The roofers had the rafters up by 10:00 this morning. We were pleased with the progress. We did not check on the workers this afternoon. Timothy is there to help with whatever they need. They still assure us that the roof will be finished by tomorrow afternoon. They said that they are in a hurry because they need to get back to their farms and finish harvesting. Right now, most people are harvesting peanuts and some have started harvesting their corn. We have been gifted peanuts from 3 of the church members and fresh field corn by 2 other members. Their gifts are very kind but we sort of feel guilty accepting the gifts when we know they need the food more than we do. My mom, Mama Cindy Reynolds, used to say, “God loves a cheerful giver but there cannot be a cheerful giver if there is not a cheerful receiver on the other end of the gift!”
Back to the building project; the roofer said that he was going to charge 400 Cedis (about 40 dollars) for each of the 4 rooms on the new building. We agreed; the price was high but I thought that the price included all the roofers’ pay, their chop (food) money and their drinking water so I was not overly concerned about the cost. Late yesterday afternoon Timothy called and said the roofer wanted to know when we were going to give them their chop money. I was beyond surprised; I told Timothy that we did not contract for food and water money. The roofer insisted that we give the food money; Timothy had already provided cold bags of water for them throughout the day. We told Timothy to go ahead and give him the money. The more I thought about it the more it annoyed me! Steve is the peacemaker; he would have just given him the extra money so he did not have to worry with the hassle of it all. But not Sister Kandie; I am so cheap (let’s not say cheap; let’s say frugal). I cross checked the roof the same carpenter put on for us in May of last year and he charged 250 Cedis and we gave the chop and water money. When we were at the jobsite this morning, I told the mason that since he was charging us so much, he would have to pay for their chop and water or we would pay for it and only give him 300 Cedis per room. He quickly accepted paying for their chop and water; he knew he was overcharging us! He asked for an advance so he could pay for the chop and water today. I deducted yesterday’s chop money from the advance he took. We told them that if they finished quickly and we liked the work we would give them a bonus. When we left, they were all smiles, promising to do the best job ever!
Thank you for all you do! Have a great weekend!
In HIS Service,
Steve, Kandie and Skeeter
The Monkeyshines
I told you I would let you know how Mom’s bread experiment turned out so here goes;
· It was so dense, the piece Mom gave me was so dense and hard to eat that it took me 10 minutes to get it down. After I ate it I had to drink water and drink water
· The cracked field corn was the strangest part of the bread, it never got soft, I almost broke a tooth when I was eating it! (Mom should have cooked that stuff instead of just soaking it in hot water)
· Mom did not know what kind of bread dough she was buying and she accidently bought sugar bread so the bread was full of nuts and seeds but had a slightly sweet taste to it; it would have been better if the sugar had been left out
· The outside of the bread was too hard but the inside was soft so I pretended the bread was a piece of fruit and I peeled the crust off
Will I eat the bread again, yes, when I get really hungry! Will I ask Mom to cook it again? Probably not! Will she cook it again? Yes, she is already plotting how she can make it better by cooking the corn, soaking the wheat berries longer and adding pumpkin seeds. Really, are we that hard up for something to eat?
Mom told me a story about “Survival Bread”. She said that when she lived in Ghana in the 70’s; who knew she was that old? She said that they lived in Kumasi and there was another missionary family living there too. She said that when the men would go out on campaigns into the bush for a week at a time, they had to fill chop boxes with whatever food they needed to eat for the week because back in those days there was not much to eat out in the villages. The chop boxes that came out of the Reynolds house were filled to the brim with good stuff; crackers, bread, butter, peanut butter, Spam, eggs and other good things to eat. The other missionary’s wife fixed what she called survival bread; it was filled with whole grains, raisins, seeds, oats and anything else she could think to put in it. The bread looked like the back of a turtle; it was hard as a brick; she made him several loaves so he would not be hungry. She said that the bread was so dense that all he had to do was cut off a piece, eat it, and drink a big glass of water and he would feel like he had a meal! I bet if he ate that 3 times a day, he did not have to worry about going to the bathroom; that is enough to clog up anyone!
Save the “Survival Bread” for the next great famine!
Love, Skeeter
