Day two at Gituamba and Sunday day of rest

I apologize for not getting a post up last night. It was a long day and I was wiped out. On top of that, internet service was off and on, so I opted to do a combined two-day post today. 

Saturday was our second day of concentrated work at Gituamba. Since school was out, it was somewhat easier to work inside the buildings, and we had the opportunity to work on interior plumbing, something almost unheard of here outside of cities. With nearly 500 kids in the primary school and the daily hot lunch program, water access is critical. There is a retention pond not too far (about 1/2 mile) away, and the Kenyan women are accustomed to carrying water a long way in 5 gallon jugs on their heads. But that might work when you are making multiple trips for water for your family; it's another thing when it's for 500! Therefore, SWOK has installed 10000 liter plastic tanks (about 2500 gallons) on each corner of the buildings to collect rainwater.  It's obviously not clean, but SWOK can take care of that. They have recently installed a group of tanks to maximize water storage capacity during times of heavy rain. These will all be piped together to equalize level and feed a pump, which will fill a large tank built on an elevated platform. It's elevation will provide the head pressure for the piping we are installing around the kitchen and the dining hall. Our team had previously sent a large shipment of 1/2" and 3/4" PEX pipe, valves and fittings three weeks before leaving the US, so we had modern state-of-the-art materials to work with.  A critical component of this system is a large UZima filter apparatus that will allow all of this water to be filtered before it is used either in the cooking pots, sinks or water taps for the children to fill water cups. Once we have some local larger diameter PVC pipe tomorrow, we will bury the supply pipes and interconnect the tanks and begin feeding clean water to the kitchen and dining hall for the first time. 

A second part of our team worked aggressively to get the new classroom building all enclosed. The exterior walls are now all complete, and work will continue Monday to build the interior wall and to close in the gable ends. Then just windows and doors remain to complete the shell. 

Work continued also to put the second coat of paint on the large sound absorbing panels that will be installed above he existing classroom walls to decrease sound transmission. With enough of them now completed, work can begin on installing them this next week. 

On our return from Gituamba yesterday, we stopped for a pre-arranged dinner at Kambi Amani, a beautiful camp run to raise funds to support the Springs of Hope Orphanage. It overlooks Nakuru and the lake and was a beautiful place to have an outdoor dinner and have our evening team devotion under the stars. 

Sunday was a little later start, with an 8:30 breakfast followed by worship service in Nakuru at Trinity Vineyard church. It was a blessing to be there and have our own Kailee Keiser as a member of the praise team, to have communion and to have Pastor Edgar King bring a message on the true vine. Some of our team then went on a tour of Lake Nakuru National Park while others who had been there before enjoyed a relaxing afternoon. Pastor Tom, Pastor Mark and John Heemer began a training conference for Kenyan pastors in the afternoon, and it will continue tonight and tomorrow while the rest of us return to Gituamba.