Wardrobe Cabinets September 2012

It has been an amazing summer in Huruma.  First, we had a team of 29 descend on Kenya with a painting passion.  We painted nearly 15,000 square feet of raw masonry walls.  What this entailed was scraping all the walls down to remove overspray, then applied one coat of sealer, then two coats of "Mellow Yellow".
In August, a group finished up some areas that we could not get done, plus repainted the chapel with beautiful colors to brighten up the place.  This room really needed a freshen up...
Then in September, I returned with three co-workers to assemble and install 60 wardrobe cabinets for the boys dorm.  This project took nearly a year from ideas to reality.  We finished cutting all the Melamine in January, crated all the nearly 700 pieces in two large crates and waited for the paperwork to get processed to allow shipment into Kenya.  After hundreds of e-mails, many phone conversations and mountains of paperwork and inspections, the crates left Chandler for a "Forty Day boat ride to Kenya..." the first of June.    Well, that 40 turned into exactly 90 days and we finished on my 66th birthday on September 18...
What a blessing to finish a very long project, and our reward is in the faces of every boy in that dorm.  They are thrilled to have a "home" for their belongings.  What a joy they are to us, knowing that we have provided them with a sense of permanence in their transients lives.
Below are some of the pictures that we took during our 3 days of assembling.  As you can see, we had a lot of boys under foot most of Sunday afternoon, then we were helped by some of the college students, who had Mon/Tues off and gladly came to help out.  I don't know what we would have done without all their help...They were such a blessing to us.  And they thought they were the ones who got a blessing...
To all my fellow co-workers of both summer groups...The Joy of the Lord is in that place.  Every time I would walk through the Cornerstone wall and read all our writings, God bless each and every one of you for your hard work and gifts to the "Kids".
And a very special thank you for my three co-workers in September, Michael and Cheri Bond and George Stoffan of Red Mountain Woodworking for all your sweat equity there.  I will never forget our time together...
Also, you should know that all these cabinets were all from donated material.  That is due to Loren Olsen, a dear Brother at Red Mountain Woodworking.  He then received the material and donated all the labor and his shop to cut all 700 pieces back in January.  He then paid for George to join me for all the assembly.  What a guy!!!  All the connecting hardware was also donated by Kevin at U. S. Industrial Supply in Tempe, another great Brother.  The Melamine was given by Chip at Spellman Hardwoods in Phoenix.  My gratitude to all these fine business who stepped up and joined us in this great project.  Truly God helped us in the shipping to get it there in one piece and great shape.  To God be the Glory...

Wardrobe Cabinets for Huruma...

Safari in the Mara 2012

We traveled to the Maasei Mara by road again this year.  Nothing has changed much in the road...still bumpy in spots, still dusty as always but the reward at the end is worth all the sore butts, neck and back from the six hour journey out to this heavenly part of the world.  We were treated to an abundance of animals, with more elephants, giraffes and lions than we have seen before...There were only four of us in the vehicle this year, so the manuevering was easy.  The weather was superb  and beautiful sunny days gave us lots of opportunities.  Joining me on journey were George Stoffan, Michael Bond and his wife Cheri.  Together we had an amazing time looking at God's wonderful creatures...Enjoy.

Boys Dorm July 2012

This years' work project was the painting of the new dorm that all the boys had moved into late last year.  A group of 29 from Cornerstone gathered in early July at Huruma to finish out what we had started the year before...to give the boys a more homey, personal look to their rooms.  This is the first time in their lives that they have had their own beds and not share it with several others.

When we arrived, we found that Kenyan construction finishes were not what we are accustomed to here in the US.  Overspray from a masonry coating on the ceilings was all over the walls.  We started at one end of the dorm and went room by room, hand scraping the walls in preparation for the primer that would follow.  I am so thankful that our group didn't snivel one moment...they all saw the task clearly and got right to work...Praise God!!!

Next, we applied a primer followed by a beautiful Sunny Yellow.  We scraped the nearly 15,000 square feet of wall space, primed one coat and double coated the yellow top coat...That's a lot of work.  As you can see in the photos, the transformation was amazing, going from a drab gray dunguen feel, to an bright, cheery, vibrant look.

As you can see in the pictures, the older (High School) boys got a blue accent wall in each room.  The younger boys got a Brilliant Green color.
What an amazing transformation...
I am so grateful to be part of our group...what we did there in July and August was memorable.  It truly changed all our lives.  The bottom line...we gave the boys something that they will never forget, and they are still talking about it today in Huruma...

Dormitory Construction

As you can see, the present facility
is far overcrowded.  Sometimes there

are over 50 children in one bedroom.  In the
boys area there are 7 sets of bunkbeds 3
high...21 beds in the size a room appr. 15 x 20.

That's a lot of kids...

A dormitory is under construction.
Everything in Kenya is built out of
masonry.  Wood is scarce so some form
of rock and mortar is used.  In the dorm, the walls are stone with mortar and the ceilings are poured concrete. 

Our job was to remove the vertical support pieces.  They use a maze of poles, all tethered together for strength.  The quickest way to remove all this is to beat everything apart with heavy crowbars...  Our one man wrecking crew was Jeff Forney pictured above.  Just move aside and he will take it from there.  When he gets finished, we go into the room and remove the piles of debris that he has created.  Go get 'em Jeff !!!

You can see the remarkable progress is just three days of work.  We were able to clean out 2 large dorm rooms, a dining room complete with kitchen, a dorm supervisor's room with bath, the hallway and main entrance to the dorm wings.  In the photos above are a wonderful crew of able bodied men and women.  I am thankful to have spent our days helping to further the progress of the dormitory construction.  The cast of characters above are, Jeff, Linn, Rhena, Nathan and Wes.  

Safari in the Masei Mara 2011

tWe were treated to a Safari midway through our 14 days at Huruma.  We traveled some 5 hours to the Masei Mara Preserve via safari van.  Now, this just isn't a casual 5 hour drive...This is some of the worst ashpalt the world has ever seen...I give it the MHPPM award!  (That's most huge potholes per mile.).  It gets so bad, the drivers leave the road and have made a dirt path beside the highway...Go figure.  At any rate, when you arrive, you are delighted that it is over...Sore butt and stiff neck aside, what you see here is nothing short of spectacular...

The second day out we were treated to the annual migration of the wildebeasts and zebras up from Tanzania in the south...It is simply amazing to see the hills full of animals all moving for better food supply.

 

 ENJOY...