Day 4

Day Four

It was another absolutely beautiful day in Ntshongweni and we were richly blessed to be here serving the Lord through the “least of these” (Matthew 25:40). Today is voting day here in South Africa; you can see the lines below as people awaited to elect their local officials. Even though the cumulative effects of hard work are beginning to be felt, we were WIRED today.

We were again broken up into two groups today. The work continues on the orphan houses. The gutters were finished today and one of the pads for water containment was poured, again, in true Zulu style. The last slab for the water tanks will be poured tomorrow morning and we will install the water tanks on Friday.

Your MLC brothers and sisters were still hard at work on the chicken run today. And we were blessed to see it finally come to shape. It began with the final framing on the coop building itself but quickly proceeded to putting up the fence for the chicken yard itself. That means that we begun by putting tension wires to which the fencing itself would be attached. It was a true learning experience coming to grips with wrapping the wire in just such a way that you then could insert a screw driver to manually tighten them. The darling of the trip (i.e., our only lady), Pam Wunderlich, was right on top of the whole process of stringing, wrapping and twisting the wire. And you should have seen His Honor, Judge Schuck, who had a hammer (closest thing to a gavel here) in his belt loop and staples between his teeth. He showed himself to be a really working man!

In the afternoon, we were able to run the wire fence that was attached to the tension wires. It was quite a job to unroll the fencing and then to attach it again by adding tie wires to tie the two together. Pam and John started the project but an old friend of Pastor K’s, Fahne (pictured in a picture below with Jim Wolf of Pittsburgh), came in and blew us away. Fahne is a Zulu worker that pastor first met five years ago on his first building trip. Fahne is extremely gifted as a builder, one of those guys who works well with any tool, whether it is the right one or not. Fahne also is incredibly patient with unskilled workers, always showing us the right way to do it and with a caring style. Today, however, we let Fahne do most the wire connectors since he could do it with a simplicity of style and ease. Pam, however, connected the rest that will be underground after tomorrow.

The corrugated tin roof was attached to the coop itself as well. Ken seems to have found a niche for himself with a chisel in hand. He and a fellow from Pittsburgh put on the pole supports and then added the tin on top. Today it is visibly a chicken coop, even though the only chickens it held today were us!

We had dinner tonight at the hotel. The food was altogether good but it was the dessert that wired our own Pastor K. We had Malva pudding, a rich, gooey, sugary, mass of pure ambrosia covered with hot custard. The chef has promised the recipe to us; perhaps you will get to experience soon!

In your prayers today, please pray for Fahne. He is a great guy but a follower of the Shembe religion. Ask God the Holy Spirit to reveal Jesus to him through our witness. Also pray for continued good weather that we may complete the work that we came to do. Also, keep up the prayers for our sore muscles, they really have kept us going.