safety

Let There Be Light!

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I’ve lived in hurricane country all of my life, first in Florida and now in North Carolina, so I’m very familiar with the “WOW, is it dark when the power goes out!” feeling. We also lived in Nicaragua which has… let’s generously say an “unreliable” power grid.

Ronald and three friends are at the farm all week, so Tuesday morning my first question to him was, “It was pretty dark out there, wasn’t it?”

His reply was, “My signal is so poor out here and it’s so dark!”

But Tuesday night… voila! There was light!

Thanks to you and our generous supporters on DonorSee, we’ve now got the solar system installed. This gives us some light at the house as well as power to run the well pump. (There is a hand-pump for rainy days that don’t see a lot of power generated.) We’re also going to put a light at the entrance gate for safety.

I can’t tell you how good it feels to be getting the farm project completed. It’s been about 6 1/2 months since we posted it on DonorSee and we’ve raised 88% of the funds. In just a week, we’ll be a fully functioning little farm… That’s just amazing!

We will be taking down this project on the 15th, whether or not we’re 100% funded.

We’ve got some urgent large projects that need to go up on DonorSee — an ecobrick water tank for Hopeland Primary, a well at Wells of Hope, and a culvert enlargement project at Hopeland to mitigate their flooding problems — and we can only have one large project up at a time.

If you want to contribute to this last work at the farm over the next two weeks, we’d really appreciate your support – just click the button below. Either way, we’ll keep you updated on life at Mikisa Farm, including my visit out there in March. (I can’t wait!)

Blessings,

Jennings

PS Gideon just sent me the results of the result for Hopeland’s P7 class national exams, which are a REALLY big deal. If you don’t pass those, you can’t go on to secondary school even if you have the funding. (Yeah, crazy…) THEY ALL PASSED! This is SUCH amazing news. Thank you for your support of Hopeland and Wells of Hope. You’re making a difference every day!

FINAL FARM FUNDING!

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Securing the Compound

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When we opened the Ross House in November 2020, one of the first people we hired was Mr. Aziz, our security guard. He has done an AMAZING job keeping our girls and compound safe, but even he has limitations.

Every day, we have over 60 students, 18 staff and volunteers, 30 kids, and various deliveries and repairs going on. We also now have a room full of electric sewing machines and another room containing our computer lab (5 desktops and 5 laptops, a projector, and a printer). AND a fully stocked clinic.

It’s a LOT!

Now, we’re really proud of how we’ve been able to grow (thanks to YOU!). But we also want to steward the donations we’re given to the best of our abilities.

Last week, we installed a security monitoring system. At a cost of $325, we installed a complete system that Mr. Aziz can monitor — and there are no monthly fees.

That money came out of our general budget because we felt it was vital. We have a project up on DonorSee to reimburse our budget for it, and your donation of ANY amount makes a big difference. (While you’re over there on DonorSee, give us a Follow and/or a Review – that helps a lot, too!) Just click the button – it’s almost like magic!

Make some magic!

More to come soon on my upcoming trip to Uganda!

Blessings,

Jennings

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