Another update on the happenings of Macha.
Yesterday the school roofing sheets arrived!!! You may not think that is a very big deal.... but...... for us it was surely "A Day of Rejoicing!!". We had a welcoming celebration for the guys as they brought the truck in after many, many delays and lots of hard work.
When we arrived in Zambia a few weeks ago we found out that we had no roof on the new school building and no money to purchase the roofing sheets. We were finally able to order some sheets last week when some money was being transferred from Holland.....which by the way got lost when it was transferred to the bank in Zambia. This seems to happen quite often when money is transferred????? The bank just says it is lost????? SOOOOOOOOO on with the story......the sheets were ordered and we found out that they were making them in green instead of the requested color, brown. Our first delay(-: They then began to make them but in brown.......but.... the entire country of Zambia was having major electricity problems. Lusaka has been "load sharing" for many months now but last week South Africa stopped selling power to Zambia. At the same time Zambia was having trouble with their Lake Kariba and Victoria Falls power stations so the entire country had no power. This affected the company that was making the roofing sheets and MANY other companies in Zambia .....soooooo..... they closed the plant that was making the sheets as they could not produce anything without power....another delay. FINALLY on Friday we got a message that the roofing sheets were finished....on the truck ........and on their way!!! YAHOO and Hallelujah!!! We also heard that the bank found the money they said was lost...PTL that was a VERY good thing!!!! Everyone was very excited and it gave us hope that maybe the school could start on the 4th of Feb after all!?!?!??! You see, we had delayed the start of the 2008 school year from 23 Jan to 4 Feb. because of the roof situation. About an hour after the truck left Lusaka we received a message that the truck with the roofing sheets on had a flat tire. In the mean time our big truck left Macha and headed for Choma...the closest town on the tar road..... where they were to meet the truck coming from Lusaka. The company that makes the roofing sheets did not want to drive on the dirt road coming into Macha.....very smart people!!!!! don't you think?????(-: The next message we got was that the Macha truck was loaded with the roofing sheets and headed to Macha....again we rejoiced and knew soooooon and very soooon we would see them on the roof at the school!!!!!!!.......only to get another message..... that it was taking them one hour to go five kilometers because of all the mud and rain and water and muck on what they call a road(-: At one point we heard that the road from Choma was closed and it surely seems like a God thing as with a few phone calls..... where some of the words were dropped ....or .....the call was totally dropped we some how got permission to go through and they opened the gate and let our truck through but all the other trucks and vehicles were sent back to Choma. Soooo, again the excitement was high!!!!!!!....they were getting closer!!!!!!....only to hear they were stuck!!!! along with four other trucks. Thankfully we have cell phones in Macha now and a team of about 30 guys were sent out to help. The team worked all through the night to get the truck out. They actually had to totally unload it to get it out. By lunch time on Sunday we had another message that the truck was out of the mud....fully loaded...... and they were moving again!!!!! By this time none of us actually believed that we would ever see the roofing sheets in Macha soon, but we knew that if it did arrive we needed to have a HUGE celebration.!! Finally at about 5:00pm we gathered a large group of people together to welcome the truck and crew into the school site. There was much shouting, cheering, jumping up and down, and thumbs up as the truck pulled in. We had some volunteer visitors from the US here that are "city planners" and they said they never saw a group of people so happy to see a truck arrive(-: I guess in the States we would not have had the OPPORTUNITY to experience all these challenges to make us appreciate it's arrival.
The sun is shining today, the first time in many days, and the men are busy putting the roof on the building. We have hope again that the school may be ready to open one short week from today. We have lots to do to get ready but God knows and His timing is perfect. He is so faithful and His provision is so great.
We thank you for your prayers as we know He does hear them and answers them. He is so faithful and even when the going gets tough or we don't see a way clearing we know He is in control and He will work everything out.......even better than we could imagine or plan. BUT the waiting and working things out is not always easy(-: Please keep us in your prayers as we continue to try to get the school open by next Monday morning. We will continue to keep you posted. Keep in touch with us. We do not have internet at the house but we do try to collect it each day.
0 comments:
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
