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...
