Every day we are getting a little bit closer. We are still working on a lot of the finishing touches on the house, and at the same time, we are laying the groundwork for all our classes. (written by Tim Mott)
 On Monday morning, our grass arrived. The local hardware store, Calero Hardware, had offered to buy us the grass for the front yard as a housewarming gift.
It was a very nice gift and this strain of grass is very tough, which will be good for activities in the front yard.
We also got a breadfruit tree from the pastor's yard at Zion Baptist church. Breadfruit is sort of shaped like a cantaloupe, but it is very starchy inside.You cut it into half inch slices and fry it and it is the very best - m uch better than french fries, and very nutritious. This is called the miracle fruit because it bears three times each year. It is in shock now, but will perk back up soon.
We also got some baby coconut trees and Alfred brought us some nice plants for the strip
We have two full time workers at the house, which sounds like a lot to someone living in the US, but it is necessary in our situation. Alfred works on finishing up all the details of the house, and there are many. He is alsogetting the garden started and will manage it. Letica does all the cooking and cleaning, and there is a lot of cleaning on a 4000 square foot building. With the windows open all the time, the dust and dirt blows in all day long.
 When we are gone teaching in another location, Alfred and Leticia work opposite shifts keeping watch over the house. You cannot leave a house like this unattended for even a minute. Even when we go to church, we have someone come in and watch it for us.
I am working on the kitchen cabinets still. We have a wood called Cedro Macho, which Iactually like even better than Mahogany, and it is less than half the cost (40 cent per ft.)
It is very similar to Oak, but has a darker and richer grain. Perhaps someday we can export Cedro Macho products to the US as a way to help create jobs here. That will be down the line a year or two before we can do that.
 We anticipate starting the music classes on the 1st of March. Othoniel has agreed to teach here at our facility. He believes in intensive training. He teaches an hour each day (M-F) and expects the student to practice for an hour each day as well.
He says that after six months, if the student is serious about learning, they will be playing the instrument. The cost is just $20.00 per month per student. Imagine, learning to play the piano or guitar for $120.00 complete!!
He has trained music teams from some of the churches in the area, so this is a proven technique.
Maybe someday we can bring people down from the US for six months to learn music and go through our ministry training classes.
 As you can see from the picture , Kim finally got her living room set.
It is a couch and two chairs. They are kinda small, but they fit into the living room well and they are comfy. It beats sitting on the floor or on the hope chest, that is for sure.
Kim is now busy drilling holes in the concrete walls putting up pictures.
We have a shipment leaving Miami this Wednesday and it should be here within a week. We have some household stuff and some tools as well as 72 NIV study bibles (24 English, 24 Spanish, 24 Large Print). Lakepointe church bought us the English and Spanish Bibles as well as some textbooks. By the way, ibsdirect.com has the large print NIV study Bibles on sale for 14.99 each. Very nice.
 We are now receiving the DVD's from the LakePointe worship services each week as well as from Cornerstone Church in CA. Tim emailed Cornerstone to see if we could get some DVD's and theysaid that since we were missionaries, they would send them to us weekly for free, and they don't even know us. How cool.
That's about it. Check the gallery for pictures. We included pics of the little store across the street where you can get everything from chicken to antibiotics (as opposed to chicken that already has the antibiotics in it, but that is a different story). These guys are quite the entrepreneurs.
Thank you as always for your prayers.
God bless you,
Tim and Kim |
