have to pay for the use of the vehicle per kilometer. So a small trip can still cost a lot.
This week at the hospital, we moved the consultations from the administration building to the pediatric building which gave us more room in the admin building to put sick beds. The consultation rooms are bigger now also. On the new building we are starting to install the underground drainage plumbing. This is hot work out in the sun. The temps have been running around 110 deg. to 112 during the day. Last night we got a little relief when a "mango rain" came through and cooled things off a bit. It was good sleeping last night.
Have a great week and don't forget that God is sovereign.

Electrical Service for Third Phase

Last week the Shelby team pulled three 000 wire from the substation to the new building going up. We used Bob's trailer as a pulling rack for the 9 bundles of wire. I gave some details earlier about the ditch and so forth. We used 9 people to direct the wire into the conduit and 20 people to pull the wire through the 420 ft. of conduit. It went off without a hitch. The problem came when the wires were to short and we had to splice them all only 10 ft. away from termination. We figured out where we went wrong. We moved the electrical room down 10 ft. and the engineer that bought the wire didn't know we did. It all worked out in the end. It just took us a little longer to terminate the wire ends. Have a great rest of your week and God bless.

Not Feeling Well

On Saturday night after a large helping of Spicy Chilly Cheese Fries that my wife made, I started getting a stomach ache. That night, I didn't get much sleep. The pain persisted through Sunday and Monday so I talked to my Doctor out here and he said he was pretty sure I wasn't pregnant (the doctor is my friend Dan Nesselroade who is a OB/GYN) He did some pushing here and there and thought that I had an ulcer. So now I am laying low and eating bread and crackers. I start my antibiotics tonight for it so hopefully I will be back to working 100% soon. Please pray for strength and healing. It is not much fun being here and not feeling well. God is good. All the time.

Shoes

On Monday, one of the ditch diggers came up to me and proceeded to tell me how he blew out the front of his flip-flop (I only understood a little of what he was saying). As I was walking away, I thought I wonder how much new flip-flops cost. So I asked another missionary and he said 500 cfa which is about a $1.00. Later that afternoon I stopped the guy and handed him 1000 cfa because that is all I had in my pocket (about $2.00). He was very grateful. The next day, Tuesday, he came running up to me showing off his new pair of rubber shoes. He told me he upgraded to shoes. He was so proud. I had to think that if that was one of us, we would have at the very least went to our closet and pulled out another pair if not just buy a new pair without thinking about it. I gave him more than half of his days wages just for the shoes. What an amazing blessing just shoes can be. Lets be thankful for what God has given us and let us be good stewards of everthing we have.