We arrived back on the field August 7th.
We made a couple of trips up to check out our fallen house. (See pictures under House Building).
On September 7th, we moved up to the Dom. Since our house was not really liveable, we slept in our former clinic across the road from our house, as it had a small tank for water, a toilet, a kitchen sink and a room to sleep in. (See pictures) We were still cooking over at our house and mostly spending the day there as our 12 volt power system was still working.
Had a lot of hassles with the landowner and a lot of anger and jealousy over the possibility of us moving away from this area. But God gave us the strength through it all.
We spent the first weeks tearing down our old garage, what was left of it, finding a new location to rebuild as we deemed that the land our house was on was still shifting.
We cleared and leveled the land and fixed the road into the new location which was about 50 yards down from our former house. We had a lot of helping hands from our church friends.
Officially had the new landowner – Bapka – sign a statutory declaration saying he gave up all rights to our house when we were done. It was ours to do as we saw fit in the end.
The first team came and built our garage September 20-24, getting our garage finished.
We moved our things from the house to the garage, but not without words of anger from our former landowner claiming it was all his.
October 11-23, another work team came up and tore our house down, moving the walls in sections and got the house enclosed. A lot of rain so some of the walls got a bit warped, but not too much damage.
Jim enclosed his office and finished the veranda floor.
November 17-24, the plumbing was put in, the power finished and cupboards and most of the doors put on.
We moved into our house in the afternoon of the 24th, at least enough so we could sleep here. It rained so couldn’t do more than move the stove and our bed.
On Thanksgiving Day, we ate leftovers and moved the rest of the stuff from the clinic. Thank you Lord.
We spent the rest of the weeks finishing things like painting and had the Cottams over Christmas and they helped us finish up some other things inside.
We began back into our ministry in the New Year!