Good gets Great!

Seeing the school kids’ excitement this week when their new desks arrived reminded me of how much these kids love school. Years ago, when friends of ours paid the school a visit, they asked the kids if they liked school. They probably were expecting the usual chorus of sighs and groans but were taken aback (and captured the moment on video) as the kids in perfect unison shouted “We LIKE school!” But I digress.

It was quite the procession yesterday at the mission school as the students lined up to wave, clap, dance and sing as the truck loaded with new desks slowly approached.

These desks were purchased with funds raised by students at Thorsby Elementary School in Canada. Initially, they hoped to be able to raise funds for several desks, but as the kids, their families and in fact the whole community caught the vision, they were able to fund raise for many more. Both they and we were excited to hear that in the end, they were able to raise funds for more than just several--twenty-two to be exact. But the surprises in this story don’t end here. When we placed our order a few weeks ago, we realized that based on the current price, we in fact had enough for 24 desks! How cool is that?! It’s wonderful and certainly the perfect way to wrap up a story that went from good to great. Amazing, actually.

Some of the students even had new uniforms on which they were so very proud of. We were too! A lot of work goes into the running of a school, but the reward—helping to give children hope and a future—is worth every minute of it.

Everyone pitches in to unload that precious cargo.

Hmmm, the challenge of fitting big things and bodies through a doorway at the same time.

Hand waves to say thank you from older kids above and very cute preschoolers below.

Last week, Ron and Barb (Mercy Air founders/directors) came to stay at the mission for about a week since they had a flight to bring a work team to Chimoio. Usually, accommodations, etc. are provided for the pilots while whoever chartered the flight goes about their business, but Ron and Barb decided that since they were in the area, they would rather come out here to the mission farm to work and spend time with us. While they were here, Ron got busy putting one of my kitchen cupboards together and did some unique handcrafting of some log off-cuts that no one saw much potential for. It’s not quite finished yet but it’s beautiful already and very fitting for a kitchen in the African bush!

They will be returning next week on another flight. This time they’ll bring visiting family members along to spend time with us. The ladies want to paint the walls at our house and the guys would like to carry on working on my kitchen cupboards while they’re here. More power to ‘em, I say!


We decided we’d better get the kitchen floor tiled and ready for cupboards next week. Nice, huh? ☺

Some newcomers:

A guy came to sell wild guinea fowl chicks to us this week. They’re very young and we don’t really expect they’ll survive, but the guy was very hungry and was obviously hoping to sell them so he could buy food. They’re sure are cute though.


Some sort of mud-wasp obviously figured the keyhole on our veranda door was the perfect place to build his nest. Ummmm, buddy? Not a good plan!

I should run for now since I have a campsite to finish setting up for arriving guests, a course assignment to finish, and I really need to get packing/preparing for our upcoming furlough. We leave March 10th for Canada (via Brazil) and will be traveling and sharing about the work here with the many who take the seemingly innumerable needs presented to heart and give so faithfully.

The added perk, of course, will be seeing our kids and family again. Yes. Good gets great!