Remodeled kitchen

The kitchen in the boy's home was designed to feed a family at the most of five or six. With twenty-five boys and six or seven staff it was barely functional for cooking or storing food. After speaking with the director as well as the ladies who do the cooking, Walt first built new bookshelves and a desk in the living room, which enabled them to move books from shelves in the eating area. This allowed the kitchen to expand into the old eating area, using the old library shelves as a new pantry and building a service counter, to separate it from the living room, and then moving one of the two refrigerators out from a small alcove and building additional shelves in that alcove for a new pantry. This whole remodel is shown, as best as possible, in these pictures. We were actually able to complete it all before Christmas. Now we need to purchase a new stove to go in the expanded kitchen area - next item on the remodel list. So we just keep on plugging away. In January we are going to Thailand again to visit the family there.

Amateur Carpenter's Dream

We had a pleasant surprise this last month. We had heard that a donor was building a workshop for the boys at Casa Hogar "Mi Esperanza". When we saw a picture of the completed building we were amazed at the size. There is a large workshop on the first floor, and four small apartments above. So we went up to see it in person and found out that the Rotary Club of Langley, BC was donating funds for a new Toyota Commuter Van and for wood working tools for the workshop. Here is a photo of Rodney Dutro, Director of Casa Hogar, a part of Shepherd's Hearts Ministry - a local missions outreach, officially receiving the check for both the van and the tools, from David, president of Rotary Club Langley, BC. Since Walt was raised in Langley he had much to talk about with David. Here are photos of the van and some of the people associated with the project.

The amount set aside for the tools was $20,000 USD. Rodney had been serving as the sole leader of the workshop and since Walt has more carpentry experience, was this God saying that we should take a more substantial role? We thought yes, and so Walt helped list tools to be purchased - clearly all would be professional grade to come up to the amount. Nancy was not left out of this new call for us. She used to do wood carving, and half way looking through the empty shop and the prospects of the new tools, the thought of teaching the boys wood carving in conjunction with the woodworking projects came to her mind. She has ordered new wood carving tools for herself and for the boys. Are we ready to take on the responsibility of teaching carpentry and wood carving? We haven't heard "no" yet, and are looking forward to it. As far as the new shop tools, a week or two after specifying what would be desired, we received a call that the tools had arrived so we went and set them all up. A week later David, the Rotary Club of Langley president, showed up and was able to see them set up. They are shown in these photos. These are some serious tools! Each weighs from 235 kg to 365 kg, yeah that is like 500 to almost 800 pounds. The surfaces, legs and supports are all cast iron! We couldn't take them out of the crates, we had to de-construct the crates around the tools. Talk about drooling..... If anyone feels a twinge of jealousy because of all this cool equipment, we sure could use any help in planning an instruction program as well as putting such a program into effect.

When David explained how he found out about this project and it came to fruition, we just looked at each other and said, "God Thing". Apparently David came down to learn more about this area. He attended a week long series of seminars presented by Focus on Mexico, which we had also attended a couple of years ago. Another one of our local missionaries, Meme Thorpe, gives a presentation on local volunteer opportunities and as part of that talks about Casa Hogar. David heard the need and knew his local Rotary chapter had some funds. So he went back and presented it to the local district who said they would match his funds. Then it went up to the zone level and again was matched, resulting in a sizable final amount. So clearly God had big plans for the boy's home and we are excited to be a part of it.

As a quick update on another project that we have been working on, we sent out a request several months ago for donations to help build the bathrooms of our new church so that we could finally move services from the mud in the current place to a concrete floor - especially before the rains begin again next June. Well, we are about halfway to receiving all the funds needed. They announced in church last Sunday that they are planning to begin construction of the bathrooms this week. Of course room remains for additional support if anyone is feeling called!