Orlando Team

Here at Ten Thousand Homes there is a close partnership with the organization YWAM. Actually, i think most of the staff here are actually full time staff through YWAM (apparently it's kinda complicated...?) This has definate advatages though! Because TTH is closely associated, YWAM Kruger (our base here at University Village) is one of the spots that YWAM teams can be sent to do their field work. So, it looks like about once every month to month and a half they have a team from YWAM come in for a specific project. All this to say...

A team from YWAM Orlando arrived last Monday and things have been busy since! Adding twelve new people to an already small base makes things crowded. The team raised enough money to build an entire house before they came so Laura and I have also seen the first house building since we've been here. It was fun to go out and see the location (a section of Embosweni) that had been selected and meet the family that it was being built for. We prayed over the workers and the area that it would make a huge impact on not only the family receiving it, but the community.

The busy part about them being here is that all the normal community outreachs and feedings, etc have to still take place, so trying to get twelve people to a work site and the rest of us to our other committments has been a challenge. Also, nearly all of us have had a chance to go out to the building site and help a little between our other responsibilities, so it has been a very rewarding experience.

It's also been nice to have team meals every night since they have arrived. since our kitchen is very small it makes more sense for everyone to just eat community meals then try to gather twenty people in a kitchen all trying to share one gas stove! but even this caused extra work as two full timers (Ryan and Mongaliso) and myself had to build a table and rearrange the entire kitchen to make room for all the food.

The team is here for one more week trying to finish up the house before they have to go so they can actually see the family move into it. it looks like it'll happen too! The whole community has really gotten behind the project and many youth from a local church have been on site every day to help out. This is the kind of thing we love to see as it does no good for people (especially white people) to come in, try to fix things then leave. Empowerment is a big thing, and having a community come together like this has really been a blessing.

anyways, much more going on here, hopefully i'll have time to write more soon. thanks for all your prayers and support, we need it! we love you...

Mikey & Laura