Sorry It Has Been So Long

Wow time has gone by so fast. I can't believe it has been over a month since our last post. I will try my best to fill you on everything.

Update on the House
We have unpacked a lot of our things and each day our house begins to look a little more like home. We still have a lot to unpack and organize but it will come in time. (Side note ... I remember all those months ago when we started packing thinking that we had too much STUFF. We got rid of a lot and now that we are unpacking I am still thinking that we have TOO MUCH STUFF!)

Last month we were able to hire several workers to help us take care of the things that needed to be done in the house. They were able to plastered the walls and put a primer coat of paint on, painted all the ceilings except the kitchen, study and bathrooms. We also had to re-pipe the master bathroom (some pipes were corroded, had the tub wall built and had the master bathroom tiled. The stage in the lounge was taken out and a new foundation was laid in its placed. We had a wall built in the lounge to make a walk in closet for storage. The tile in the dining room and hallways were removed (several were broken and we decided to go ahead and re-tile those areas now while we were already in a huge mess and we got a great price on the new tile). They were also able to tile the lounge, dining room and start the tile in the hallway.

A few weeks ago we had to tell the workers they were finished and we would have to finish the rest ourselves. It was great having them here to do the work but after 3 weeks of anywhere from 8 -17 workers we had to make a decision to save money and do the rest.

There are 2 seminary students that helped us in the beginning tear down some of the wall in the dining room and they have helped us finish the tiling in the halls. We are almost finished with it we just need to grout the skirting in the dining room and halls.

While Mark was in Mozambique at the beginning of October I was able to paint all the walls and the study ceiling. After the grouting is finished in the halls and dining I will need to go back and paint the bottom 5 or 6 inches of the walls in there. Then we will need to paint all the doors, door frames and window frames.

Our master bathroom is almost complete. We are able to use everything in it. We still need to paint the ceiling and put the crown molding up (the ceilings and the walls don't meet so you have to use crown molding). We were given two mirrors so we are going to have one cut and then we will put them up. One will go over the vanity and the other will go on the wall with the corner bath.

Hopefully in the next week or two we can get the shelves built for the closet so we can get organized.

Here are the other things we are hoping to do to the house sometime as the Lord provides ...
*Remodel the hall bathroom (everything will have to be replaced in this bath as well do to the mold and old pipes etc.
*build the linen closet
*new floors in the bedrooms (carpet is old and not in good condition)
*Paint doors, door frames and window frames

Here are a few pictures of the house so far ...










Mozambique
Mark went into Mozambique this month for the pastor training and he is preparing to go back for a week long Annual Pastors Conference in November. They will be teaching over the attributes of God.

Also in November we will have our first guest from the US stay with us. Steve is coming to do some research for dissertation he is working on. He will speak with the leaders at Christ Baptist Church and Samaria Mission. He will also go into Mozambique with Mark and Sean to visit several of the villages that the PaulAnn teams have been to over the past 7 years. We are looking forward to meeting Steve and sharing with him all the Lord is doing in and through Samaria Mission.

Here are some pictures from his trip into Mozambique this month ...




The guys were able to help out some of the locals and give them a lift down to the river to get water. They usually walk there and carry the water back (some carry one and some carry several containers) The pictures below you will see how they dig a hole in the sand and let the water filter through the sand before they put it in their containers. Sometimes we forget how blessed we are to be able to turn on our sinks and have clean water.









Thank you again for all of you prayers, support and encouragement. We just emailed our first official newsletter. If you did not receive it please leave a comment below and give us your email address. We had several addresses come back to us that were not good and we would love to update our list.