Skip to main content

Plans and Exciting News!


                                                                       Hello!

    


     Well, I know that it's been a while since I've written, but I was waiting for answers and now I finally have some!

      There have many ideas tossed around, but I came to the conclusion that I should not rent, but build a place for the library instead. This would provide a permanent place that would eventually pay for itself. After contacting "the powers that be" at Bear Valley ( the congregation that oversees the Tz2000 mission work), I was just given permission to build on land behind the preaching school here in Kisongo. I am so blessed that they believe in this work!

So...what am I going to build? I came in contact with something called "cob" a few years ago. It is a mixture of straw, sand, clay (Kisongo has a high clay content in the dirt), and stone. Here is a picture. The library will look similar.


     Isn't it just lovely? This house has three stories. The library will have just two. It will probably also be a darker color, but that all depends on what kind of finish I use. As you can see, it has a stone foundation, cob walls and a thatch roof. Because of the way the materials work together, the building is cool in the summer, and warm in the winter. Some people think that with the littlest bit of rain, it will come crumbing down but many homes in England ( you know what the weather is like there) have been built with cob and they have stood for 500 years. I just love the look and the most important thing is, they are very inexpensive to build. Labor intensive, but cheap. If  you would be interested in helping see this building go up, you can send funds to :

Logan Martin church of Christ
P.O Box 1602
3401 Martin Street S.
Pell City, AL 35125

(Just put on the outside of the envelope: Tanzanian Library Fund)

I'm super excited and I can't wait to get started. There is a small company here that works with people that want to build such earthen structures, for a price, but it's worth it. Not only is it labor intensive, but it is also slow. It'll take at least 8 months to a year to be completed.

But I don't wish to wait a whole year to set up the library so..... I plan on asking the men of the Kisongo congregation if I can use the church building during the week. I feel sure that they will let me begin the library there and then move once the cob is finished. There is only one problem to this idea...I only have so much money. If I ship my books, that's money that could be used on the building.
So, we'll see what happens. I'll keep ya'll updated!

Until Next Week ( hopefully :)),

Abigail

 







 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Reaching Out

Hello from Pa! We had another great clothing giveaway on November 7th. The congregation really stepped up and we had even more clothes to give out to the community this time. It was a good thing too, because a friend of a family who lost their home to a fire stopped by and gathered up 12-15 bags of clothes and food. That brought our total to 75 bags of clothing and food given out and 18 families aided. We also had a member bring a bunch of books she no longer needed. When I saw this table, all I could think was "I need these!" Even though they were mostly children's books, there was this desire to take them all home with me. I obviously have a problem, hehe. The helpers enjoyed a meal of sloppy joes and baked beans. We would have had a bigger turn out but one of the members needed help moving so 5 or 6 men spent all morning and some of the afternoon assisting them. All in all, it was a great day. Picture on Right: Emily...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Lord's Providence is Amazing!

Beautiful Mount Meru                                                                         Greetings!            This post is ridiculously overdue and I ask for your forgiveness. I have been preoccupied, as you will see. While I have not been as focused on the library itself as much, what I am about to tell you is going to effect the library tremendously ! I will not go into all the details, as that would make for a very long story. I will try and just give the information that is necessary, while still making it interesting.      Back in August of last year, I met Adam Rymon at Polishing the Pulpit (a week long lectureship held in Pigeon Forge, TN). We talked for about ten minutes, basically...
Post a Comment
Read more

Isaya and His Desire to be a Doctor

This is Isaya (in America we would say Isaiah). He is 20 years old,  the son of Fred Bwile, a graduate of the Andrew Connally School of Preaching and he wants to become a doctor. He is an active member of the congregation that his father preaches for, often times teaching bible study. His family lives in Kenya where there are only 0.2 physicians per 1,000 people (2011-2015) compared to the 2.5 in America (2011). Teaching bible study. Mr. Fred contacted me a few days ago, saying that Isaya had completed his secondary education (high school) but that they didn't have the funds to send him to college. He said it would cost $240 per year. Correction: I was informed today that that number is not correct. It will actually cost $2,400 per year. I told him I would try and raise what I could. but that that was a lot more money than we both had originally thought. I know the Lord will provide if it is His will.  That's almost 4x less than what it costs to...
Post a Comment
Read more