(Click Here for Reports on the August 2, 2010 - August 21, 2010 Trip)

Date of Trip: July, 2009
Trip Leader: Kelly Vander Galien (Reporting)

First I want to thank all of the people who contributed prayers, time and money to make our trip a success. God worked through so many people to make this trip a reality and a successful trip. Praise God who makes all things possible.

Before we even left the US we felt that completely finishing the first floor of the new building was not going to be a possibility. We had received an estimate to finish the concrete work and it was about $8,000.00 more than we had. This was very disheartening and yet we knew that God wanted us to go and we would get done as much as we could with the money we had.

The first evening we were at the orphanage, Robert who is the concrete man that we met 3 ½ years ago, came and we did a walk through of the new building. He refigured his estimate, and then Kefah and his friend George started negotiating. It was both exciting and nerve-wracking to watch! Robert came down in his price about $4,000.00. Danny Ige who was also on the trip with us, spoke with friends back in the US and with Jen regarding sending letters and phoning others to raise the additional funds that were needed. Again God answered our prayer and they raised the additional $2,000.00 for the new building. We hired 13 skilled cement workers and 13 unskilled workers to complete the project!

We also had to make 12 tables for the workers to stand on to cement the ceilings and upper walls. We used existing wood that was there from making forms for the first floor. Sam Kok came up with a design to utilize all of the existing wood and what tools we had to make them.

By the end of the third day our crew, Aaron, Thomas, Duke, Danny, Sam, Mary, Dena, Tasha, Don Colleen, Erica, and Shanna had all of the prep work done. The cement people could come in and start the work.
The electrician’s, cement guys and our crew all worked together. Danny, Robert and Ronald (Kefah’s Uncle) hired all of the Kenyan men. When all of the ceilings and walls were finished they did the floors except for the bathroom and the shower room. We decided that it would not be prudent to do those floors as the plumbing needed to be installed yet.

Because Kefah and George had negotiated pricing, there was money left to waterproof cement the outside of the building- we waterproof cemented the entire front of the building and 3’ to 4’ up around the entire building. We also met with Robert to give us an estimate to replace all of the floors in the existing orphanage building and an estimate to finish the walls in the shower/toilet building, waterproof cement the entire outside of this building, and to re-slope the roof. This came to $3,000 US and someone on the trip donated this money. This work was begun and finished after we left.

We also:
• We purchased 18 pieces of 1” plywood in order to build each boy their own storage locker – there are a total of 21 lockers.
• Don made a bookcase and shelves for the medical clinic.
• We painted all of the rooms in the existing orphanage building.
• We did landscaping also. The hill that was in front of the new building was taken out and a “ditch” was dug so that when it rained the dirt did not go into the existing building.
• We went to the day school on several different occasions. We taught them songs, played with them and helped them to make school bags.

Further, Colleen held clinics everyday. Most days she saw 50 or more patients. The last day she saw over 100. Most maladies were what we had seen before, head fungus, malaria, colds, etc… Helen (Pastor Joseph’s wife) was with Colleen everyday. Colleen taught Helen about all of the common ailments, what to look for and how to treat them. Helen will continue to hold clinic. A lot of medications were purchased and left there and Colleen is looking for sponsors or ways to continue sending money monthly to keep the clinic supplied. Colleen treated the orphans for head fungus, colds and Edwin for ulcers. Otherwise the orphans were in very good physical condition.

Overall, I would say that our trip was a complete success. We were able to accomplish I would strongly recommend that anyone going on another trip where there is building involved, that Kefah needs to be there. We saved a lot of money with his ability to negotiate pricing. We also would not have been able to overcome the language barrier.
I also met with 2 pastor’s that had attended Jeremy’s seminar. They have begun satellite churches in 2 towns. Pastor Joseph meets regularly with these men to mentor them. The opportunity to spread God’s word is huge if we can continue to encourage and support them.

God Bless,
Kelly