Rain....a blessing and a curse

I awoke at 6:30 am yesterday morning to the sound of rain on the tin roof. I remembered hearing rain throughout the night as well. This was the day we were to head down to Samson and Mary's house to install rain gutters and a rain tank, and I was pretty sure the weather could affect our plans. The other family who we were joining with was the Dubber family and they had suggested this service project as they knew this Kenyan family well.

We decided to postpone our departure by a half hour, hoping the weather would improve. By 8:30 am, the skies were still cloudy, but the rain had stopped. We headed out in our two vehicles, towards Mary's house, which should have taken about 30 minutes.

About half way down the hill, we realized the roads were much worse than we expected. In fact, one of the vehicles got badly stuck in this mess.

 While the men sorted out the mess, the kids decided to have a little fun. (Note: Megan had signed up for a different service project at an orphanage, so she was not with us.)

We finally got out of the mud and inched slowly down the hill, fish-tailing this way and that. 

In the midst of the mud and mess, I was struck by God's beautiful creation springing forth from all this rain.

We finally reached Mary's house, only an hour and a half after we started out. :) We got right to work. Out came the saws, hammers, drills, and nails. Everyone pitched in and did a great job.

As you can from these pictures, more rain is on the way! We were hoping to get finished in time, so all the lovely rain would end up in the new rain barrel. 

The kids each found ways to pitch in.....Lyndsey was able to help install the faucet on the water tank....and Ian made some new friends with Mary's grandchildren.

And here are Mary and Samson....you will notice Mary recently broke her leg. We were happy to help them out in a tangible way. 

And....we went home by another route! We didn't want to mess with that mud a second time!