Playground trip to Kisumu Nov 2007 |
Click here to view some pictures
On behalf of The Life community Baptist Church Horsham, I would just like to say thank you from our team to each & every one of you who prayed for us.
Our first day in Nairobi was spent in Mathare slum at a conference where Scott was preaching.
This was a real eye opener, the tin shed home's are built on a land fill site, the stench of sewage on entering the site was almost enough to stop most people dead in their tracks & turn back.
We did walk around the site but were told not to take pictures, this makes it difficult to describe the appalling condition's these poor people have to endure, the only way I could describe it, is to say we would not consider letting our prize animals live there.
We then flew on to Kisumu to start our playground building project, on arrival at the site we were pleased to see they had built the perimeter low wall & had laid a covering of sand.
We surveyed the site to check on materials & tools, alas, we can only find a hand full of the tools we had asked for so off to town we go to buy what we needed.
We set about our task, once we had measured out the playground the local people started digging the holes for the posts, the wood, which was mahogany had to be drilled the old fashioned way with a brace & bit, this was taking about 15 minutes to drill each bolt hole so we decided we had to go and get an electric drill to speed up the process or we would still be there in a fortnights time.
Into town we go where we negotiated a price on a brand new drill which was covered in saw dust, "honest governor it is a new one" so off we went back to site, borrowed the site generator & set about the drilling, too good to be true the speed control fell to bits within the first hour, with the aid of some plasters we got it up and running again, we had a good day & retired back to our hotel.
Next morning as we are laying out our tools we glanced over only to see a local man with his bicycle loading up the generator to take it away, the truth now comes out it was hired, Oh no cry's the team we will never drill all these holes by hand, guess what comes next, yes yet another trip into town.
Great, the lads return with a brand new genny, tried & tested in the shop, would it start NO, yet another trip into town to get a replacement, from here on in things began to come together and we completed the playground, despite all the set back's a day ahead of schedule.
On the day before we left we had prayer's & the site was officially opened, it was such a joy to see nearly 200 children smiling & playing on their now finished playground.
Without your prayer's we would probably still be there. THANK YOU
For a full report and more pictures click HERE
THE HORSHAM TEAM
Julie Shimizu, Scott Carr, John Milborrow, Alan George, Peter Coot, Wayne Furbur
& Clive Culshaw
Posted by Peter on Thursday, January 7, 2010