New Kingdom Hall 4

First of all I have to apologise for not updating you last week.  I was suffering from exhaustion.  I was doing too many long days in the full sun at over 35 degrees.  The problem was I was enjoying it and didn't realise how much it was taking out of me. 

 One day I arrived late after running some errands.  It was already very hot.  I asked the site overseer what he wanted me to do.  He lovingly asked what I would like to do to so I told him 'anything that involves sipping cocktails'.  He is French speaking and occasionally genuinely doesn't understand what I say.  He muttered 'sipping cocktails' as though he was deep in thought then brightened up and said "shifting rocks, is that like sipping cocktails?".  So I shifted rocks for the morning.  I'm here with Anna and Anna.  The Gambian Anna was on her first day on site after having her tonsils out.

I spent the afternoon shovelling concrete then wondered why I couldn't do anything for the next 5 days!

Compare this with last time, those blocks are really going up.

I spent a full day putting preservative on the wood for the roof.  It's going to be exposed beams which will look lovely.  After the preservative we cover them with black oil.

I was working with Susan and Tabby.  Susan is from Sheffield, UK and is spending a year here.  Tabby is from California.  She originally booked for 3 months but had so much fun she extended it for another month.  Now she half way through her last month she's regretting she didn't extend it for longer.If there are any single sisters (or brothers for that matter) who would like to move where there is a greater need please think about Gambia.  Check out the ratio in the Yearbook.  Look through my blog to see some of the brothers and sisters who have come to help and have had so much fun here. 

The worst thing about this work is all the protective gear we have to wear in the heat.  When I stop for a rest and take my gloves, mask and hat off I actually feel chilly.  The other nasty side effect is the amount of sweat that pours out of my gloves!

 

Sorry but you had to see that.  

 This is the inside looking from the platform area to the front door and second school.  

And on the outside we have some home made scaffolding.  It's not what I'm used to seeing on building sites coming from Europe but safety is taken very seriously.  We have safety talks every week and there's always someone around to remind us if we forget to use safety equipment.   

I went today to look at plants for the car park.  Planting seems such a long way away.

New Kingdom Hall 3

We seemed to make an incredible amount of progress this week.  As you can see the walls are going up and the area to the right of the picture has been cleared of rubble.  A lot was taken away and the rest was moved to the centre of the picture to build up the area in front of the Hall.

Thought I'd introduce you to some of our volunteers.

 Lus and Celine are need greaters from Paris, currently serving in Dakar.  They heard about the project and came down for a week to help out.

 This is Anna, a need greater from UK.   She recently moved here with her husband after serving 6 years in Dominican Republic. 

You can see the steel fixings that I've been making in the channel.  These footings are gonna be STRONG!!

 We had wheelbarrows of concrete trailing back and to all afternoon. 

 We've been learning all sorts of new skills.  This is Ben (my son) cutting steel . . .

  . . . and Yama helping with laying blocks.

 This is Chris, one of our ministerial servants.  Always smiling!

And Madeleine, one of our unbaptised publishers.

 These are the current toilets.  They have a neat system where the red bucket is filled with clean water for hand washing then the water pours into a bucket underneath which is then used to flush the toilet!  The toilets are the ceramic hole in the ground type, didn't think you'd want a picture of them. 






I just KNOW you've been dying to ask about the toilets.  This is the pit where all the stuff that goes down the toilet will go.  Apparently one side fills then goes to the other side through the holes then seeps away.   Sorry, I didn't get the details properly.  

New Kingdom Hall 2

First of all thank you so much my dear sisters for your comments and emails.  Occasionally I feel like we're alone on the other side of the planet (or even another one!) but to hear your personal experiences and words of encouragement remind me of our true united worldwide brotherhood (should be sisterhood in this case).

I'm working late on this tonight because my harddrive in my laptop died (sob!) so I have to use Terry's billion year old computer.  It won't talk to my phone so I had to transfer the photos to his phone then onto the computer, only I can't because he's gone to a meeting.  Also we had no electricity all day so I couldn't do it earlier.   This is Gambia.

I didn't spend so much time on site this week as we had our Circuit Visit.  Our circuit consists of the three English congregations and new group in Gambia and two English congregations in Dakar, Senegal.  Our CO and his wife are missionaries in between visits.  The visit was lovely.  We met on site each morning which was encouraging for us and for the brothers on site.  He was able to take us through the different features of the new Bibles which arrived here just last month.

Lets start with one of our most important volunteers, the night shift dog.  We don't see much of him, he just turns up at meal time.

The site is getting full of blocks.  Someone said they're making 600 a day.  It looks hard work.

This is the block mould, they have 3 moulds.

I haven't been involved in that so far, I've always managed to find something easier to do.  I leave the heavy stuff to the younger sisters like our lovely Yama, one of our 15 regular pioneers.  (We also have two missionaries and two regular auxlliary pioneers, so 19 in full time service.  You'd think we'd be tripping over each on the ministry but there's so much work to do we can't keep up!) 

 The sisters are a large army, here are two cutting wires for the steel fixings.  It's nice work to do in between heavier work like shovelling gravel.

Saturday was Set Setal which is the National Cleaning Day.  No businesses are allowed to open and no transport is allowed on the road.  The whole nation are supposed to clean up the streets of the rubbish they've thrown down all month.  That meant we weren't able to go to site before 1pm (Set Setal lasts 9 till 1).  By that time it was 33 (91.4F) degrees and getting hotter so we couldn't face it.  It's one thing to go in the morning and continue, but to start at that time and temperature was just too much.  Sometimes I feel such a wimp!!

Apparently they made a lot of progress on Friday and Saturday so keep you posted next Monday.   

New Kingdom Hall 1

Twenty something years ago our present Kingdom Hall was built.  It wasn't built by brothers so imagine the excitement when it was announced that we were going to leave Serrekunda Market and BUILD OUR OWN Kingdom Halls!  Not ONE but TWO!!

This is our Hall today.

And the chaos outside the gate.  We have to drive through this lot to get in.  It just isn't working any more.

 
So the hunt for land started.  Not easy.  There aren't estate agents like the rest of the world, you just have to ask around.  People who call themselves agents will take you to see land THEN find the owner and ask if he wants to sell.  Usually they don't.  When we did find land AND an owner who wanted to sell the next problem was to find the person who actually owned the land.  This could be any number of people.  An old man would die and leave his land to his 20 children.  Or to just one child who now lives in America.  Or the old guy may be still alive but has no proof he owns it.  After many months of searching we finally found a legal owner, willing to sell.  All we had to do is evict the tenant.  She said she couldn't afford to move so she was given some money.  Well, there's only one thing to do with a windfall like that . . . PARTY!!

We also had to register the land in our name.  This also took many weeks.  Our poor missionaries were given the job of crawling from office to office to get all the needed paperwork.  He would get the ball rolling then move to the next office leaving her behind to make sure they were still working on it because if not they would return the next day to find nothing had been done.  Adding to the pressure was that we sold our land almost immediately.  The new owners very kindly allowed us six months to leave the site so all the purchasing and building has to be done in a limited time.  The clock is ticking!

When the tenant moved out her two dogs were left behind.  They're delighted with their new home.  Lots of company, shelter and they get our leftover food every day.  In return they work as guard dogs (well, sort of) apparently working day and night shifts.

This is the day shift dog.

 

Unlike many parts of the world, here we have to do everything from scratch.  We can't go out and buy blocks, we have to make our own steel fixings (for the foundations), no bulldozers, diggers.  We have a cement mixer (repaired by Terry because someone put the wrong belt on and melted a pulley) and a pump to get water out of the well.  But it's mostly a hand made project.

Here you can see the steel fixing line, the area behind the wood posts are where the Hall will be, the septic tank hole, the brick making area and the palm roofed canteen.

The blocks are hand made.  They dry overnight and are stacked the next day.  I haven't been involved in that, bit heavy for me, but many sisters are being trained and are working well.  Last night at the meeting we were shown a dvd of construction projects under the fund for building Halls in areas where they can't afford to build their own.  You can tell I've forgotten the name of it.  They showed a brother making bricks and he said he had no construction experience before building his Hall and now he has a trade and can make bricks for a living.

It's a real international effort.  On steel fixing we have Haddy from Senegal, Solomon from Benin, Victoria from Sierre Leone and me from UK. 

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 It's a lot of fun but hard work because we're outside all day under the sun.  Fortunately it hasn't been too hot for the time of year (low 30's) but the sun is intense and the real heat is coming.

 Ben has been digging out the foundations. Even our CO gets involved.  This isn't just a pose picture, they were both working together and only stopped for a moment.

We're at the start of the hot and rainy season now.  So far it's been very cool for the time of year.  Please remember us in your prayers that we can keep working and bring praise to Jehovah with our new Kingdom Hall.