Around the village...

Here's a tour around some of the buildings in our village of Ranvetlam!

 There's a few painted houses around.

A washing table that doubles as a space for squash to grow!

 We have some awesome tarps from some friends with a billboard business and they make for great  slip-n-slides!

Stephanie, Gwen, Evelyn and Patches

 Laundry day.

 Quite a few people are building new sleeping houses for a nation-wide conference our village and others near us are hosting the end of August.  Here's an elevated one.

 The flat bamboo on the ground is a wall panel for a new sleeping house.  The bamboo lasts for many many years and is very strong.

 Painted and elevated.

 In between a sleeping cooking house.  Everyone has a sleeping house, cooking house, shower house, toilet house, and sometimes eating house, although the cooking house is usually the eating house as well.

 One of the guesthouses our work teams have stayed in.

The other guesthouse.

And some of our poor guests have had to stay in the medical dispensary, which has just a BIT of a termite problem!

 Addy in front of our next door neighbors.

 Sarah

Elsie, Sylvie, Stephanie, Sarah, and baby Stephanie

How to cook on a charcoal stove

The end of the wet season here (April-ish) we virtually stopped cooking on our charcoal stove because we couldn't get any of the process to be dry enough to light on fire, but aside from then, we do a lot of our village cooking on a charcoal stove.  We've made everything from soup to banana bread on it.  Banana bread and cakes take a bit of babysitting (adding charcoal and taking coals away...) but it's definitely doable.  And the whole process saves us a lot of money on propane, as well as saves heating up an already hot house!  Here's the process in pictures and videos.

Collecting leaves off palm trees. 

 

 Choosing leaves to start the fire with.  This is our cook house, like all the other local women have for preparing food. 

Coconut husk goes underneath the charcoal to help it get lit.

 Houghton made our last batch of charcoal out in the village with some local guys.  They dug a pit, put a hard wood log in it, lit it on fire, and then doused it with water after it had burned all day.  I guess the charcoal is stronger if you do that over at least 2 days, but we were hard pressed for time.  So our charcoal burns up pretty fast.

 Lighting the coconut leaves that go in the bottom of the stove.

Coconuts lighting and nearly ready to cook something.

Shouting out to all the overseas workers!

When we returned to Ambrym in February, the footings were in the on the house and it was ready for the slab to be poured.  Our awesome slabbers were Corney and Esther of Canada, Bill and Marcus of the US (but who live and work full time in Vanuatu on the island of Santo), and Tony of Vanuatu.  We had great village help and in 2 weeks they got the slab ready, poured, and walls started.

 Stacking the bags and bags of cement on a dry place.

Prepping for the slab. (Marcus to the rear, Corney in front.)

Lots of re-bar helps keep the house cyclone-proof.

Bill and Tony.

 Arnold and Corney.  Arnold is a local block-layer that has been volunteering his time!

The completed slab.

 Esther was invaluable around our temp house - cooking, washing, moving laundry to help it dry (a nearly full-time task in the wet season), and doing some awesome deep cleans.

 Gwen and Addy sweeping out the house.

When this crew headed out, we were three/four blocks high (of 11) with re-bar and electrical, as well as plumbing holes ready to go.  A lot of work for just two weeks!

 

 Farewell dinner with the village for the crew (and a thank you dinner for the local block-layer guys).

Our next crew brought back Ian from Australia, but this time with his wife, Joanna, and two others from their church - Jason and Hannah.  Jason was only able to stay for 2 weeks, but the others stayed nearly 4.

 Ian, Jason, Hannah, and Joanna heading up to the volcano.

 Jason helping to hook up our new solar bulbs in our temp house!  It's amazing how much light we have in the kitchen now in the evenings!

 Ian installing solar in the house.

 Jason, Ian and Joanna.  The daily grind of mixing concrete, laying blocks, and pouring cement in each block's hole.  Exhausting and dirty work!

 Isaiah helping fill in holes with Hannah (Ian and Joanna working in the background).

 Two local block-layers came often to lend their expertise, as well as a lot of the village guys.  Local involvement waned a bit toward the end of our last time out, but we hope to pull everyone back in for June and July.

Hannah, the master cutter (painting our temp house).

 Enjoying being sung to in our own yard!

 Lookin' fancy in island dresses.

 Gwen and Ian

Hannah is trained as a teacher so she helped out by homeschooling Jesiah.

 Joanna helped with cooking and washing, but mainly helped out at the work site.

 Chatting with villagers.

Heading out.

Our next crew comes June 11, Lord-willing, and stays with us a few weeks to hopefully pour the bond beam, put up the rafters, and put on the tin roof.  Bill will be returning at that time with his son, Marcus, and teammate, Tony, as well as another friend.  Scott (who was here to do the footings the end of last year) is coming back again as well as his wife, Jenette.  Brad from the same church, and his son Brandon are coming with them.

In July, Ian returns with a few guys again to do plumbing, solar, and start some of the finish work.

Bill will also be building cabinets and shelving for us from his workshop on Santo island and will send them out on a cargo ship to us.

We are thanking God for all these great volunteers who have made it possible for this house to be built.  Without their time and financial sacrifice, this work would not be going ahead. 

Savandah's accident

Yesterday I went to visit my friend Magreth and her family here in Vila.  She called me a week or so ago and let me know that her daughter, Savandah (Sava, who is 11 or so) had been hit by a bus here in town a few months ago.  Amazingly, despite some very serious breaks, she has now had casts taken off both her legs and is actually walking.  Having seen her injuries, I was amazed that she could walk.  I took pictures but please note these are fairly graphic so take caution with children.

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Magreth showed me the site of the accident and others have told me that they remember it being in the newspapers at the time. The driver of the bus hit her and 2 other boys from behind and while they were actually on the sidewalk, walking to school in the morning. The case hasn't yet gone to court (this happened in October and there are back-ups) and apparently the man is still driving. When the incident happened, he hit Sava first and she was actually under the bus while the two boys she was with were hit but not run over. Some people who were nearby and who saw the incident came over to hurt the driver (retribution can be a bit scary oftentimes) so he ran away. It is unknown what had his attention that led to him going up on the sidewalk and hitting the kids. Those who saw what happened actually tipped the bus over to get Sava out from under it. The two young boys who were hit sustained cuts and bruises but nothing serious.

There is a doctor in Vila now who is able to do skin grafts and who seemingly very competently set her bones again and did the surgery on her foot. Please pray with me for her continued healing and for God to use this tragedy in her life to draw the family to Himself.

Around the language group

Houghton, Jesiah, and our friend Casey took a trip on the 4-wheeler around the island to check in with village leaders regarding the Bible translation work and also to give Casey a chance to see it all.  Gretch and I haven't made it around yet, but I'm sure will soon.

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Animals of Ambrym

There really are very few animals in Vanuatu and fortunately none to fear (other than sharks).  Thanks to Gweny, I have a lot of pictures of them (animals, not sharks!) from when I let her run wild with my camera!

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