Coming to Lindsay

Sharing at Calvary church in Lindsay tomorrow morning at 10:30 .  I will be sharing about the farm and how the farm is reaching out to the community around us .  If you are in the area I would love to see you. 

Back on the farm the guys are working on some live edge couches for in the Yurt.  The Yurt master is making the covers now and will put them on in another week.  I love it.  Rima is making cushions and pillows for them as well .

They have started sorting the school supplies to get ready to pack the knapsacks as soon as they arrive.  Packing 700 bags is going to take some time.  The day the first team arrives, they will have some of the neighbors join us to get the Knapsacks packed 

I received some more seeds yesterday that will be good for planting in the green house.   

Raising the Yurt

Today they started setting up the frame of the old wooden yurt from the kashar in the orchard down on the farm .  Now that it is up, they can take the exact measurements so that they can make the new cover for it .  This will take a couple weeks .  The yurt will be set up with a home made live edge sitting area in it that can double as a bed if someone wants to sleep out.  Its not as easy as you think, and in the end we had to inlist the help of a couple Kyrgyz men who know what they are doing . 

Today my mom and I were at a local outreach centre where the kids at the VBS there are going to be raising funds this week to help with the back to school supplies.   

Once the men came to help, Sergey was able to get away so he could work on the truck.  We had to replace the stearing transfer case .  New parts were not available but they were able to find a used one and recondition it ,  so by night time they were back i business and able to bring water to the Kashar and Yurts for the guests there.

Tomorrow morning , Sergey and a couple boys will begin shopping in Bishkek  for all the back to school supplies. Meanwhile Ravil will be arranging to pick up the new EGK machine for the clinic.  

On the 23rd, I will be flying Mom up to my brothers in Thunder Bay, then fly back to meet Julie who is flying in from Newfoundland.  We will then have two days at home to finish packing and closing up the house and then the morning of the 26th we head back to Kyrgyzstan .

We land on the 28th , and our first team lands at stupid oclock on the 30th .  

The 31st we host an orphanage for fishing, hot springs, horsback riding and picnic... the 1st of September is the school supplies at the party in the park for 700 kids.  Then it just keeps on going with something exciting every single day with two more teams coming, finishing on Sept 28.  That will give us 4 days to unwind before we fly out ... 

Now if you are in the Kawartha Lakes area , I will be speaking at Calvary Church   125 Victoria Avenue North, Lindsay, ON, Canada, This Sunday Sept 18 at 10:30.  Love to see you there. 

 

Meeting a Need

LSI   is an organization that does a lot of incredible work in Kyrgyzstan.  They operate a clinic that provides medical care to the least of these.  They also take a hands on approach helping people with their day to day needs like food .  They are one of the biggest supporters of the coal deliveries that we do as well.  

The medical clinic has been a real blessing to us at the farm , they provide for all the medical needs for the boys , including Dental .

The Drs there are always so kind and carring .. very profecional 

I brought my friend Quinton there for a tour this spring , and found out something that has been troubling me.  In the diognostic lab they have an old EKG machine .. the problem is that it is old and not very reliable .. It only works when it feels like it and they are not able to find the reason. 

At the same time we found out the most of the clinic is going digital .  This enables them to have not only quick access to patient files, but they are able send the files to consulting Drs around the world.  It really is amazing for a small clinic.  

 Like I say, knowing the importance of the EKG machine and how unreliable theirs is, we did some checking and have found one that we could purchase for the that is $1230 USD.  ( That was the price at the end of May )  The benifit of this machine is that it is digital and can send results directly into patient files .  It also means they will no longer need to find printer paper and ink.   We have decided to move ahead with this , and are hoping to be able to present it to them as soon as possible. 

A little beach time

Everey year we try to get some time for the boys to go to the beach .  So right now they are enjoying a few days off.   

Getting ready for a road trip with the boys and also three teams coming, we brought the bus in to get a bit of work done, but any time you start to work it becomes more then just a bit.  We had to replace the colling fan for the airconditioner, but then found that a break job was needed, one tie rod end and then found a cracked leaf spring .  So everything is fixed up and we are ready to be back on the road in time for the boys to spend a couple days at Lake Isykool . 

I was blessed to receive the end of season seeds from the seed rack from Norwood Foodland.  This will be perfect for planting in the green house this fall.  

Back in Canada I have been trying to get a bit of work done  around the house .  Julie has been sending me pictures of houses with dark paint and red doors that she has seen in Saint Johns and thought it would look good .  I think she is right . 

  

 

The honey is flowing .

Vitamins are such an important part of developement ,  especialy in Kyrgyzstan where there is a predisposition to rickets .  Fortunatly we have some sponsors that suport us with providing these vitamins.  We also have a good source of vitamins in Kyrgyzstan so we can now purchase there spacific to our needs .  One of our team is a registered doula, so that puts her on the front line when it comes to baby care .  We are able to help before there is any medical condition.   

At The farm we have a few days between guests so its a good time to get the cement pad poured for the yurt.  If you look closely you can see the frame under the cover by the gift shop.  It will be going up in the orchard behind the guest house.  Once the frame is up, we will have the yurt builders come and take measurements for the size of the new cover .  then they will come back and instal it . 
 

 We just got our second draw of honey from the mountain Gojji berry hives.  Last year was a terrible year for honey , then in the winter there was a huge die off .. in fact we lost all 30 hives on the farm, and about half our hives in the mountain... Well this year has turned around.  the new hives on the farm have established well and the mountain hives are back to full capasity ... in fact this year we have an over 900% increese over last year .  So to those who have been missing the honey, we hope to be able to bring back lots with us this year.  

Down on the farm as I was saying, the bees are doing well,  and we have just started to draw the honey from them.  Now when you conside that average hive has 50 000 bees, that means that there are about 1 500 000 bees.   

As they were about to start, I was chating with them about where the antihistamin tablets and Benadril was .. but we also prayed that God would keep them safe.   Then as you can see, they  covered up well  .. NOT...  and proceeded . 

NOT ONE SINGLE BEE STING ALL DAY . 

Mom was helping me to pack up the knapsacks and some tee shirts, and we are shipping them today to the team coming from Possibilities International. https://www.iam1ru.com/  They will be arriving just in time to host the party in the park.  

 

Since reaching our target for back to school supplies ysterday, I have had a couple people contact me to see if they are too late to help.  Well the quick answer is No.. We do have several others , including 3 small orphanages that could use help with back to school.  I even had a message from Aiperi this morning .  She works with Afgan refugies in Pakistan , and has asked if we would be able to help with school suplies again this year for kids in the camp.   so Yes we will continue to recieve back to school donations. 

A joyful heart is good medicine.

We have started to get updates from families that we helped by providing seeds for their gardens.  They are so pleased to be able to show us .  It is a lot of work , but when you start harvesting , there is such a feeling of saisfaction . 

Soon we will begin harvesting the honey from the new bees down on the farm.  From our mountain bees we just took the second draw and got 660 lbs of honey.  Glad we have some teams coming that we will be able to send some back with . 

This last weekend we had a group come and stay at the guest house and they wanted to get their hands dirty on the farm .. It is such a blessing to see the beets all weeded and doing so well.  The next teem coming will be making huge batches of pickles beets, pickled peppers, tomatoe sauce and zuccinni relish and bread.  

The knapsacks have started to arrive at my house . they are being shipped from 4 different depots so will be spred out over 4 days of delivery... I guess not many people buy 700 at a time . 

When I found out we had so many kids coming, I was kind of overwhelmed .  This is outside my comfort zone.  Never mind what do you do with 700 kids , but how do you feed them all and preparing the bags is a huge task , and even limiting it to just $10 a knapsack, thats still $7000. and then getting everything money included to Kyrgyzstan on time .   

Well in Just two weeks it has all come together .  We only have $240 to go.  We have a team coming that will sponsor the snacks. We will have the local families involved with the food prep and organizing the party.  We can also have them helping to order and package the school supplies by grade.  then when we get there we just need to put them in the color coordinated  knapsacks .  The team is even bringing some extra toys and things that we will be able to use as door prizes .. and maybe even throw in a fishing trip for a dozen kids.   Now the panic is starting to subside, I am even starting to get a little excited .  

 

A joyful heart is good medicine,