I met with Andres today and asked him about the possibility of remodeling the rent house to serve short-term mission teams until the dormitories are finished. Not surprisingly, he was much in favor of the idea.
Today we picked up an entire load of fabric, some very expensive fabric, from Cisar- Holt, Inc. When I say load, I do mean load! Mary Ann and David Carey had taken all but the front seats out of their van and we filled it up. We are most grateful to Kirk Holt for his generous gift. He is moving his business and has donated decorator fabric and trim to our ministry for the sewing class. As we have said, one of our most important new projects is to begin producing handbags and other accessories to sell here in the United States. This was an important next step in that project.
Here is a rough outlining of our objectives for the Implementation trip, we will have a more detailed one as soon as school starts back up:
Main Goal: to provide the means for at least 20% of the community to have access to clean potable water. This would mean developing water filtration systems that will be easily built, maintained, and used by the people in the community. Main Design: currently we are actively developing our version of a biosand filter. This would be a water filter unit made of a concrete shell and filled with native sand. The unit operates by creating a mini-ecosystem within the filter to naturally remove bacteria, protozoan, and various undesirables. The large volume of sand will also work to mechanically remove particles from the water just like the ceramic filters in the bucket units, which disallows anything larger than 5 microns from passing through. Each unit is designed to provide enough water for 6 people per day. As I look around and consider the many ideas for new projects that have come forth even within the last few weeks I have wondered when we will come to an end of what God plans for us to do here The thought came to me: His love for this people is endless. He can do everything; He owns everything. Why would He ever say, "This is enough"? Gathering Hearts will continue to grow and develop and involve more people and yield more fruit as long as we continue to pray and do what He asks; not what we think best. How much more does God want to do here? The answer lies with us, not with Him.
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