mega bits

I met a little boy at the hospital this month having a birthday while he was there...and we happened to be there on my birthday.  We got a picture together as birthday buddies...Felipe and Felix.  What are the odds of that?

Interesting story at the clinic...a mother of many many children from somewhere near Lepaterique actually came for the first time to give birth at the public hospital (the reason for finally coming in to town to give birth was to have her tubes tied.)  While there recovering, some of her family came in to town to see her...there was a truck accident and her son (late teens) was killed.  The mother's friend was unable to find the words or strength to tell her, and upon her release from the hospital with her newborn baby, brought her of all places...to the clinic to find someone to break the news to her.  Valerie ended up being selected for this task.

I saw an original Mini Cooper here, first time.

The construction on the Milk Project building is going faster than we expected, which is a very good thing.  Now I am just hoping we can get enough donations in to keep the team working through the end of the year, which was the original plan.

We are looking at quotes from a solar company here that would add panels to hopefully reduce our monthly bill.  It will be interesting to see if it is something finally that would make financial sense for us...and then to see if we will be able to raise the funds to make it possible.

Sermon tidbit from UCC this month..."Prayer bridges the gap between the fragility of our passing days and God's unchanging eternity...prayer is an inherently submissive activity.  We pray because we are in need and we must submit our needs to the Everlasting One."

The new lab for the clinic is gearing up.  We have a new lab tech hired, and the equipment is purchased...just hoping it all gets delivered and installed in time (although there is a backup plan if need be until that happens.)

The wrecked Ford coming from the US is still stuck in customs here.  They are evaluating the value of the vehicle versus what we paid to determine what taxes we will pay.  Hopefully we can pick it up in the next week or so.

We found a local place that has a textile factory of sorts based in a large home.  They have been working to print some more T-shirts for us to sell to groups and friends, as well as new uniform polos for the staff.  It took much longer than originally quoted to get them done...due to very regular power outages in the area...they lost three full days of work, plus many hours during the days they did have power.  Even when I went to pick up the order...the power was out.  Thankfully on our side of town at the clinic we have not seen outages that frequently.

We paid for Soren and Cecilia to go to volleyball camp at their school for two weeks, they are enjoying it, especially since after about a day and a half of vacation they were extremely bored.  No broken bones yet, and hopefully that will not change anytime soon.

After years of a rag tag operation to get internet around the campus, we should finally be wired to have internet in all the buildings, which should be much more reliable and easy to maintain.  The Milk Project now and in the future will benefit the most (they use it mostly for searching for new lessons and greatly in helping the kids with their investigative homework), but for every building it will be much easier for work as well.

We had one group this month, a CIY group, small in number but mighty in the work they did and helped with all around.  Third group this year...slow so far, but as of late July...we will be more regularly busy with groups through the end of the group year the first week of October.  Groups are lots of work it is true, but such incredible, encouraging, and beneficial work...it is hard to believe sometimes how much some other ministries/missionaries are overwhelmed or not looking forward to hosting groups.