The Eight P's of Roofing

Step One: Prayer
When they started building this church two years ago it was by faith. They had the money to build the structure and get started, but didn’t have enough to finish the church. They have been praying for God to provide for the roofing (the most expensive part of building here) for the last couple years.

God answered prayers through a church in Oregon who wanted to come out for a short term trip. They raised the $5,000 needed to put the roof on (plus the money for their travels) and planned on coming out Nov. 17th.

Step Two: Pieces

Now, you can’t just run down to Menards with your Ford truck and grab everything you need. That would be TO EASY! The supplies have to come from a bigger city. Once they are found and purchased, you need to hire a truck that can haul them all. Normally, that truck is coming from another city – our lumber, which was originally supposed to come Nov. 5th, finally came on the 14th (4 days before the project).

Step Three: Protection

Hire a guard who can keep watch of the lumber and supplies (all sitting outside the church) so that robbers don’t come and take “10 pieces at a time.”

Step Four: Preparation

Pounding Futu for the workers

Need to treat all the lumber with a seal so that the bugs won’t eat it all right away. Also includes preparing for how to feed 40 people breakfast, lunch, and dinner for 4 days (cue the 50 lbs bags of rice), where everyone will sleep, and how to communicate in 4 different languages (English, French, Djula, and Senefou – we’ll even throw some German in there, so that makes 5). Also, we needed to prepare the church, which has been sitting there for 2 years with no roof, mostly a home for sheep and goats.

Step Five: Power Tools

Rod drops off the supplies that will make this job take three days instead of two weeks trying to do it by hand. This includes back-up generators because the electricity WILL go out.

Step Six: Pumped Up Workers

Our work team!

Everyone showed up on Monday ready to work (including the Americans who had just gotten in the Sunday night before). Started building the “A frames” and getting them put up on the church, no easy job. Once that was done, we started putting the cross beams for the metal roofing to be put on.

*Step Seven: Precautions

Um…I’ll just let the pictures show you all of that…

Step Eight: Praise!

After four days of work, the roof is on and we could only stand back and praise God that for his provision, protection, and power (I’m really going with these “P’s” huh?). Everyone was tired and sore and ready to rest.

Thanks to all of you who helped out, financially, physically or prayerfully. We appreciate it. We’ll put up some pictures of our first Sunday in the church. Pray for the finances to get the windows, doors, and floors put in before the Christmas celebration!

Blessings,

Steve and Jessica

*Step seven is a recommended, but not required step.

End of Day One

End of Day Two



Finished Product!



Daily Differences in Cote d'Ivoire

#18 "Foutou"

1. You only paint the nails on your left hand because you eat with your right hand.
2. You wear the same clothes two to three days (or all week) because you’ll need to wash whatever you wear by hand.
3. The electricity goes out almost every night during dinner – I still don’t understand why.



#9 "Tea Time"

4. Everyone returns to their houses around 6-7pm to bathe, then comes back to spend the rest of the evening.
5. There is NEVER silence – there’s always music playing on someone’s phone, someone playing the drums, guitar, or balaphon.
6. It doesn’t bother you when there’s no discreetness in breast feeding, but if a woman is wearing pants or a skirt above the knees, it’s a scandal.



#13 "Meat"

7. When someone says your losing weight, it’s not a good thing, probably means you have/just got over malaria or amebic dysentery, on the other hand, when someone says you’re getting fat, they mean it as a compliment.
8. “It was raining” is a viable excuse for being late or not attending something.
9. You see men everywhere with little tea sets taking a break for tea.
10. You don’t need an excuse for being late (even a couple hours), no one even notices (even in a meeting of two people).



#5 "Balaphone"

11. If you visit someone between the house of 8-10am, 11-1pm, or 6-9pm expect that you are going to have to stay and eat a meal – no arguments.
12. When traveling, you have to assume it’s going to take an entire day, even if you’re only going 2 hours away – you must assume that the bus will not leave on time (usually about 2-3 hours later), that you’re bus is going to break down, and that you’ll have to stop at every small town in between.  A two hour ride by moto will probably take (from bus stop to bus stop) around 4-8 hours, if you started after 2pm, that means you’ll probably spend the night at some bus station somewhere.
13. You start looking at any living animal as “meat” instead of that animal – looking at a live chicken, pig, or cow can make you feel hungry.



#2 "Washing Machine"

14. If someone says that you’re going to start at 4pm on the dot, that means you MIGHT start around 5pm.
15. Eating alone is an honor – so you might be put in a room by yourself with everyone else laughing and talking outside, in order to honor you.
16. Instant coffee and powdered milk IS coffee and creamer.
17. “Child safety” looks a lot different.



#17

18. Your stomach start growling when you hear the sound of Futu being pounded anywhere in the neighborhood.
19. You can watch storms roll in for miles and are completed comforted by the sound of rain on a metal roof.

We’ve really enjoyed watching these things become a daily “normal” in our lives and really have come to embrace it.  Thank you, Lord, for 11 months in Cote d’Ivoire!

Steve and Jessica

#19