Life in Africa (a one day glimpse)

Hello everyone! So good to hear that many of you are tuning in to the site and that you can come along with us on this journey. After yesterday I felt the need to give you a glimpse of what a typical Africa day is like.

Sunday @ 6:00 a.m.

I woke up to a man yelling through our bedroom window "Jake...power is off and the water tanks are empty..." Jumping out of bed, I was not alarmed being that this is probably the sixth time it has happened in our 5 months of being here. Zesco (our company that keeps us going with electricity) goes out several times a week for atleast a few hours. We have spent 2 days without power, but that's another story... The major problem was that one of our workers forgot to fill the tanks through the night (we operate off of engines in bore holes) and so we had no water in our tanks. I made the call to Zesco letting them know that our power was out and ran out to ask the worker why the tank had not been filled...whoops!! After getting these things settled I was notified that a large amount of water was found lying on a cement slab by one of the tanks. We had men break it open to find that there was a large hole in the hot water line and that is where our water had dissapeared to. It was patched as Jessi and I got ready for church and went over to check on some of the beautiful orphans next door. I walked into church, ready to get fed with God's word and some nice fellowship when one of the men visiting our farm came running in looking a bit panicked..."Jake...Sal just called and said he is broken down in Monze!! He needs you to go get him now..." MONZE!!! Now for those of you who aren't familiar with the area...haha...Monze is a 3 hour drive. The largest problem however is that Sal had the only working vehicle. We push started one of the other vehicles which has a flat tire and a broken starter, threw a tow bar and some chains, I grabbed two of my friends (two nationals) and we started of to Monze with Rascal Flatts playing on the cd player! We arrived to Monze after making 2 stops to fill air in the tire and found that there was no where to connect the tow bar to the Land Rover. We improvized and used the chain to hold the bar as secure as possible and made our way back to the farm. Half way there the chain came apart and we had to very carefully get off the road without getting hit by the enormous trucks on the road and without Sal (the medical missionary) rear ending me as i pulled the Rover. We managed to secure things and get back to the farm (this was 7 hours and 30 minutes after i had left in the morning before church)...I crawled out of the car and was greeted by Jessi telling me that Zesco was out again and we were going out to eat! Though i was hungry...spending more time in a car was not my idea of a good time...but we left within 10 minutes and took off for town where we had a wonderful Indian dish...now many people would look at this as a terrible day, but i can honestly tell you that yesterday was a success! We got the Rover back...everyone was safe...i hear that Church was excellent (our new pastor George preached a powerful sermon)...God was glorified...we had a great dinner...and i got to relax in the evening with my lovely wife (though there was no Zesco still - really HOT!) Just think about the next time you want to complain about your day...hahaha! I love you guys and look forward to sharing the joys and frustrations of Africa!!!
Jake

P.S. My next blog is going to let you in on the creatures we've encountered since we were here...we'll throw in some pics too!