Film, Friendship and Chicken Nutrition

  

Tim just finished being interviewed for a fundraising video for the hospital.  He enjoys performing surgery WAY more than being a “salesman”, as he calls it, so he was relieved to get the interview finished.  While we obviously strongly believe in the need and the cause, he has been dreading this interview for weeks now.  He said it wasn’t nearly so bad as he expected.  Yay!

Yes, that is Sam Berg holding the umbrella for the filming!  Sam has learned a TON about photography
and film making, two things of intense interest to him, thanks to volunteer Dave Harrison.  Dave is a brilliant
film maker/director/producer from Britain who has donated his time to make the fundraising video for the hospital.
He is so talented!

The last couple of days, I’ve pretty much stayed around the mission compound, due to a migraine that hit me pretty hard.  I used to get migraine headaches a lot, but in the last five years or so, have hardly had any at all, so these were an UNblast from the past, for sure.  L  Anyway, somehow my friend found out I was sick, and today she came to check on me and brought me six soft drinks!  My friend is the lady who works at the duka (store) where I do my local shopping for cokes, toilet paper, pens, airtime for our phones, margarine, cooking oil, rice, flour, beans or laundry soap.  I was so surprised when she appeared at the door of our schoolhouse with a bag of cokes and orange fantas!  I tried to insist that I pay her, but she would have none of it.  “It is a gift. You do not give me money.”  She must have practiced saying this in English before coming over.  This is a huge gift, as she makes about 620 francs ($1) a day, and soft drinks cost 300 francs (.50) each.  Her generosity, concern and visit spoke friendship to me, which I treasure, especially since I am a foreigner who left my friends and family an ocean away.

My friend came to check on me today!  

I took these of Ancilla last week when I was shopping.  She does a great job running the store....

This is the entire store, except you can't see the coke refrigerator to
her right.  We call it our "H-E-B"  J 

Ancilla and I at the duka where she works.

Chickens in the News:

The CHICKEN PALACE!!

This is like a Cinderella Palace Chicken Home in Rwanda....it is so much nicer than our coop back in Texas!
We're actually kind of embarrassed over how nice it is - but our chickens don't mind being ostentatious at all.

We are still finalizing our Chicken Palace, where we are raising the first batch of chickens to use in the hospital’s nutrition program, feeding children recovering from surgery who are malnourished.  Our dogs, Umunu and Urusenda, found a way into the “no dog, dog eat chicken” palace, and killed 5 of our chicks last Saturday.  So, we now have to spend more money to try to further dog-proof the building.  We are digging a trench around the entire coop and pouring cement in it.  Hopefully, that will keep them from digging their way under again, which is what they did last Saturday morning.  DOGS!  UGH! 

Here are some more pictures of our feathered friends along with pictures of the day we purchased them.  

We walked to the next town over to buy our chickens, and carried our plastic tub, to put the chicks in, with us.  We were SO thankful that Ildephonse, the mission compound gardener, came with us to translate and help carry the box!

You are looking at 1,400 baby chicks!  

Speaking of the chickens, I was given permission from Janna Lindig in Bandera to name our chicken project after my former 4-H director and his wife, the lady who was the secretary and school registrar of my high school.  We are naming the chicken nutrition project the “Werner and Earline Lindig Chicken Nutrition Project”, or, the “Lindig Shindig”, for short. J We can’t wait for our paint to come in from Kamembe, a town two hours from here, so we can paint the official name on the palace! 

If you would like to know a little more about the Lindigs, go to these links:

Earline Lindig's Obituary

Werner Lindig's Obituary

Lutheran Church Wild Game Dinner ~ 25th Anniversary

Mr. and Mrs. Lindig were pillars of our town.  Mr. Lindig built up our 4-H program to be one of the best around, and Mrs. Lindig made sure everyone was in the right classroom for years and years.  Woe to the person, like me, who was chronically tardy!  The wrath of Mrs. Lindig was something all the students feared.  I never knew until after I’d graduated from high school that Mrs. Lindig was actually a super sweet person, who was only being stern because she was concerned for our education.  

I am so excited to be able to name this project after them.  Who knows, maybe their names will be associated with this project for years and years to come.  There is a school nearby named the “Frank Adamson” school, so named back in the 1950's, which is still going strong.  It was named after the first missionary who came to Kibogora.  

Mr. Lindig not only ran our 4-H program for years and years, he also started the Bandera Wild Game Dinner, a fundraiser for the Lutheran Church, 25 years ago.  Today, this is one of the biggest and best fundraisers for any non-profit in our town. The world needs more people like Mr. and Mrs. Lindig.  I know it may seem like a silly tribute to name a chicken coop after them in faraway, rural Rwanda – but the idea came to me one night in my sleep, and ever since, I’ve really wanted to do it.  I think they would like it.  After all, it's about raising animals and helping kids, which is a big part of what their lives were about.  J