Hamburger Help Us! - Friday in Kenya

We were all back together at work today. The roof needed to be completed, cabinets made, a tire swing hung, and the electrical stabilized. It appeared that many of us were tired today. I, for one, slept about two hours, so most of the morning was a struggle to stay awake, let alone not cut my hand with the saw (as I saw a couple of guys almost accomplish).

Something you should know: there were two work teams this week. The first included the roofing team: Gunnar, Shawn, Ron, John. The second team included the more highly skilled guys - Dean, Ken, and Kyle under the supervision of Bill Deetjen. We also had two overseers, who worked diligently trying to be sure that the team had everything we needed as soon as possible (which in Kenya time took longer than some desired) - this included Bob and Reuben. Those two guys gave up the joy of working with their hands for the sake of administration and finance. Without these two men none of us would have accomplished anything. We are grateful.

Our team (Dean, Kyle, and Ken) greatly impressed Bill. He was not sure what to expect from a retired teacher, pastor, and restaurant owner. After five days of working together, Bill had his human relations manager FedEx three applications for employment to us. He is quickly trying to acquire us for his construction team back home. Bill could not believe our level of skill or our ability to focus and accomplish the job. He trusted us, and often times in the middle of the job he would drop his head and walk away from us - Dean and I were convinced that his absence was due to his deep trust in and amazement of our abilities. Unfortunately, we had to explain to Bill that we are unavailable for hire due to our current vocations. He seemed disappointed but ultimately in agreement with our decision "not to quit our day jobs."

We finished the roof today. It looks great. The ceiling is ready for hanging, electrical is roughed in, and Papa Bill's Village is completed. Also, Ron Russell built two cabinets for the boy's dorm. This will assure each student a spot for their clean clothes and other personal belongings. We were all very impressed at how many Kenyan boys joined Ron in building these shelves. At one point 8 young men were gathered around Ron measuring and cutting. This was a common practice throughout the week - the boys were very interested in helping us and learning some new skills for future use.

We went high-class for dinner - Hamburger Helper! Ken Carlson brought several boxes from home, and Doug, our amazing chef, cooked this up for us. It was delicious. We combined "the helper" with toast, and I was reminded of the old days when my mom was out-of-town. We shared our leftovers with Doug and the other boys, and they seemed to love it.