Today is Thursday and we have finished the gutters and the downspouts!!!  Believe it or not, we had just dismantled the scaffolding and were packing up everything, and it started to rain.  Very big drops at first and then the heavens opened up.  We all stood back and proudly watched as we witnessed the gutters and downspouts being used for the very first time!  God in his ever wonderful ways allowed us to admire our handiwork firsthand!  Truly amazing!

We went into town again today and this time we visited the hospital.  We went to the children's ward and gave out soft stuffed animals to all of the children.  Their smiling faces were wonderful.  I helped with homework again today and read a story to the kindergartners.  Some team members took naps and rested up. 

Our team has started working on our "mural".  It was great fun during our brainstorming session late last night, putting all of the ideas together.  We're pretty proud of our sketch, so far.

Tonight, we had dinner at an Italian pizzaria.  The menu said 38.95 for all you can eat, so we decided to try it.  (Okay, it was 38.95 Rand, which amounts to about $3.89 apiece!)  They brought out pizza after pizza and walked around the room, offering various slices to whoever wanted more!  Some interesting ingredients on some of them, but all very delicious.

As Gene's note said, we are unable to tour the gold mine, as we had hoped, but don't worry.  We are definitely NOT bored.

We may have time for one more note before we leave South Africa.  It has been a wonderful journey in so many ways, and we are all looking forward to sharing our stories and photos with all of you.

  

Update on the war with bees and other comedy

A project Brian hopes to complete this week included tearing off old rain gutters, installing galvanized facia and gutters. Most of the team prefers feet planted comfortably on the ground. But a S African mission trip isn’t about comfort… But seriously, on scaffolding, 22 feet in the air, wasp nests and a corner bee hive home (to our count) to over 3.1 million African honey bees.

Presenting the greatest bee/wasp challenge is 15 feet on both sides from the corner. Brian or Bill tried filling the crack with insulating foam one night when the bees were calm. Didn’t work, by morning the bees had eaten through 3 inches of foam and actually pealed it back like it was on hinges. And I think they were mad. Another night, Brian placed a smoking suppository in the metaphoric crack of the hive. Sure, by day break it had killed 273 bees but 3.0078999 million survived.

New pictures on www.photobucket.com/africa2009 will show that some men are brave manly men who only need jeans and a t shirt to hang gutters with lightening quick stinging creatures. Other men, like, oh, say ME, had to don jeans, a winter coat liner, a fabricated netting, ball cap and welding gloves before scaling the piped structure. Can you say wussie man?

Really, I hadn’t planned on contributing this close to bees. Minutes before, both Brian and steady Bill had been stung twice each. So whaddya do? You step up with a suit of bee armor and work side by side with a missionary who seems to be more concerned with completing in time to grocery shop for the orphans. Hmmmm, perspective…

Niehoffs and O’Tools

Cumulatively, I’ve known these heroes’ for only three weeks. Two last March and my first week at present. It’s very cool to see how their behavior styles and spiritual gifts complement each other.

With complete confidence, I can say that The Pines in Welkom have THE BEST people here for God ‘s SA work!

Randomly Light Recollections

• I sampled a traditional African meal in Thabong. Described by DJ in video I’ll post when I have Iowa internet.
• I’m not a fan of eating chicken heads and feet. Although I REALLY only swallered enough of something to expose a clawlangee bone. Then the head. A whole new version of head trauma. A local therapist and prayer is helping purge the memory of head gnawing and realizing only the right eye was missing!!!
• Team member Bill is leading in two Oscar categories, “most injuries” and “closest to meeting Jesus”
o Praise God, he survived an electrocution from 220 volts. He asked Pastor George 3 times if the power was cut off before cutting the wires. Praise God that Bill did not poke Pastor George with the end of the hot wire
o Monday, he bent back a fingernail. Brian swiftly returned it to place with a momentary flash of pain and facial bewilderment from Bill.
o Also Monday, Bill received angry admonition from a wasp. Nearing the top of the scaffolding, carrying tools with one hand, the wasp sank nature’s drill bit directly into his finger. Eight hours later, his whole hand is still swollen.
• Team member Sara maintains a distant 2nd place.
o Metal facia opened a small finger wound and South African bandaids were tested.
o While playing with the O’Tools 1 year old German Shepard, Vlad, this pup had little discernment between collapsed ball and Sara’s finger. The dog chomp left a puncture hole which would heal much faster if only her teammates would stop chucking rivet sticks into the puncture.
• I eat bread crust now rather than feeding it to the dog.
• I ate a mango
• I ate Bobootie for the 2nd time. It’s hamburger, carrots, rice, coconut, bananas & chutney. Pretty good stuff!
• I have a gecko on the inside of my curtain. Rather than an annoying British accent, this one speaks the local Sesotho.
• S African ants bite…hard!
• Children, missionaries, the team, dirt bike all herded cattle off the property last week. Video forthcoming.
• Lehlohonolo, my special little guy, helped me today drilling into and anchoring concrete bolts for shelving in a walk in safe. Awesome, Awesome time together!!!

Despite being on the go here and with limited access to the internet, I truly, truly appreciate hearing from you. Thank you so much!

We hope to take a couple of side trips before we leave. Brian is trying to get us down an active gold mining shaft. Sounds like it would be a couple miles down in the earth. Also, an animal park on the way to the airport. Both are maybes and it will be OK if the trips do not shake out. Cuz we’ll have more time at The Pines, with the Niehoffs, OTool’ and the children.

Gene-o

Sorry for the delay in updating - there have been problems posting.

Day Five:

Ah, it's Friday. Our first week in Africa is nearing the end. We spent the day at one of the local churches. Our task was to paint the inside and outside -- or at least the tallest walls so that we could reach it with our trusty scaffolding from the Pines. We built the scaffolding and then started scrubbing the walls with "sugar soap". I'm not sure if it is actually made from sugar, but the honey bees I met while I was up on the scaffold sure seemed to like it! I'll tell you, we had some fearless team members -- either on the scaffolding or balancing on ladders about 28 feet in the air! One of us even had a somewhat shocking experience -- even after asking 3 times if the power was off! It does make for a great story of our experience -- but not the kind you would expect to tell! Anyway, we actually did get the entire inside of the church painted on Friday, and we replaced a ceiling tile (Now that I think about it, we must have sealed in the family of bats that lived there. But, I was told that I didn't need to worry about them because they were "fruit" bats and were not carnivorous!) And, we built and hung a video screen. The inside had been white, and we painted it an off-white color which really made a difference inside.


Day Six:

We headed back to the church to work on the outside of the building. We had several additional helpers from the congregation, so Sara headed inside to help scrape the stray paint from the wood, and others were helping to clean the carpets and put everything back together for the service on Sunday. The scaffolding was reassembled and the outside of the church was scrubbed and the painting began on the high wall. Of course, there was another honey bee hive to worry about, but, amazingly, they were able to paint around it.

Bill got to visit the home of one of the parishioners and took a tour with another. Sara went out to tea (actually coffee) and apple crumbles with Val (who we met at Morning Star Pre-School). I think the high was was the only one completed, because of the time it took -- but it looked great when we were done.

My days are running together, but I know we did manage to play some soccer with the kids. Bill and Sara played "pig" with Moshudisu (sp?) and Dyetkesing. One of the dogs was trying to steal the ball to add it to his collection and managed to snag my finger in the mix. Ow! I was glad to hear that they do have rabies shots here! We had a barbecue on Saturday, (at least I think it was Saturday) with all of the kids and the mamas. What a crowd! The food was great and it was fun to see everyone together. Some of us went swimming with the kids -- and they all had such great fun jumping and splashing and just being kids.

Day Seven:

We got to sleep in a little later and headed to church at one of the housing projects. The little church was packed with lots of little children, but not quite as many adults. I am sure this outreach program has grown, though -- and it may even outgrow it's space. The children really loved to sing the songs and we all had a good time for fellowship. George, the minister from the Church we painted, also came to preach at this church.

Sunday afternoon, we all took it easy. Many of us were suddenly so very tired. I'm not sure if the time change caught up with us -- or if it was the flu that was going around -- or a little bit of both. We shot some more hoops with the kids and some went swimming and we just relaxed and hung out. We also went to a second service in the evening -- at the church we had helped to paint. It was great to see it again with all of the wall hangings up and the furniture back in place.

Day Eight:

Today, we tackled the gutters and the bees again. Or should I say, they tackled us? We were concerned about the big hoard of honey bees -- but it was the wasps that stung! Only one, so far, but as I write this, the team is back outside, in the cool of the evening, trying to resolve the bee crisis once more. We were able to get the gutters up today, on the end we had started last week -- but we ran out of time -- and ran into the bees. Hopefully, we can continue where we left off in the morning and complete the task.

The kids have been wonderful and are so curious and full of questions. Some of them are terribly shy -- and others are far from it! They are mostly chock full of energy and ready to go all the time.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and words of kindness and encouragement! Hopefully, you have seen the video of the Walkie Talkies (http://www.niehoffsa.com/images/pogteam9.mp4) and have enjoyed some of the photos that Gene has posted on our blog page.

Day Three and Day Four

Wow!  Can you tell the time is flying!  The days are full of things to do and so they are starting to run together.  We finished our clothesline yesterday -- added an extension and new wires and rust-proofed it.  Took most of the morning as it was quite an engineering spectacle.  It passed the "wash" test yesterday, so we done good.

We built a huge scaffold.  Tom T. can tell you all about how BIG and WOBBLY it is!  We all had the opportunity to climb to our most comfortable height -- which varied quite a bit.  Our challenge for the afternoon was to tear off the old gutters above the 2nd story and then add some shiny new metal facia (sp?) and gutters.  By the time the kids were ready to come home on the bus, we had almost replaced the facia along one side.  Then, we got to the beehive, so we had to think that one through.  Yes, the beehive is about 6 feet tall, inside the wall where the L-shaped sides of the building come together.  The plan was to "foam" it shut -- but we had to work out the details.  4:30 a.m. was when the plan went into action.  I must admit that I went outside and played the on-the-scene (and from-a-safe-distance) photographer -- but, who would want to do the deed without recording it for all to see?  So, in other words, I'm sure the team appreciated it!  Anyway, the plan didn't work out quite as we had hoped, so today, the bees were a wee bit angry at us.  Luckily for us, I think the dogs were the only victims of the bee stings!  At last report (10 minutes ago), I think we finally got them all sealed inside.  Time will tell, in the morning!

Some of us went to school to meet the kids at school.  I think there were 24 of us in the van on the way home!  

We decided to take our hosts, Brian and Lois and Louis and Amber (and the kids) into town for dinner last night.  Has some wonderful fish and calmari and prawns and other seafood.  

Day Four began with our bee escapade,  and then we went to visit Morning Star Pre-School and Day Care.  This whole facility is dedicated to taking care of the youngest children who are HIV-positive.  It was such a happy place, though.  Truly amazing what they are doing there.  We also got to go "shopping" across the way, where the mothers of some of the Morning Star kids sew and embroider and make jewelry to earn a wage.  What beautiful things we saw!  (and bought!)  Mark asked if someone could notify our banker to add more cash to my account!  Oops!  What could that mean?

After that, we headed over to Thabong for lunch.  We had a sort of traditional meal -- I hear it's called "Walkie Talkie" -- which translates into chicken heads and feet!  No, I'm not kidding!  We have pictures to prove it.  We visited one of the homes and DJ, a 21-year old boy (a former student of Louie) made the dinner -- I think there were about 6 different types of food to eat (not counting the chicken).  It was wonderful that they let us come into their homes and share their food.

We also visited the children's cemetery, along the way.  Very moving and troubling for so many reasons.  And the homes that were small tin shacks all around.  Stopped at the dump for a few minutes and saw how the people live there.  Quite an eye-opening experience!

Helped with some homework this afternoon and went to bible study with the kids tonight.  Mark got to read to the kids and they always enjoy that!

Well, that's about it for now.  We'll be off to paint a church in the morning!  Another full day, I'm sure!

Thanks for all of you who are following our posts!  Your comments are wonderful to read.  Sorry this one went on so long . . .

Day Two

Our 2nd day in Africa is winding down.  We finished emptying the vault!  Yea!  And, then we moved on to the project of the day.  We were going to fix the end post on the clothesline that had started to pull out of the ground.  Of course, we had four handy and willing workers -- and Brian as our patient leader -- so we dug up one post and soddered together two more.  With a power outage in the middle, what seemed to be a quick task in the beginning, took quite awhile.  But, we got it done -- almost.  Still need to wait for the concrete to set so we can get the wires back up tomorrow.  Then, it will be twice as long and should hold lots of clothes for the kids.

Brian got quite a deal on a new moped, so he was giving all of the kids a ride -- and letting the older ones ride it on their own.  Such excitement and wonderful fun for all!  

Also had a herd of cattle that wandered onto the premises -- I think they followed the schoolbus in.  So, everyone ran around, trying to get them back out through the gate.  There's always something going on.

I got to drive a tractor yesterday -- and swung a sledgehammer, too.  So, you can see we are managing to work some fun into our bright and sunny day!  Sure hope the weather in Iowa is being kind.

More tomorrow . . .

Team 9 has arrived!  It's hard to believe we have been in Africa for 24 hours now!  Our flights from Des Moines were almost uneventful -- but we did manage to make up for lost time and actually arrived in Jo-Burg an hour early.  On the last leg of the flight, many people deplaned at Dakar so most of us were able to stretch out over 2 or 3 seats to sleep, but we were starting to lose steam.   Brian and Lois and little Liam (9 months) met us at the airport and we arrived in Welkom around 9:00 p.m.   There, we met Louis and Amber and their kids, Meredith (3 or 4, I think) and Drake (5 months.)  Several of the children snuck down the stairs to greet us, too.  What an amazing day!  To think we are half a world away from Iowa!  I think Mark figured we had traveled for 30 hours and we are 8 hours ahead.

Today, the birds woke us up early, but we were ready to go!  Our first "job" was to empty the contents of a safe.  Small job, huh?  It was stacked from the floor to the 11 ft ceiling with all kinds of books and ledgers, some three deep in the shelf.  We carried the books down from the second floor,  stack by stack and we filled the trailer (and emptied it) three times.  The kids came home from school so we somehow charmed them into helping us.  Their energy was very appreciated!  We formed an assembly line (or at least we tried to) to pass the books along the line -- as we restacked them in a shed.  Not to rub it in, but Brian said the temperature was up over 100 today!  It just doesn't feel like Iowa weather, that's for sure!

Before dinner, some of the kids sang some songs for us and danced.  They all seem so happy and full of energy.   We are looking forward to tomorrow -- after a good night of sleep!  We have one more load to finish out the vault and then we will tackle the next project . . .

'Till then . . .

- Sara