Hungry For Life - Kenya, Seje Trip Blog

Kenya, Seje Trip Blog

Cove Community Church

Friday, May 25, 2007

The Seje blog has been updated for this past week!

Click Seje Blog

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Building a School; Changing Lives!

Talking to Wendy Brown of the Cove Team in Seje

The progress on the elementary school building is clipping along. Over the last 3 days, the team, the contractor, and the community of Seje have been able to lay 17 courses of brick. The last 4 courses will go on tomorrow and than the team will also finish off a cement lintel around the perimeter of the school building wall! If things go as planned they will begin the initial frame work for the roof and hopefully finish the building completely by next week!

Despite a couple of upset stomachs ... and one team member who has been sick the last couple of days ... Wendy stated "We are so glad that we are here. We received such a warm welcome from everyone".

The team has been able to distribute some of the supplies that they have taken along to the teacher of the school. The more time the team spends in the community the more need they are seeing. One story that Wendy told me was how the team was really affected to see what rough shape the children in the village were in. When they asked the teacher what they could do, she asked them if they could buy medicine for the children. The team purchased 60 USD worth of medication for 80 children to use over the next 3 months. The orphan girl who dropped to the ground with fatigue from malaria the other day is on the path of recovery; Wendy stated that she has more energy and that the fever has begun to go away.

Despite this being the rainy season, there is less rain in the area than in most years. The black 10,000 L tank which was installed a few weeks ago is collecting water from the roof of the church when there are heavy downpours. It is being used to supply water for the mortar for the building and for clean drinking water for the community. The results of the second geo-survey for the water well are to come in tomorrow. At the moment it is unclear whether it will be possible to continue to drill for water in the area and this geo-survey will indicate what is possible and what is not. At the present moment the team, Edgar, and the community are exploring what other possible solutions may be out there.

The second smaller black water tank was put in front of Mary's house to collect water to care for her family and the orphans in the community. She is one of the leaders who has stepped forward for many years and has actively taken care of many orphans out of her own limited resources.

Here is a picture of Mary (centre with the white head scarf) in front of her house in June 2006

with Pastor Richard (far right) and John and Sandra (HFL). She is a real testimony of showing love and compassion despite ones circumstances! Giving to others in need out of her own poverty.

I am scheduled to talk to the team again on Friday ... hopefully they will have the cell phone/bluetooth/computer networked in order to update the blog by then! If not I will post another update!
Cheers,
Tim,
HFL Project Manager

Monday, May 14, 2007

Kenyan Equator Crossings

The Cove Team has arrived Safely and with all their Luggage in Siaya, Kenya!

(Normally the team leader updates the blog but the internet connection has been quite limited and slow the past few days and so I, Tim, the HFL Kenya Project Manger, am putting together a brief update from Pete Sattler via a phone call)

"Fantastic" was the answer from Pete as to how the Cove team was doing in the rural country side of Siaya!

The team arrived and spent the weekend meeting with the communities of Siaya and Seje. On Sunday, after the church service in Siaya, the team and many others sat down and discussed the differences between Kenya and Canada. Much time was spent sharing and building relationships.

Monday morning found the team pushing one of the vehicles out of the muck on the road to Seje. Locals walking along pitched right in and helped push the car out. The day was spent working with the local contractor and they were able to lay 5 courses of bricks on the first day. (5 courses is the maximum amount of layers in order to let the bricks and mortar set in order to maintain the integrity of the building). Pete mentioned that the ladies on the team jumped right on in under the guidance of the contractor and were great at putting the mortar down for each layer!

Using a GPS system the team realized that the road from Siaya to Seje (which they travel to get to the project site from their accommodations) actually crosses the equator.

Pictures soon to follow! (hopefully)

HungryForLifeInternational