Roughing It

Well, since we transitioned out of the tribal village and back into the city (temporarily and possibly permanently) I've been working on maintenance and construction around the mission property keeping everything running and functional. I've also had the chance to work on IT for the field and improve some of our setups for networks and video conferencing. (I know, this is riveting stuff!) But one of the projects I've spent the most time on and that I've been most excited about is that I've been helping the Husband family design and plan for the house they will build when they move into one of the tribal works here in Mexico. Jordan and I have been planning out every detail of the house build and I've been working hard on calculating every bit of material that we're going to need. It looks like we're finally coming to the end of the planning process with the blueprints done and all the calculations double checked, and so we're starting to plan our trips out to the village to work on construction. Jordan is contacting some of his supporting churches to set up work teams to come and do the framing and there is a team from the mission here in Chihuahua that is going to do the concrete work (what's not already done anyway). Right now our plans are that Jordan and I will leave Chihuahua around the beginning of March and spend the whole month plus a good portion of April in the tribe working on construction. Then after about a week back at home we're planning on being out there from late April until just before the field conference the last week of May. It's going to be a challenging time in some ways with lots of hard work and limited water as well as makeshift accommodations, but I'm excited to see all this work come together.

Today I set up my tent in the back yard to test it and see if I'm missing anything. So far I've thought of a few details but it's looking like it will be adequate for the months I'm going to live in it. I even have the worlds smallest solar electric system complete with panel, charge controller, battery, and inverter so that I can charge my phone and laptop for the occasional email and keep my light on. Here are some pics of my tent. Let me know if there's anything I'm missing or if there's anything you really were glad you had when you were camping. (there's an outhouse nearby where we'll set up our tents)