There are many changes in the structure of BCC. Primose’s daughter, Euphonia, left for the far north with her husband, Godfrey, and her daughter, Faith. They had been running a day care center at BCC along with the feeding program. The local authority closed down all the day care facilities due to several deaths of small children in nearby centers. Godfrey was offered a good job in the north and they moved there quite quickly. The feeding scheme still operates.
Lorna Rutter (Reinaldo’s wife) quit her job as a day care teacher after many years of hard labor. She will now assist BCC and help Marty Wallace with creative ideas and skills development of the kids there. The BCC trustees have decided to focus on the spiritual welfare and teaching, community projects and outreach. This is a much bigger challenge than it seems but we are all positive and working hard to accomplish new goals.
A generous donation of a 40’ Container was made by a local shipping company and I used my contacts to have it delivered by a crane truck. It was set down on the vacant land across the street from the center, close to the existing 20’. It will be used for storage and perhaps a space to teach and train kids in different handcrafts and skills.
One of our visitors this year was Rusty Draper from Zephyrhills, FL. I met Rusty during my furlough last year and he expressed a desire to visit the mission work in South Africa. He was already committed to work in Brazil and wanted to take the opportunity to swing over to Africa. Rusty arrived in August and immediately dove into several work projects at BCC. Marty was delighted to have skilled help and the two repaired many things at the center.
One of the most positive ideas that Rusty had was so simple, it made all of us step back and think why we didn’t think of it, too! He suggested to ask for another two Containers – a 40’ and 20’ – then in conjunction with the two we have already, form them into a pattern on the empty lot. A crane could be hired to set the four Containers in such a way to leave a central area, which could be covered by roofing. A soup kitchen with a serving hatch could be housed in one Container and the others used for classrooms/storage/work areas. This idea alone would save BCC from building a new center for the moment and also, since the Containers are considered temporary structures, we wouldn’t fall afoul of the municipality!
Please pray with us: we have approached several shipping companies with our request and this plan could be quickly realized!
