School holiday and Playground Preparation

So what do you do in Zambia when you have a month of school holiday?  How about build a preschool playground?

As nice as it might have been to have the option to purchase one and have it delivered to the preschool’s front door (and possibly even installed), that option isn’t much of a reality where God has placed us.  So…. when the need arose for a place to the preschool kids to play in safety while at the same time building and encouraging gross motor skills and physical development, the task to meet that need became a full time project of it’s own.

From designing the playground, figuring out the type and quantity of materials needed, how to transport them here, and the actual cutting, grinding and welding of it, this project has taken up most of Alyssa and Jako’s working hours for the past month.  Some times the days were long with only little progress and other times “interruptions” (broken vehicles, broken generators, tending to local visitors, needs from the orphanage, etc…) slowed progress to a grinding halt but with perseverance and God’s grace (and a bit of help from the children on sanding day), at last, there are structures now in our work area that resemble a playground!

The big hope is to have most of the structures up and ready for kid use by the time the preschool opens on May 7th.  Please pray that God will provide all the strength, energy, resources, wisdom, and motivation needed to see this process through to completion in order to see many smiling faces full of laughter dancing on it soon.  Thanks to those that have helped make this possible and to God who is the ultimate giver of all good things.

Ways to get involved and additional prayer need

As an additional note, due to location, timing of availability, and age difference we are still in need of an additional toddler/young child playground at the orphanage.  Since all of our babies are growing up, in four months time we are going to have 7 children between the ages of 1 and 2 and one five year old.  We would love to provide them an age appropriate safe place for them to play and develop themselves so if anyone feels interested in donating to this need please contact us via e-mail at missionoflovezambia@hotmail.com .

Please also pray for finances for a well to be drilled we have received funds for one well but we need to drill two wells this year to have enough water for all the projects, orphanage and the community.