Aug. 3 Ready for Students to Arrive!

The weekend of August 3-5 the hostel had to be ready for students to arrive... school started August 8.

Drive up to this side of the stairway to unload your luggage

Climb the stairs to this "welcome" sight on the front porch.

Entrez through this beautiful front door (there is a screen door here now too).

Just inside the door, put your backpack in your cubbie (guest restroom on the other side of that door)

Continue on in to the living room

Ah, but first, the dining table is to your right.  What's this?  Someon's in the kitchen...

...baking cookies! 
Dorm Dad Dan says - it functions: food comes out of the kitchen, but it can use some improvements.
(the kitchen, not the food)

Dorm Parents' room - nearly done.  Curtains are to be added soon.

One of the bedrooms is set up for visiting parents to stay in.

I refrained from photographing student rooms, respecting their privacy!
But I did take pictures in one of the kids bathrooms!  There's one on each floor.  Two toilets, 2 shower stalls, and 2 sinks in each of them.

Standing between the toilet stalls (left) and the shower stalls (right) notice the new cup and towel racks.

Showers with new curtains hung!

Dan and Karen Carlson are amazing - getting this hostel ready to receive students, ironing out the glitches in power and water systems, and Karen spent much of the past week or 2 in new staff orientation at RFIS in preparation to teach Bible class!  Bon courage, ashia, yika mpiko!

Oh look, while we've been on tour, the cookies came out of the oven - bon appetit!

First batch of cookies baked in the new hostel (I think)

July 30 - Prayer Requests

In just a week students will be arriving for the start of the 2012-13 school year .  While the Carlsons have moved in to the hostel, and it's mostly ready, there are many loose ends remaining before it's really ready to receive students.

Please pray with us for:

*  Good health for everyone. 
*  Electricity to function well throughout the hostel
*  Sinks, toilets, showers etc. all function well without leaks - such a challenge in a new place.
*  Completion and installation of all shower rods & curtains, window curtains and rods, towel racks, toilet tissue holders
*  Safe travel to Yaounde for all students coming to live in UBAC Hostel
*  Three of the students who are new to the hostel, new to RFIS
*  Positive family atmosphere in the hostel among students  -- our 12 students include 4 Carlsons, 5 whose parents serve in Central African Republic, and 3 whose parents serve in Gabon.
*  Special grace for Karen Carlson who is teaching one class at RFIS in addition to learning the ropes as hostel mom.

July 18 - Getting Settled In

July 18 was Carlson's first night to stay in the hostel.  Karen had been busy sewing new curtains for every room; Dan, making curtain rods.  The day was spent putting beds together (finding all the matching parts for each bed), finding linens and making the beds, and moving personal items as well as kitchen stuff from CMF where they'd been staying over to UBAC.  Here's how that day looked.

Karen puts finishing touches on one of MANY new curtains

An example of the beautiful curtains specially made for the new hostel

Time to start moving furniture into place... and figure out where to put what!  Some pieces that had been used for kitchen storage are no longer needed for that purpose, so can be placed in the living area.

Newly re-finished dining table - like new!

This beautiful cabinet used to hold tupperware and kitchen items (with masking tape labels on the drawers).  Now re-finished, it stands in the space between the front entry and the inside stairway for a new purpose.

The 2 fridges and small freezer were cleaned well and moved into position in the new kitchen.  It took a few days to figure out why plugging all 3 in at once tripped breakers -- just one of the many glitches to work out in a newly constructed building.

Fridges and freezer in the new kitchen

Meanwhile, downstairs on the bottom level, tile was being laid - the final stage in tiling.  "But you said the tile was all done!" you may say.  True, we weren't planning to tile the bottom floor just yet, but oh well, sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the right hand was thinking and at least it'll all be done! 

The last place to tile: recreation and laundry rooms on the bottom floor

And outside, landscaping continues.  Along the front of the house a retaining wall is built - made from cement blocks that one of the masons had been making for several weeks right here on our property.  No Lowes or Home Depot here to buy them ready-made.

Retaining walls to the left and in front of the front entrance

Fabrication of cement block for construction and landscaping

July 1-10 The New Hostel Parents Are Here !

July 1 we were pleased to welcome Dan and Karen Carlson, this year's UBAC Hostel parents!  And they set off right away learning everything possible from last year's parents Scott & Lee Pyles.

First day, a tour of their home-to-be.

Glass and screens going in, front steps done

 Take a closer look at the front entrance.

So up we went to the top floor kids bedrooms, and out to the big veranda that you see from the entrance gate.

Lee shows Karen the upper veranda off the girls bedroom

When they look over the side, toward the front door, this is what they see:

View from upper veranda of front steps, drainage ditch going in along the future road between hostels, and CMF Hostel.

At the other end of the upper veranda, Ron shows Dan around the hostel.

And when they go to the end of the veranda and look back along the back side of the building, this is what they see:

The wall that separates the hostel from RFIS, and a view of Stoker's porch below, and hostel living room veranda above.

Inside, the bathrooms are getting done - sinks, showers, toilets are in with tile around.  Work still to be done on the cabinets.

The sink cabinet is done in the hostel parent's bathroom.

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who are the coolest hostel parents of all?

The cabinets are going in the kitchen.  Tile on the counter top, kitchen sink, but the island isn't yet begun.

One of the bedrooms - nice big rooms, with veranda.

Bedroom opens out to the veranda

Carlsons quickly put their children to work  - stripping and revarnishing furniture.

Sanding the dining table

The Carlson family have been living in the CMF Hostel since thier arrival in Yaounde 3 weeks ago.  Tomorrow they plan to move over to the UBAC Hostel and finish getting it ready for students while living in it.  Please pray that all the little things get completed before students arrive Aug. 4-6.

June 29 Moving IN !

I got to the new hostel just in time this morning to see what in the world Lee has been doing with all those truck loads and van loads of stuff from the old hostel.  Here's the last van load.

"Take it all inside, boys!"

Now that the rooms are painted and there are lockable doors installed, some of it ended up in the laundry room.

Some of it went in the store room down the hall from the laundry room.

Some of it went in bedrooms - the ones that had doors.

Some just ended up in the middle of the living room, along with boxes of tile and the new unfinished doors.  Do you know how many doors were ordered for the hostel?

And the old well worn and weathered veranda furniture ended up ... you guessed it, on the veranda!

And what a lot of activity was happening today.  The place was abuzz with welding, pounding of nails, sawing of wood, and tapping of tile. 

Tile on the inside stairway

Tile edging in the bedrooms and hallway 

Tile done in some of the bathrooms - nice shower stall

In this bathroom (lower level of bedrooms) the cabinet around the sink is started.

More carpentry work is being done in the kitchen.  Lee and I had fun designing the cabinet for the island, including space for under the counter trash :p

Fridge (right) must wait till the kitchen's done before getting "moved in"

Outside, the railing on the front steps was being welded - with bright flashes, sparks, snaps and crackles.

Painters are so close to being finished, they had just 1 or 2 rooms to complete.  Under the eaves is even done - a nice rich red/brown to match the gutters.

Painting at dizzying heights!

Masonry continues as the front stair landing sets and preparations are being made for the lower set of stairs. 

Masons are also busy putting in 2 septic tanks.  This one below the front steps, and another one straight out from the back door.

Meanwhile this guy is busy over at RFIS mixing concrete to make blocks for construction and more for landscaping.

Ok, so we can't really say we're "moved in" but stuff is moved and it is inside.  Now we can't wait to welcome the next hostel parents, Dan & Karen Carlson who fly in to Yaounde with their family in 2 days!

June 28 Moving Day!

I went up to the UBAC Hostel today.  Students are all gone.  Scott & Lee Pyles have been very busy packing everything up.  From outside the gate it looks normal...

UBAC Hostel (aka "The Red Barn") since 2003

But the pets know something's up.

DD and Kojak were wondering about the flurry of activity today

After about 3 or 4 truck loads, the empty rooms echoed.  How many evening devotions were shared in this room over the past 9 years?  How many movies were shown on that wall?  How many hostel brothers and sisters were encouraged in their faith, shared tears and laughter here?

The last of the living room furniture to go

And how many meals were shared in this room over the years?  How many birthday candles were blown out?  How many pizzas served?  This dining room has known hours of fun, food and fellowship. 

The dining room with only the veranda furniture, waiting for the last truck load.

And the kitchen where so many students learned to work together on dish teams.  How many rears were snapped by dish towels in this room?  How many yummy dishes were created here?  How many batches of cookies made? 

Kitchen is nearly empty.

Everything was loaded into a rented truck and the hostel van for several (I believe 6 was the final count) trips to the new hostel. 

Scott and the guys load up the moving van.

We owe a debt of gratitude to Scott and Lee for all the hours they put into this move.  Ron and I know that if they were not here, this job would have fallen to us.  THANK YOU Uncle Scott & Aunt Lee!

Loaded and ready to go!

Tune in again tomorrow to see what in the world Lee did with 6 truck loads and 6 van loads of furniture, linens, boxes, barrels, pillows... at the new hostel... which isn't really done yet.