Greetings,
Jill is the “updater” in the family, but she has forced me to take the keyboard for this update to let you know more about what it is that I do.
Primarily, I am working as one of the administrators at the ABC Community Clinic helping with the business and finance aspects of operations. This includes the usual fun stuff of finance tracking and planning, along with handling contracts and other business relationships.
Now, I know what you are thinking…this sounds really super-exciting. I know without a doubt that you are thinking to yourself, “gee, I really hope that he will post one of those super-cool, macro-laden spreadsheets of his to this blog!”
Ok, Ok….so maybe not, so here is a little more of the items that we have been blessed to be a part of over the last 8 or so months.
On campus, I have been involved with several projects. One project was the redesign of the well-water system to support the clinic and the campus housing. Another project will provide a dedicated generator and UPS system for the clinic to weather through the power outages that are very frequent. I guess the engineering-stuff is paying off.
In addition to the on-campus ministry, we have been blessed to work with a group called E-3, International. The group is a small Christian Development group that is comprised of a few current ABC missionaries and a few ABC graduates. The focus of the group is development of the village of Gusu through education, agriculture, micro-finance, and other projects geared to empower the people of Gusu to develop their own village. Gusu is the home village for one of the managers of E3. Several ruling bodies within the surrounding villages primarily lead the effort and make the decisions, and E3 is a support group of sorts offering project management and working alongside Gusu in the effort.
Below are some pictures from the school in Gusu that opened its doors to students in October.
The school is being expanded with the addition of another classroom block set to be completed in March.
Each village in the area had to produce 15,000 bricks in order to get the school built. Here they are staging the bricks for installation and mixing the mortar.
Below are some pictures of a well installation that we are implementing to aid in the start of a permaculture project and training facility at the school. Several members of Gusu have been attending a permaculture training course that E3 setup on the campus of ABC. I will be sizing this pump, solar, and water handling system this week for purchase. Again, I guess the engineering is paying off.
Well installation at Gusu village. Notice all of the people in the background looking on.
The people of Gusu watching the well being installed.
In closing, we are continuing to work on the development of development projects to implement in village settings. The ABC campus has become a bit of a test bed for many of these ideas. The goal is to develop projects to the point that we feel that they can be reproduced and sustained in a village setting. These projects, again primarily through E3, have included permaculture, composting, vermiculture (worms), rocket stoves, biogas and fuel applications, and aquaponics. Ok, so now you have a lot of new things to ponder and to “google” for that matter.
Below are some pictures of the aquaponics installation on the campus of ABC. This one is built to certain aesthetic standards that would not be considered outside of the campus, but it is still a good test bed for us to experiment and train groups on the application and operation of these systems. As with all of these projects, the goals are to work with villages to install them with readily available materials and with minimal outside investment.
There will be a separate blog post coming soon describing permaculture and aquaponics. Stay tuned!
That is all for now. Let us know if you have any questions about the work with which we are involved.
Jeremy
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