American work team

In June, my parents headed back to the US and a few days after, a work team came from the US from our main supporting church, Grace Bible, and went with us to Ambrym to meet some other US and ni-Vanuatu friends.

 Bill (American who works in Vanuatu helping missionaries) and Hought getting a mix ready.

 Tony (teammate of Bill's) working on the bond beam.

 Nico (teammate of Bill's) cutting wire for the re-bar ties out on the porch/verandah.

 Marcus (Bill's son) and Brandon (from US team, Brad's son) doing a pour for the bond beam on the shared wall between the Richards house and mine.

 Scott and Brad (from US team) doing bond beam work in my bathroom.

 Opening a fun package from a friend.

 Jenette (US team, wife of Scott) and I tearing off coconut leaves to burn in our charcoal oven (which lives in the bush kitchen in this picture).  Jenette helped lots with cooking, cleaning, and keeping the work guys in snacks and water.

 Bond beam done and rafters going up!!

 Brad and Scott building the rafters.

 It takes a village to hand-lift rafters up on a house!!

 Elder Harry had a good idea in lifting the tallest part with a forked stick.

 

 Hought working on grinding off re-bar.

 Philip (our teammate) and Nico putting up the wood for the ceiling to sit on.

 Coming along!

 I had a bit of time to go show some of the local ladies how to bake a chocolate cake.  We didn't have cocoa and it would be difficult for them to get, but we substituted Milo (an Aussie hot-chocolate mix that's not sweet) and the cakes turned out BEAUTIFUL.

 

Here's us mixing it up.

 The cake is cooking in a metal pot with a lit on top of and underneath hot stones.

 Getting the cake ready to share out.  Everyone got a tiny piece but lots of the ladies have since made them on their own. I gave them recipes in their language as well, so that was fun to develop.  We have a long way to go to encourage literacy in the local language, and getting people used to their alphabet, but it should be a fun process!

 

 While we were cooking, the kids were being silly and Gwen video'd them.  It's not very many places that a regular toy for kids is a machete!!  Well, maybe I should say not very many Western places!

 

Lakon is dancing!  He's in Addy's kindy class at school and is VERY shy around me so I was surprised to watch this later.

 Our friends Phil and Aaron (both American but coming from Australia) came and helped out a bittoo.  They built a sifting screen for sand, painted a lot, and planted some stuff for us!

 

 The US team headed up to the volcano for a day.  They rode the truck up through all the gardens, then walked the ash plain and up from there.

 

 Jenette with Malibu, Joylin, Elsie, and some of the kids.

 The full team.  We are so blessed to have had so many genuine and generous people come out on their own dime to support us in this way. We would certainly not have a house without their help.  If you want to help by giving toward someone coming out to visit (it's VERY expensive) or coming yourself, please let us know!

And now for random pics after they left and before the Oz team came a few days later...

 Gwen - always with a puppy!

 A huge fish Isaiah caught.  (He's in the pic with the cake, above).  Here's his wife, Imkon standing next to it for perspective.

 They were so generous and shared a huge chunk with us and it was delicious!