Last year, right before graduation, the government had gotten into our pocketbook about bunkbeds. Now it seems that they just don’t have enought to do but to try and figure out how to cost us more money.
Their first demand is that all schools convert from cooking with wood to cooking with gas, and this must be completed by the end of January. We got this notification this week. We have been buying large quantaties of fire wood so we don’t know if there will be much differnce in the cost of using gas.
This is an important move for the government since large forests have been cut down to provide fire wood for a nation that has no other means of cooking. Most of the flooding that we now experience is because of hundreds of acres of bare land left that was not replanted with trees. Wood is made into charcol and everyone has a “gerry stove” to cook on. I don’t know how they will enforce this for the general population, much of which is very rural.
Their second demand is that we hire two more teachers because they feel our teachers are over worked. Hand in hand with that they are changing the curciculum, so we now must buy all new materials too.
We did not plan for more teachers when we began building the new teacher’s housing. Now we will have to build at least one more unit to house these two new teachers.
Work on the new teachers housing is moving ahead slowly. This week the steel framework for all the doors and windows was delivered. Glass is added to them after all the painting is done.
When we arrived at the compound on Aug 2010 Domenic had a suprise for us. He had started a school for 20 kids under the trees. One of our all time favorite pictures is of the kids practicing writing in the dirt. All 20 of them graduated from our school and went on to graduate from High School.
This week Blantina showed up back at the school to join the Rescue Center. She was one of those first 20 kids who were writing in the dirt. All of our kids receive a firm foundation in the Lord at the school. When her father wanted to circumcise her and give her out for cows she ran away. She knew where she would be safe. Domenic will test her and see if she should be in the sewing program for a year or go directly into the Bible School.
For all of you that have been supporting the kid’s program, this is the fruit of what you have been doing. We can’t thank you enough for your support for the girls and kids.
To begin the year there are 53 girls in the Rescue Center and 54 in the Bible School. 36 are from other parts of Kenya. There are currently 27 in the Bible School in Ol’Gulului. These figures will go up becasue the vast flooding has kept students away. There are 300 in the Kids’ school, that figure never changes. We are excited about what the Lord is about to do in this comming year!
In the Service of the One who has more than enough for any situation!
Harry and Kathy