The New Wilson Home!

Well, construction on our house continues! As of Feb 26, we have been living in our house unfinished as it is! It is really nice to finally have our own little space and I am glad to have my own little kitchen. Little by little we have been working on improvements and it is getting more and more comfortable all the time. Here are a few glimpses of life here as it has been progressing.

When we first moved in we didn't have counters, sink, table, or anything like that, 

so we made do with what we had.

Mike, a volunteer who put in the two outside door frames,
seated at the lunch table.

The outside doors

Strange noises in the night have been waking Steven up and causing
him to go on patrol. There in the corner of the tool bag you can
see the culprit. We have evicted Mr Toad and two of his cousins so
far, but I don't know how many more of his relatives we are going to
meet in the other room!  

And as work continued, Steven made me kitchen counters and a sink...

 

My kitchen window sill. I have been taking after my Mom! She always
had so many plants in the windowsill in the springtime that you
could never see out of them! My plants keep migrating to the garden as they grow.

Fresh bread using the pans Steven's Mom gave us : ) and the table cloth that
was also given to us as a wedding present.

So here is the view of my kitchen as it is at present.

We have been very much enjoying our new hand crank blender!
It works much better than I thought it would! Especially with Steven
behind the handle!

Our new dining room...

The freshly washed bedding hanging up on the indoor clothesline.

Our bedroom. The mosquito net hangs up over the bed at night.
There are swarms of mosquitoes right now! It has been raining more
lately and the blood thirsty insects are on the rampage!

Our clothes closet... a piece of rebar hung from the roof and covered with a cloth.

      And since the septic tank is not anything more than a hole in the ground,

     our shower is outside under the tap. But in spite of that, it is quite nice.

The inside view of the shower. We have since moved it a little ways from the house so
that the view from the window over the sink is not into the shower. 

This is where the shower was situated.

Even our outhouse has been improved! The seat still needs a little stabilizing so you
don't get a rush as you feel you are about to tip into the hole, but it works great.
There are so many mosquitoes that you aren't there long with so
 much skin exposed anyways!

Here are a few pictures of our little garden. I am working on it bit by bit all the time, but there is so much to do all at once that I have not really finished much. However the zucchini are growing fast, and so are the pumpkin. The corn is trying to grow, and the lettuce is trying to recover from the shock of transplanting.

The corn patch. The ants did a number on the corn as it was just coming out
of the ground, and then because we didn't till the soil for the first seeds we
planted, the first corn has been struggling. 

In preparation for the second batch of corn, I tilled the soil and added all the
leaves and branches into the trench, thinking that it would slowly give
nutrients as the corn grew. The corn came up really well, but then in one area
all the corn was chopped off under the ground. It wasn't ants so I dug into the soil to
see what had done it. Termites. The termites were eating all the branches I had dug
down into the soil and were also eating the roots of the plants while they were at it.
I figured out that a separate compost pile for the branches and woody things is
the best idea. When the termites have reduced the wood to nice soil, then
put it on the garden for the plants to enjoy. 

The little zucchini plants

I had basil started in the window, and one day a hungry grasshopper
came by and ate off four of them. So now I have them covered to
save them from the grasshoppers and other hungry insects.

Little passion fruit plants. They will be climbing up on a tree that is in the front yard.

 And so the story of living in Bolivia continues. God has been so good to us. Every time we run out and I get discouraged about how we are ever going to be able to finish the house and have enough for food as well, God always provides something somehow. Work goes forward, and I hope that we can make a difference.

Continuing Construction on our House

So, we have been building on our house, and now you can see the progress too!

The rafters up on one side of the house

Getting geared up to put on the rafters

There is our little house with most of the metal up!!!

Steven

Digging the outhouse hole. We don't have the septic tank  yet, beyond a hole in the ground, and so
the first bathroom will be an outhouse behind the garden. You can sit there and watch the corn grow if
that is what would suit your fancy. The mosquitoes may not leave you in peace long though!

Steven on the throne over the septic tank hole. While we were gone to Yaquiba to get my visa,
some other missionaries became convinced that our septic tank wasn't big enough, so they talked the
backhoe operator into helping us out and digging the hole deeper. Now it is big enough to bury half a
dozen cows! It has proven useful since we are putting all the construction garbage in the bottom, and
then will fill in over it and on top build the septic tank.

Putting on the perlins

A neat caterpillar Scott found and showed us

Little helpers! They helped smooth off the floor, removing the fallen mortar from the
floor surface.

There is the roofing going on! It is a concrete fibre board called Duralit. 

A modufactured wrench.... an exhaust pipe from off of one of the air planes.
A little more torque was needed, and so you make do with what you have!

The extra torque in action!

Some friends gave us the start of a new kitchen: a stove and a gas tank!!!!

CERENID, a street boys home out in the mountains of Bolivia.  A friend of ours, and student of the
Matteson Mission School, is volanteering for a time here, so we went out and spent a Sabbath
there with the boys and friends.

The bus stop leaving CERENID

Water ditches!!! Now for the water pipe.

The view from the front of the house. There is a big pile of dirt and a big tree with
vines hanging from the high branches. The kids love to swing on from the
 top of the pile on the vines.

Steven in front of our house. It looks so much more homey with the laundry drying there.
Hopefully in just a little while we will be living here! 

A very fuzzy caterpillar we found in the house.

       And so besides a trip to Argentina for visa purposes, and a few days running around in town due to paperwork for my one year residency, we have been working mostly on our house. We are very eager to be living there where there will be peace and just Steven and myself. I am very grateful to the family who have let us stay with them, but they need their space and we need ours. God willing we will be in our house within a week. We only lack water and a plumbed sink before we want to move in. All in good time. God is always in the business of  teaching patience, and I am always slow to learn to be patient with a smile.

     I didn't put up any pictures of the garden because it looks very sad. The ants and the hard sand has been causing the corn to struggle. I have tried some more, but this time tilling the soil and adding compost, so I hope that it will do better now. Little by little we will be working on it, and when it is worth looking at, I will post pictures. 

     

       

Getting ready to go...

Steven went and wrote the exam for the inspection authorization, and
passed with flying colours! 

Giving Steven a needed hair cut

David needed extra attention too!!

Packing our things into tubs to take to Bolivia... the tubs will be very handy there in
our new house to keep the insects out of the food

We made it into the country without a problem, thanks to God
We were offered a room to stay in and the couple gave up their bed for us to
sleep in, so we went and bought our new bed ahead of time so both of us couples
could sleep comfortably.

Steven on top of the wall to our house preparing to  put on the steel beams

The back side of our house. It is surrounded with trees on three sides, and in a
very beautiful place. I am eager to start a garden there soon too! Steven chose a
very nice spot for the house.

The 'tool shed' a shipping container converted to meet the needs at hand.

More Wedding Pictures

And so after the wedding there were many pictures taken. Here are a few...

With Pastor David Gates

Jerry and Tracy Wilson, Steven's parents
and Robbie and Ivy Ross, my parents

All of the siblings. The Wilson boys, Jeremy, Steven, and David.
The Ross kids, Helen, Sara, Michael, and Anne

The Rosses

Steven got a whisker rub!!!
(He later asked, 'Is that what it feels like?!!')

Mommy blowing bubbles

The Harding kids enjoyed the bubbles. Here Amos was
showing Steven his bubbles

Steven making his 'bird sound'

Amos piped up, "There's that bird again!"

A full pickup!

Boots on????

She still has her boots on!!!!

See!

How can you tell a farm girl from any other kind of girl?

Her Baffins!!! (You need to be a northern Canadian farm girl to get it)

Michael was starting to freeze and vibrate,
so we were trying to warm him up.

The Ross kids

The broach I have on was given to me by a Norwegian.
It is what a Norwegian bride would wear with her traditional
Norwegian dress. Thank you Vivian! 

Warming up by the fire after the photos outside

Maria!

And it was a feast!!! So yummy! Thank you everyone!

Ok all you air plane geeks, can you figure out the significance of the tail number?

I will give you a hint. Our wedding date was November 27, 2011...... 

Cool Huh?

Curious little girls...

Alissa, the Mommy of the cute kids!

Hold up part two! We got their guns and returned fire to 

pay them back for the hold up the night before!

Hands up you guys!

Then Steven took over!!

Thank you everyone for being a part of our special day!