More about our new life

Having a good day today. Here's a little more of an update.

The plumbing is all fixed except the drain for the kitchen sink. It needs replaced. Monsier Laurent (the plumber) said he'd have it done tomorrow. We also met our landlady ("proprietere"). A very nice, young businesswoman who let us know that all the charges for the plumbing would be taken care of.

Yesterday, we had a great time at the beach... a new beach called "Santa Clara" to the north of Libreville about 25 minutes. Our car worked fine on the way there, but had issues on the way home. Couldn't get it above 2000 RPM without it starting to act like it was running out of gas. I'm going to replace the 2 fuel filters and the air filter. I think there is also a problem with the fuel injection pump- perhaps just a seal. Last night, about 7pm, a car mechanic stopped by to verify that this is the issue. So... add that to the "to do" list.

Today we went to a church worship service. Very excellent worship in music and I understood about 1/3 of what the pastor preached on. It was a church of about 500... and very hot. We enjoyed it and hope to return to worship there again. The assistant pastor got up at the end of the service and scolded the congregation for showing up late... most of the church showed up at 8:30am instead of 8am. Us? We were there at 8:30... oops! I'll blame it on our hosts who said that would be a good time to get there. The assistant pastor said that many in the congregation have children in school and they wouldn't dream of getting them to school late, so church should be no different! AMEN! HA!

This afternoon I painted the chair/desks that the 6 kids will be using in the classroom at the guest house. We also moved around some furniture. Now, I'm able to take a little break and check email. There are 3 other couples at the guest house today. They're all on their way down to the Bongolo Hospital. All of them would prefer to take an airplane ride with me but... oh well! All in God's timing.

I need to tell you about a meeting that I had with·.. Pastor Albert from Lope, Gabon. He is a church planter with the C&MA church there. I was introduced to him and he responded that he'll be happy to meet me at the airstrip in LOPE someday. I asked him what they do when someone has a serious medical condition there. He said that they wait at the train station for transport to the eastern Gabonese city of Franceville. I asked him if the train comes every day. He said "no, sometimes everyother day or every third day". He then went on to tell me that just in the past month, a small girl died in the train station waiting for help to arrive. I told him that perhaps this would, one day soon, become a story that would never be retold there.

So, we continue to ease into life here. A lot to do just to get settled to the new pace of life and new routines. This week:

-Fix car (new filters, wash job, etc.)

-Overhaul a washing machine for use (there are 3 broken and unused ones at the Bible college- I hope to get one working)

-Homeschooling begins Tuesday morning!!!

-Construct a screen for our front door. Airflow through there is key, but without a screen, we must keep it closed to keep mosquitos out.

-Seal around the door in the boys room. We have a bookshelf infront of it (for security- we don't use this door), but the door has a 1/4 inch gap off of the ground. We think we saw a mouse the other night- may have been a fast moving cockroach.

-Get a cat to control rodent/bug problems

-Get a plant to spruce up our kitchen area

-Get internet service at our home

-Get cell phone service (we're borrowing one at this time)

-etc...

Nothing happens fast here. That's fine with me... I swear I'm still jet-lagged- it seems to hit in the middle of the afternoon... certainly it's not old age... HA!

Lot's of love,

Steve