"First, eight men and one woman lift the roof off..."

Johanes

Johanes is almost totally paralyzed, and he has been living in a tiny, dark hut for a long time.  That hut is starting to fall apart, and a friend in the States agreed to pay for a new home for Johanes.  The project started back in March, but ran into problems.  The house was built in traditional style--wooden poles sunk into the ground, then a roof structure built and finished, then the walls mudded.  The contractor who was working on the house assured Fred and Stephen that the small poles he was using would be perfectly fine, but by the time the iron sheet roof was put on and the walls nearly finished, the house was already starting to lean.  The smaller poles couldn't support the weight of the roof.  Below you can see Johanes' current house in the background and the first attempt at his new house in the foreground.

Johanes' neighbors and family members assumed that the leaning house would be "good enough" for him and they prepared to move him into the new house.  Fred insisted that it was not acceptable, and he and Stephen found new thicker poles and had another contractor restart the building a few feet away.  Yesterday eight men and one woman lifted the iron sheet roof off the leaning building and carried over to the new building to be installed.  (No photos because everyone was lifting that heavy roof!)  Here is new house as of yesterday.  The walls should be mudded and ready for him to move in by this weekend, when they will also install a large water tank with a tap inside his home.  Johanes was nearly in tears from his bed in his old house.  He never believed that someone like him could own a house with a metal roof, and he was as amazed as everyone else that Fred and Stephen invested their time and the donor's money in building a proper house that he can live in comfortably for the rest of his years.

Dorina

If you get our monthly emails, you heard that another project funded by friends in America was finished last week.  Dorina's house suffered a lot of storm damage back in April, and I talked about it here.  Last week we got the photos of Dorina with her newly repaired house!  One of the two donors replied to the photo saying "When we can't save the world, we can try...one person at a time!"

Grace and Pita

And finally, one more exciting side project that is coming together is the water tank for a widow named Grace and her daughter, who is blind, and two little grandsons.  A couple who heard our presentation in the States wanted to help with water, so we identified this family.  The first of two large tanks has been installed along with guttering to capture rainwater, and it goes to a gravity-powered tap that blind Pita can operate without assistance.  The donors are so excited about the opportunity to help this family that they have also given a gift to replace the mattress and pay for TB treatment for Pita and also meet some other needs.  They wrote "Just terrific to hear that the small amount of money we sent could help so much."

We often hear about situations like these, where very vulnerable people can transform their lives with a relatively small amount of outside help.  If you'd like to do a project like one of these above, send us an email or comment below so that we can get in touch!  A big thank you to the friends who have made these three projects happen!