New in the Faith - Day 16

Many of the young Gobasi girls at Yehebi.

Day 16 of 21: Thursday 7/23

 The morning started slowly, probably because I was dragging my feet about the mower - not really believing that it would start after all these years. Oh me of little faith.  I was also worried about the oil situation.  I didn’t want to use the six-year-old oil in the crankcase.  Also, I was not too sure about the oil from Nomad, whether they had sent the right kind as they had just poured into a container that I had sent up. 

In any case I drained out the old oil and put the new in from Nomad, but still had to use a bit of the old oil to top it up enough to run the engine.  Well, the gas didn’t seem to be going through the carburetor so I ended up finally removing the carb to see what I could.  Once I got it off (not before, of course) I noticed a shut-off valve near the fuel tank that was in the off position – How bright.  I put the carb back on, put the valve in the “ON” position and tried to start it.  I pulled the cord. Nothing. Again, nothing. Again, it sputtered. Again, it ran for a bit and stopped.  Finally after a while and a few adjustments it seemed to be running fine. 

I should say while all this is going on we have quite a crowd of villagers watching our every move.  David and I were both doing different things on the mower, and it was nice to have people around cracking jokes and such as they watched us!

It's common to have people watch what you're doing or gather around if something is going on. It would be pretty exciting for them to get the lawnmower running again and not have to cut the strip by hand with grass knives.

After this we got it out from under the house (where the shade was) and onto the grass and with some belt adjustments and fixing a gearbox issue it was up, running and cutting grass.  I was so thankful to get it running.  I know it was the Lord because I hadn’t done much more than tinker with it.  Although we still need more gas to give it a true test on the airstrip for a few hours, we didn’t have enough for that.

Pouring some gas in the mower to see if it would start. Finally, it did!

This was the "kitchen." As you can see it's only a two burner kerosene burner, one of which didn't work. Living there was rough and challenging. On the floor there are some coconuts (left) and some papaya (right).

After this we ate lunch – pancakes made with a slightly “formed” bush fowl egg and peanut butter (no syrup to be had as Carin used to make our own).  Sleepless nights were catching up to me, so I took a nap. Afterward, I tried to call on the radio to see if I could connect with MAF to try and make sure about our bookings out of Yehebi, not to  mention the supplies we needed so badly. We to get our flights to connect with other airlines to get us home.  I didn’t get through and started getting a bit worried as next week we were to leave on Wednesday.  We had so much to do and couldn’t even get a plane in to bring the needed supplies. There’s no second chance with this. We hope to, but don’t know for sure, if we will ever be able to get back to help out.

Several of the young boys and teens went to the meetings David held.

David went up to speak to the young people again.  This time he carefully explained the gospel to them and asked if any of them would like to trust in the Lord for their salvation.  One girl immediately shot her hand up and slowly others put theirs up as well.   We trust that the word of the Lord never returns void and that some children came to faith today.  I will be speaking to some of the parents tomorrow and reinforce this to them, that they need to help their children along in their faith. 

David played basketball again with the kids after the service – barefoot.  He came back with very sore, blistered feet.  The soil also has a way of sucking the moisture out of your feet, and they become very, very dry.  Now David is limping around.

They loved to interact with David, but playing barefoot wasn't a good idea. We have "soft" feet!

More picture of the Gobasi children and teenagers

I got one of the men to help me with getting water at the far end of the airstrip.  Carrying about 4 gallons of water about 2000 feet in the blistering heat is good exercise. I can’t understand why I am not losing more weight - which seemed to me to be a good “side” goal for this trip.  I thought (really just was hoping) that I would be really thin by this time.  Yeah right…

After getting water, we went to the river to wash and to wash some clothes.  Then we came back and tried again to connect with the pilots on the radio but without success.  Getting more and more concerned – so disappointed mostly because there is much left undone because we can’t get the things we need.  I totally did not expect this to be an issue.