Over the summer we were blessed to welcome a team of 5 from the US. Four of them were teachers and they worked in the school mentoring several of our Ugandan teachers (more about their time here in another post). The fifth person was Nick, husband to one of the teachers. He is a skilled carpenter and was such a blessing! We really enjoyed getting to know him, especially Tom, they spoke the same language... you know power tools... wood... construction...
Initially we were not sure what we would have Nick do while he was there, as we had arrived just a few weeks before them. In Tom's assessment of the houses, he determined that the facia boards were rotting in many places and really only there for esthetics, so they needed to come down. Nick and Tom came up with the idea to use the reclaimed facia boards to make picnic tables. Nick came up with a design that would enable him to build 2 - 3 tables using wood from 1 house! Well done, as they say here. The first two tables build were put at our pavilion where many of our maintenance and farm workers eat lunch. Prior to the tables they just sat on the concrete.
The coolest thing about Nick building the tables was seeing him work with Isaac. Isaac is one of our workers in maintenance, through benevolence. GSF some times creates jobs for people even though we really don't have a position that needs to be filled and pays them a benevolence wage. In this way they are put to work, they feel useful and their self worth is reinforced. We have the opportunity to minister to them through daily interaction, weekly bible study, they receive 2 meals each day and have access to our medical clinic.
Isaac is very quite, shy and has a sweet smile. He has learning disabilities in certain areas, but is very smart in other areas. Nick really drew him out and they worked well together, it was a blessing to watch.
I love this story so, so much! Can't wait for Ed to read all of these tonight.
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