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| Barnabas at the new blackboard |
Friday we had a small re-dedication service with the pastor and members of the church that meet in our pre-school building, one of our teachers and the rest of our staff from the medical clinic and grounds. Since only one member of our staff has been present for the majority of the life of the pre-school building, I decided to start off by telling the folks there the history of the building or at least what I know of the history. Why? Because if ever there was a building that was an example of faith I would say that building is it. Yes our entire ministry is an act of faith in God to provide and make it successful. But the Pre-school was probably the most visible act of faith there is. The story starts before the building was ever built with Robert Makali, William's brother, holding a pre-school in their family home back in the days William was stateside going to college.
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| Robert Makali and the first Pre-school |
Around 2005, William visited the states and during the visit he had local crafts/jewelry for sale at all of his talks. With the money from those sales he went back and built the basic shell of the Pre-school. It was red mud brick walls and a thatch roof. There were only openings for the windows and door, no blackboard, no concrete floor and no chairs or benches for the kids to sit on.
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| The Pre-school in 2006 |
The first needed change was to put a roof on the building so school can be held during the rainy season else the floor just became a mud hole. While I know several groups contributed I was able to be a part of Mauldin UMC's Wren Circle of the United Methodist Women contributing half the cost for building the roof structure and putting a tin roof on the building.
A group for the states in I believe 2008 built desks for the students. Then in 2009 I noticed there was some significant damage to the red mud bricks due to the fact they were unprotected from both rain and wind damage. In addition our team doing the pre-schools noticed what a rough time the students had with the wind stirring up the dirt floors.
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| The kids at their desks on the dirt floor with the expose red mud brick walls. |
After that trip a real push was made to raise the funds and set into motion upgrading the building with a concrete floor, concrete plaster on the walls, shutters on the windows and a door. That was done in 2010 as well as the addition of a small latrine for the children.
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| Julius Pallanjo repairing the wind damage to the mud bricks before exterior plaster coat and paint can be applied |
In 2011 we went back and did a VBS program in the building again and it was unbelievable the difference those renovations had made.
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| The walls painted added a much needed brightness and the shutters control the wind that would blow the children's work around and the concrete floor meant no more dirt being stirred into the air |
Unfortunately when I arrived the building had taken some fairly heavy abuse being used by 60 something 4-7 year olds and just two teachers. The walls looked a little rough and the blackboard was pockmarked concrete plaster that had become to dry and crumbled and the floor had severe chunks missing from it. The kids never seemed to notice the damaged floor and could really care less about the walls but it was not the environment effective for learning.
So we busted out the floor and re-poured it. Plastered over the damaged blackboard and re-coated it. Repaired areas of the walls with chunks missing and patched some of the other areas but mainly repainted the interior (five coats worth to cover some of the pencil drawings on the walls. Repaired several of the desks. Repaired or rebuilt most of the shutters and the main door then painted them. Outside we dug out six inches of soil and replaced it with sand at the playground to make it safer for the children to play. Rebuilt and re-welded the swing set. Built a new see-saw using a 2x6 and an old car tire (really wished it had been a truck tire but they are small kids). Used the dirt to build up the area around the building and cover the exposed foundation concrete again as well as affect positive drainage away from the building. Still need to paint the outside, do repairs on the rainwater harvesting system again and make a couple of small additions to the playground area and now the church that meets there has asked if I can make an announcement board so they can attach things to it outside the building.
Barnabas and many of the staff enjoyed trying out the playground area.
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