7/19 & 20/23

 Wednesday love for Lukulu. We began with morning prayer at 7 am. Breakfast immediately afterwards. After breakfast all of us went to work on a home for an elderly woman selected by the parish for a new house because the old one was falling down. 

We had fun working with the locals, Dennis and Sebastian, and a few others.

Later in the afternoon we went Chotella, a small outpost village, where we were greeted by children singing.

The “church” consisted of a stick structure with a plastic tarp covering only a portion.  This is typical for many of the churches in small villages.

After celebrating Mass we had dinner with the parish leaders and then returned home where the youth were waiting for us at the bonfire.  As this was the third night in a row for a bonfire we were all so tired that we went to bed early.

Today after morning prayer and breakfast, we split into 2 groups.  One group went back to the construction site and the other group went to St. Colomba Secondary School.  The first class that we visited was the ccmputer skills class.  Most of the computers were older with floppy disk drives and there were 3 students for each computer.

Meanwhile at the construction site, progress continued on the walls with the addition of the door frames.

Today we had extra help moving bricks from a dozen or so local children.  They were rewarded with a piece of gum.

After the computer skills class we visited the industrial arts class.  One of the things that stood out was the scarcity of tools, especially larger floor tools.  In addition, there was no safety equipment(glasses, aprons, gloves, etc.)

The open air kitchen was something else.

Mid afternoon we attended a special mass for the children.  It was moving and finished with our favorite song “Happy We Are…”. While we were busy this afternoon, a couple of the guys started the 2nd pig which looked a lot better than the first one.