Start by doing what you can do and before you know it you will be doing what others said could not be done !

It sure does not take long to fall behind on the blog posts.  There has been so much going on .  The kitchen and new plumbing is almost finished, the house renovations on house 2 are almost finished, and the rock gardens at the guest house are almost complete,  I will show pictures and share more about these later.   Today I have a few other updates.  

Marat goes in today for his pre-op and they will start the operations on Monday  We originally expected one of two operations, but it turns out that he will need both.   They say that with the two operations he will not even need glasses when they are finished .  We could stop now as the degeneration has been arrested, but with his whole future ahead of him we have decided to move forward .  We were expecting $800 but with the two operations it will be $1600 plus any after care and other minor expenses staying in the city for the week.   we are still praying for some help for this.  He will have two operations on one eye, then a couple days later they will do the second eye.  

Over at the kindergarten we have all the big ticket items in place that we had committed to .  They still have a long way to go, but this may give the momentum that they need to be open for the end of August.  Some times a task seems too big to tackle and if some one starts it others will join in .. like the hospital project   

This has been a long time coming, but the clinic is finally ready to open.  

Dr's office and exam room 

procedure room ( with private toilet  and shower ) 

beautiful art work on the walls 

large indoor waiting room 

change table in the waiting area beside public washroom 

The most over whelming thing for me was not how great it turned out, but the fact that in the end so many from the community got involved and helped.  In the end there were over 40 people, individuals and business that had a part in this .  For the first two years of this it was just us as we slowly plugged away at it in sections as the finances came along.  Once the outside was finished and the roof was on, it became easier for Dr Anara to share the dream and others started to come on board.. first other builders stared to help where they could , then others started to donate things like bathroom fixtures and new office furniture.  

When tackling many of the projects we do, we always say , we may not have the resources to finish the project, but we have the resources to start it.  It is so hard to sell a dream, especially in a country that so many people are in need .. but this day we saw what can happen when a community comes together ..  Today Tokmok has one of the most beautiful modern baby clinics in the country if not Central Asia .. 

back on the farm the planting is under way .  most of the seed crops are in, as well as about 1000 tomato plants and 400 pepper plants , 400 egg plants and about 2000 field cucumbers .. more planting today. 

The yurt is up and open for business.  In fact we just paid the taxes for the yurt and to graze our animals on the mountain.    

morning traffic from the front door.  about 10 to 15 different herds of animals with up to 3 or 4 hundred head pass right past the door every morning and afternoon. 

looking at pictures with the boys that work at the ranch .. Its great that we have pictures of them gong back about 10 years in the orphanages .. its nice for them to have some history. 

I am set up at the kitchen table to work on reports 

cleaned up after supper . 

The boys at the ranch are getting worn out.. they are running endlessly trying to keep up with the animals.  We have about 80 head right now of cows goats and sheep, plus another  50 ducks and geese.  The difficulty is that ours is a new herd and they have not grown up in the mountains as part of a herd, so they do not know to stay together. every one marches to his own beet so keeping them together is an endless task. 

We have been fattening and selling beef  cattle for the last year.  a portion of each cow goes to the orphanages and families in need and the rest is sold .. by doing this we have been able to actually make a little bit of money and feed the orphanages at the same time. 

Right now the cost of feed has gone through the roof because of the longer winter and everyone running out.  With this, we will not be able to make money on beef this next season , but we do have way to many mail goats right now.  We will start to fatten them up a couple a month and then sell them for meat rather then beef, and tomorrow we will take the profit we had made from the beef and rather then buying another beef cow to fatten up, we will buy a horse for the ranch so that we can keep the heard together better.