Slave to Who??

Hello All,
We have had an over the top busy week and next week is going to be the same!  Life can sure get crazy sometimes.  I just keep thinking "this too will pass."

We had 2 EMI team visits this week.  Rex and company came to deliver our Master Plan that they started back in Oct.  The drawings were really fancy!

 

Now the plan will be to get these somehow in 3D and be able to do some fund raising.  There are 2 small projects we are moving forward on:  1. the ENT building and 2. and Emergency Room remodel.  The emergency room remodel is coming around very quickly.  We have the plan 98% done and even some of the funding came in a large chunk this week by a generous donor in Australia (Yea Aussies!).  We sat down with the main players in the Engineering and Facilities group and came up with a BQ (Bill of Quantities).  This is a list of each and every item in the project and its cost.  So, now we have a cost too.  The guys are doing a great job learning how to put projects together.

Liz, our Seattle visitor, has been teaching out at the Kijabe Girls High School.  She walks down there at 6:00 in the morning to be there between 6:30 and 7:30, which is when they have their study hall.  She is teaching them compass bearings right now and some of them are really enjoying the extra help.  It is difficult, as she is finding out, to get people to ask questions and to get feedback.  We were told by a friend that it starts in kindergarten the idea of NOT questioning the teacher because they "know it all."  So, the kids just do not ask questions freely.  Liz and I went out to the school last Saturday for 2 hours and tutored some of the girls.  Boy that was challenging!  Not knowing where the questions were going to come from, we had to relearn quickly  I had to go back and figure out what a vector was again!

Entering the school

 

But we had a good time with them and did not embarrass ourselves too much!

 

Have you ever heard of John Henry Newton?  He was the man that was a slave trader back in the mid 1700's and eventually came to Christ and changed his ways.  He wrote the hymn Amazing Grace.  I love that song.  Knowing his background, it makes me cry every time I hear it!  Here is a quote from him, "Our pleasure and our duty though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty are joined to part no more.  To see the law of Christ fulfilled to hear his pardoning voice transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice." 

 

John 8:31-32
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."
NIV

In the west I am my own liberator.  I decide what truth is.  John 8 says that if we follow Jesus, we are not slaves to sin.
Rom 6:16-18
16 Don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey — whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted.
18 You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.
NIV
Freedom doesn't mean having no master.  It means having the right master.  You will serve someone, who will that be?  How do I experience the freedom in Christ?
John 8:36
36 So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.
NIV
We need to trust in His power to set us free from the inside out.
Re read the quote from John Newton:  "Our pleasure and our duty though opposite before, since we have seen his beauty are joined to part no more. To see the law of Christ fulfilled to hear his pardoning voice transforms a slave into a child and duty into choice."
Just something to think about.

Picture I took on a walk this week

 

on the same walk down by the Sorley's new house plot

 

The BK site had some issues this week.  The local workers went on a bit of a strike!  They were protesting their wages.  We think we have worked out the problems, but we have lost a little work because of it.  This contractor that we have hired to build the wing, comes from Nairobi.  They have most of their own people, but for unskilled labour, they hire locals.  They have hired 20-30 people. This gives jobs to the local community that are very much needed.  But now they are unhappy with their wages.  I think they are coming to a good compromise, but it is an issue!
They have poured 12 of the 21 or so column bases so far.  By next week we should see columns coming up!

We are working hard with the Junior class to get banquet ready.  I can't show any pictures of what we are doing yet because the whole thing is a secret until next Friday.  And I know some RVA Staff that will definitely see them!  We started yesterday at around 12:00 and worked till after 10.  We will start today again at 8:00 and work till 10.  Tomorrow is a day off and it's back to it on Monday.  Thankfully on Tuesday, classes begin and we should be pretty much done with the bulk of it.  The week will be a lot of juggling details till Friday night!  Jim is here today to help, but he goes to Tenwek Hospital on Sunday to work with an EMI team doing master planning.  He will be gone till Friday, the day we get to attend the banquet. 

Please pray for a friend of ours who's mother is in the hospital with cancer.  She was diagnosed this summer and went through radiation, but they say it is not gone and she is probably not going to live long.  This friend also lost a brother this past summer.  He is having a very difficult time.  He is a Masi attending Moffat Bible College here in Kijabe.  Pray for his mother and his family.

Please also pray for us as we tackle this coming week.  With Jim gone and banquet work to do on top of Jim's and my job, it will be a bit hectic for me.

Thanks so much to all of you for what you do.  We are so thankful to have you behind us on this journey.  It seems like 2 years has just flown by and I know the next 1 1/2 will do the same.

Have a great week!
In His Hands,
Jullie T.