The New House in Process!

Bella is now 9 months old!

Well the new house is underway! The team was delayed until late September, and the containers of materials had their own delays, but God has worked the miracle of having team and containers all arrive at Cavango at the same time! We have had a wonderful two weeks with the team - an encouragement to us in every way! Below are some pics of the building progression. It is just amazing! Well - annoyingly blogger loads ones photos in reverse order - so you will have to start from the bottom and go up to see the progression! Sorry, I don't have time to rearrange them all!

Cavango - Some Before's & Beginnings of the house site!

Well, we have been for two 1-week long stays at Cavango and have been able to get some men to start cleaning up the old foundation upon which we will build our house. A team from the US is coming in July-August to do the building, but the slab has to be ready when they arrive! We have also planted some citrus trees and started cleaning the whole yard and fenced a garden area - so it's starting to like something more than a a pile of brush!! Thanks for your prayers on our behalf!

This is the site of the house - just looks like a pile of brush - Where's the house??

Above is the start to the water pipe trench

Below is one of our newly planted citrus trees

Below is after one week of work - there is a foundation and a decent floor still there!

Below is the original water tank for the house - it still is water-tight!

Above is the "back-yard" and the fenced area is where we will have our garden

Bella - the new puppy!

Some have you have been asking for photos of Bella - so here are a couple! She was born Jan 13th 2009.

Back in Angola

We arrived back in Angola in late January after a safe and uneventful drive across Africa from Johannesburg to Lubango! We actually entered Angola in convoy with two other 4x4 vehicles and had some "good" mud to go through about 5 mins into Angola! We all made it without getting stuck! Check out Brent Mudde's video on Facebook if you want to see footage.

Since being back, we have been primarily preparing for our move to Cavango, a mission station that was destroyed during the war that is located in central Angola. A clinic building has been rebuilt there - in fact if you look at our first blog entries you can see some pictures of that process as we were asked to help out with that reconstruction. Now we have been asked to live there permanently and build "our" house there, helping out with community development, primary health care and church work. The "job" is far bigger than either of us, but God is not intimidated by it! Pray for us to have His same Passion for those who don't know HIM!

We took a trip to Cavango in early Feb to be introduced to the people and the local government - we drove 12 hours there one day, had a day at Cavango, and then drove 13hours back to Lubango. It's is only 300 miles away! We had a few problems with the car and a few miracles to fix them so all we could say is the road is bad, but God is Good!

The Buy a Brick Campaign!!

Probably most of you who have seen or spoken to us know that we are burdened with the need to raise funds to build medical staff housing at the CEML(the Evangelical Medical Center where we are based from in Angola). The CEML is a busy full-scale hospital that currently has only one fulltime physician. We get help from many short-term MD's and students, but no one has come fulltime to stay for more than a month! Our one fulltime physician has been uncomplaining and tireless in his efforts to keep the hospital running, but...... we NEED more fulltime physicians! He will run out of gas eventually! BUT we have a catch twenty-two here in that if we were to get more physicians - we have nowhere to house them!! So what we really need is more housing and to borrow a famous line from Kevin Costner, if we "build it they will come"!

So we are part of Advancing the Gospel in Angola's "Buy a Brick, Build a Home, Bring more Doctors to Angola" Campaign. If you would like to know more about this please contact us at the above email or phone or visit our website by clicking on the hopeforangola link above!

This is a picture of the CEML campus

This is the outpatient dept. with pt's waiting to be seen.

This is a photo of typical construction in Angola

Below is a "good" quality home in Lubango - still no electricity or consistent water and would rent for $1000 per month. Not really appropriate housing for the long haul!!

Please won't you consider being a part of the cure for the many helpless and needy folk who live in Angola with next to no healthcare by contributing to this building fund and allowing us to provide adequate housing for those who feel called to help out by donating their personal skills and life! Click on the link to Hopeforangola and join the team!!(fully tax deductible)

Psalm 127: 1 "Unless the Lord builds the house, it's builder's labor in vain."

Peter's waste-oil heater for a brick kiln project

Peter has been spending his days here in Greensboro working on a waste-oil burning heater that he plans to use to heat a brick kiln in Angola. In Angola, they dump waste engine oil on the ground and contaminate the environment, and trees for fire wood are scarce due to the enormous population overload around the cities, so using used motor oil as the fuel for a kiln will be a benefit all around!

He's had it burning with great gusto using cardboard as a wick - now he is working on making a more permanent wick so that the heater will burn for a long time without needing constant tending!

Our quick trip to Capetown! August 16-20

After the reunion week, we traveled Peter and I traveled to Capetown with Mom and Dad as they wanted to visit some longtime friends, Paul and Elfreida Bremer. Uncle Paul is on the far left and Auntie Elf is on the far right in the photo below. Some of these photos are courtesy of Ilse their daughter, with whom Peter and I stayed.
Uncle Paul and Auntie Elf again!
The Bremer's showed us all around Capetown and one morning we had an outing to the National Botanical Gardens - Kirstenbosch. Below is a Bird of Paradise.
This is a Rocket Pincushion(a variety of Protea)
This is the King Protea!
Lion's Head, Capetown
Table Mountain - we were blessed with wonderful warm and clear days while we were there!
We even saw a Wright Whale in Hout Bay! Very cool!