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We hope to have our first story photocopied and ready to use
by the end of the month. Because of overcrowding in the primary
school down the road in the next village, Takara has started its
own primary school this year for grades one and two, and has very
few resources. This project should help kids learn to read.
The main reason for the timing of this update is that the campus
generator broke down last week, and the reserve one followed suit
last night. We will be without electricity for an undetermined
amount of time, maybe a month or so. This makes things a little
bit difficult in terms of staying in touch with you. We will keep
the computer charged and continue to check email every day at
the next-door ranch, which has its own generator, but we will
have less time to write. Please continue to write to us, but be
patient about expecting replies. We will do the best we can.
The campus schedule has been rearranged to make the best use
of daylight, but there are 400 teenagers without much to do in
the dark evenings except hang out in the dorms and try not to
catch the mosquito nets on fire with candles. We are very grateful
that the water pump is entirely separate from the electrical generation,
so we still have drinking water, a toilet, and a shower. If the
water pump broke, we would have to close down the school. As it
is, we should be able to do well academically in spite of the
difficulty. Keep us in your prayers.
Tonight we cleaned out the refrigerator the fun way, and feasted
on chef salads, complete with grated cheese. Then we toasted each
other with the last of the chilled water. Lora says to think of
us when you use something from your refrigerator.
It may be a good time to think about the systems that are in
place that support all of us in our daily lives. You flip the
switch and the light comes on, you flush the toilet and the waste
disappears, you drive the car onto the road, and it is smooth
and well-engineered to get you around the corners without flying
off the curve. You go to the store and there is food on the shelves.
You go to the pharmacy and there is medicine. The school and the
library both have books. Our lives are supported by thousands
of other lives, woven into very complicated patterns that help
in unimaginable ways. There is no such thing as "rugged individualism"
or "self-sufficiency." There is no such thing as making
it on your own. We're in this together, all seven billion of us.
We as a family, particularly now, are very grateful for all of
you, who constitute the web that supports us. Takara Village thinks
it's funny that I don't need to be paid to create books for them.
It's just something I'm free to do. Parents of pre-schoolers are
amazed that Lora doesn't need a salary paid for by school fees.
She's just free to do that.
Thank you for allowing us to be free to help them. Please stay
alert for the ways you are free to help others.
Love and peace,
Bruce
The 2003 Mission Yearbook for Prayer and Study, p. 191
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