Progress on our Fortress

April, May & June have been three months packed with visitors, projects & progress on our village home! We spent 3 nights up on the rock living off grid. The kids absolutely loved it. Sandpiles to play and dig in, bricks to build with, and an astounding sunrise and sunset morning and evening.

We took the first opportunity to stay at the house once the 3 bedrooms had doors & windows on them, and we could sleep indoors. That means the kitchen wasn’t finished and we had to make two makeshift kitchens. Our first one was outdoors, but it was incredibly windy, and the gas burner kept blowing out. By the evening the builders had installed all the wooden boards above the kids room & storage room, and so we were able to move into the short storage room. We could just barely stand, as long as it was between the gaps of the beams. Throughout the weekend, the builders still had work to do on the roof, and so lots of dust and pieces of cement fell through the cracks onto our kitchen. We just came to terms that our food was spiced with dust. Sarah & I had fun cooking though and even frosted a cake that we had made earlier in the week for Kossi.

The kids had fun doing different chores like washing dishes & clothes out of buckets, gathering water from the big barel for the smaller buckets, sweeping and more. Delali and Kekeli could be found on the sand pile digging and building. Martine and Kharis mostly read books or colored in their free time.

We had such a fun time. Our semi camping experience had its challenges, but knowing that the challenges are only momentary made it fun.

It’s amazing to see how much progress has taken place on the house, and to see the changes of seasons through the months. Each stage of the house has been a step of faith, and through the whole process God has provided. We are so thankful for that. We do not have an estimate for how much more is needed, as each time we think we have an estimate, it ends up being more. We are working on putting together a report which will show the funds we have received, and how much more we will potentially need. If you would like that information, please let me know, and I will share it. We also have a Facebook group where we share more private information, please also let me know if I can add you to that.

The three bedrooms on the bottom part of the house are finished.  The builders are currently putting up the walls on the upper floor, which will create a bedroom, kitchen & living area.  Thanks to the generous support of Lake City Church in Lakewood, Washington, we have the finances in order to finisht that.  

Once that is complete, we hope to add a loft above our bedroom for two more beds for small children, and then we just need to put on the doors, windows & furnish the house! We are hoping to also add a patio to two or three sides of the house, so that we can have a larger dining area for when we have a lot of guests.  Our future big financial needs will be to drill the bore hole & install solar electricity.  Down the road we will need to make a nicer shower space.  

Below are three different ways you can contribute towards finishing our house.

Tax deductible Donation

Paypal

Venmo

Some commonly asked questions we get are:

Who’s land are you building on? What will happen when you leave?

We have built the house on Decent’s land, which is shared with Extending Hope Organization. We don’t have any plans to leave, but we know anything can happen. If for some reason we leave in the next few years, we have agreed with Decent on either Extending Hope Organization buying the house, or renting it to someone who will move in. And of course whatever money we get for the house will go towards our next ministry project.

Do you have any questions? Please ask us!