THE MORE THINGS CHANGE......

...the more they stay the same! Here it is over two years later November 22, 2012 and we just went through another well-fix exercise. But this time we were blessed by an evening visitor who went down the well and changed the no-return valve for a new one then turned on/off handles and spigots until voila! Water!

Now the washing machine works.
Now I can shower or bathe. Wonderful!
Now our guest restroom facility is working.

The next day he came back with toilet parts and fixed my tiny toilet off the kitchen. No leaks...all is now dry where it should be dry and wet where it should be wet....and working! Praise God.

Now I am building a new the well pump hatch cover.
Insulation coming up next.
It is turning cold here.

KEY TO THE WATER SHORTAGE

KEY TO THE WATER SHORTAGE

Ready? Here it is.

"if My people who are called by My name 

will humble themselves, and pray 

and seek My face, 

and turn from their wicked ways, 

then I will hear from heaven, 

and will forgive their sin and heal their land." 

2 Chronicles 7:14

I have now learned that commanding God is prideful even if it works. Thinking on the sad results of pride I have been meditating on that verse. I believe it is the real key to the end of our drought. EVEN TO ADMIT WE NEED PRAYER CAN BE HUMBLING. Humbler still when we actually pray.
               
                               Speaking of which...

Here Sasha is priming the pump...to no good effect.

we have just a few gallons left in the water tank

up the hill from the wash house.

So lets bow the knee. Time to stop being so pridefully independent.
We are in fact dependent on the Lord, and the other members of
our Lord's extended body.


So the top well is not giving us water at all now.

I know we need to drill this well deeper.

But did not realize what a high priority that is.

There is one more well however. We get water in the kitchen
and connected restroom from the bottom well. It is down near Burulcka
creek which, as I showed you, has stopped flowing now.

Three days ago that bottom well stopped working too!
The water level had dropped below the end of the intake pipe.
I am praying for rain several times a day now.

We bought a pipe extension to reach into the foot deep pool of water in the bottom of the well.

Sasha climbs down a simple ladder borrowed from our roof build. He works hard to turn the
fitting that holds the stop return valve that keeps the water in the pipe from flowing back down into
the well. After several minutes it still doesn't turn. I go get my dad's legacy, old but good channel lock pliers to help hold the pipe steady. Sasha's efforts look as though he may break the plastic pipe. I am praying hard.

At last it turned. Whew!!! We clean the valve and install the pipe extension with our new makeshift filter.

Sergei turns on the garden faucet and washes his hands 

in the precious water, murky, yes but wet.

This morning I washed my hands with this water and made coffee with it too. 

But...there is so little of it now.

Please remember 2 Chronicles 7:14

I just noticed an important word in that verse.

IF <What a word. It is our main prayer

problem is it not? We make time for so many other things 

it has stopped being WHEN we pray, but IF we pray. 

In that verse I find three important \items for prayer.

1) Humble myself and pray (without ceasing).

2) Seek the Lord's face (not just His hand).

3) Turn from my wicked ways (repent).

The promised results are well worth the effort.

PLEASE PRAY FOR RAIN.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

PROGRESS REPORT - ROOF REBUILD

The roof is now adequately covered for rain!

This side is completely covered. The other side has

large wave asbestos/cement underlay panels on it

ready for tiles, which will be laid on starting Monday.

so now we can handle all but the heaviest downpours. 

But just look at that sky!

We had a small shortage of the antique mission tiles

until late last week when Anatoli found a pile the owner would 

let go for 1.5 grevna per tile.

They were among the dirtiest I have seen.

~

We have been wearing out wire brushes washing them

But we are laying about 14 square meters a day.

These tiles remind us of our humanity. They are made of

common clay even as God made the first man, 

formed on the knee where we need

to be spending time... and baptized to be presentable.

This ROJ Foundation owned house needs new electric wiring,

new ceilings, at least three new windows,

and stucco to give the short list.

I am tapping my credit cards for money.

God will warm more hearts for this project.

But until that happens I am investing in it.

Will you?

See the donate address here.

http://www.riverofjoy-crimea.org/donation.html

Meanwhile. LOOK OUT America

HERE I COME.

Coming back for a visa renewal.

God sent me a new friend to help make that happen.

More later

Love & Blessings

in Yashua,

David Gerry Hallowell

David@riverofoy-crimea.com

ONE BATTLE DOESN'T MAKE A WAR!!

So we worked hard to get the roof up, because everything was getting real dry and we did not want to be anyone who may be accused of holding up the blessing of the Lord, the rain. We built up the walls around the front entry to match  the rest of the house. 

We use "rakushka,"here. It is soft sedimentary stone

 that our builders actually often shape with a hatchet! 

It is full of air pockets, 

giving the walls a pretty good 'R' value. 

This RAKUSHKA sedimentary stone 

that is cut up and used all over Crimea for building  

may actually be a result of 

the great flood recorded in Genesis 

according to some scientists! 

A reinforced concrete pour finishes the wall, 

then a wooden board is cemented 

and lag bolted to the top of the wall 

to connect with the rafters. 

We use reinforced concrete grape stakes to hold 

up the wall above the windows and doors. 

Such simple local resources help to keep us 

moving ahead briskly.

The brothers Sasha and Sergei consult often but the boards

are gradually becoming a roof.

Then the upper well stops. 

We check the water level and the

stop return valve. 

We have air in the line and the pump wants 

to work all the time.

We turn off the pump to let the water level rise 

...hopefully, while we give the pump motor a rest. 

"O God, You are my God; 

Early will I seek You; 

My soul thirsts for You; 

My flesh longs for You 

In a dry and thirsty land 

Where there is no water. " 

Psalm 63:1 NKJV

We still don't pray for rain though.' 

We work quickly to be ready for it.

Not exactly the safest scaffolding I've ever witnessed  

Once we get most of the gables up and the rafters, 

the roof gets top boards! Quickly we lay on the

plastic they call, "hydro barrier"here. So NOW

WE ARE READY FOR RAIN (supposedly).

It is a good thing we are too because,
'Burulcha, 'our little river of joy has become...

A VERY DRY CREEK BED.

It is unclear how long the lower well will hold up. 

The land is parched.

FATHER WE NEED RAIN HERE. PLEASE SEND RAIN

TO WATER OUR LAND AND CROPS.

Elohim answers our earnest plea.

Dark clouds come rushing in from the Southwest. 

There is thunder and lightening

and now we do not resist the downpour. 

We speak not a word of rebuke. No, we 

welcome it with shouts of. 

"HALLELUJAH!". 

and, "THANK YOU LORD!"

THIS HEAVY DOWNPOUR 

WATERS THE GROUND,

VISIBLY IMPARTING LIFE 

TO THE THIRSTY TREES AND GRASSES.

AND IT SEEMS ALL CREATION 

IS DANCING IN THE RAIN.

Our gravel path becomes a  mini waterway. 

Then I get a wake-up call. Anatoli runs to Rechnaya 7.

Something is wrong... 

For what eventuality have we not prepared?

spiritually we seem to be hitting on all four. 

The Lord is answering our prayers.

But we have forgotten one important thng...

We forgot to add in...

THE HUMAN FACTOR.

The roof is leaking right through our hydro barrier!

We did not expect perfection. 

Once we have the corrugated asbestos and

mission tile in place this roof should be 

solid and waterproof for many years,

but for a rain or two we expected 

this plastic sheeting to hold..  

We were sold defective merchandise 

and also not told that it

comes with small pores, not designed to

stop a downpour.

Sasha feels responsible. 

He gets sick to his stomach and stops coming to meals.

Sergei steps on a nail and begins to limp around slowly. 

Victory seems 

to have been turned into defeat!

But we press on.

http://www.riverofjoy-crimea.org/donation.html

WHY DO I NEED A COVERING? with PICS

With the Midwest in a hot dry oven and rain seemingly far-far away here in Crimea Ukraine as well, the need for a covering, a roof, may also seem far away. But as we titled our last Blog post Everyone needs a covering (roof). 

The most important covering you and I need is the Lord. >>> Psalm 91. The whole subject of coverings was hot in Christian circles back in 1992-3 when The Lord sent me over here to the former Soviet Union. I was a hopeless freak in many eyes because I had the backing of no big (or little) church, no mission agency or board, few supporters, no visible assurance I would survive in a hostile environment with a whole different alphabet, not to mention I was already 48 years old and didn't even know Russian yet.  No sane church would have picked up my option.

This is Sasha after we removed the porch roof completely on July 30th. As we removed the old roof clear to the ceiling we also began to pray AGAINST RAIN! Sasha had convinced me to leave the old clay and straw insulation above the ceilings in the rest of the house in place. It actually provides better thermal insulation than modern building materials and leaving it in place will cut our costs. But if it gets wet the sagging ceilings could fall before we can shore them up with new ceiling panels. Sasha asked me to hire his younger brother Sergei for his same wage, $25 a day. Sergei would support Sasha and as it turned out he had some good ideas on building too. "The roof must be strong. We need a top-center Board."

Sergei Zhitkov tells me how he sees
the roof construction going ahead.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 This is a different culture with an infamous mafia, a corrupt government and a history of cold-war anti-western sentiment. When I hit the ground in Ukraine It felt like I was in a Twilight Zone episode. (Where is Rod Serling when you need him?) Seemingly I had time traveled back to 1936 during the great depression. It was all a bit disconcerting to put it mildly. 

On my first trip back to Santa Barbara, where I was about to quit my well paying job as a product manager with a high-tech medical equipment company I made it a point to ask a pastor I liked about my lack of covering issue. Understandably he could not take me under his wing, but he prayed for me, then directed me to Psalm 91. I have never lacked for a covering since. God covers me with His wings. You couldn't ask for better coverage.     
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~                                                                                                                

ASBESTOS! This cement and asbestos panel roofing is still the favored roofing material in the former Soviet Union! But it adds to the depression that the old ugly buildings here give to an art lover. We are saving these old panels for under-laying our mission tile, which is a beautiful, historic roofing undervalued by builders here. We buy 80 mission tiles for $10! We clean the mossy surface of the tile and of the, "sheafer," asbestos panels, then paint the corrugated valleys a color like mission tile. The asbestos saves us trough tile. We use just over half as many tiles on our roofs as normal. But now the race is on to get the roof waterproofed before the rains come. We must get the old roof removed and the new gable up post haste. I am concerned that I have but two roofers.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It is already a dry summer here in Crimea. The Spring rains were light this year. "Burulcha," our creek, is disappearing rapidly. We hope the wells hold up. The heat is awful. I start carrying cold water to the builders. The old roof comes down in two days. But storm clouds are gathering.
Our ancient foe seeks to work us woe. The forecast is for rain tomorrow. What a mess that would make of our project  Will it be rain or shine?

The morning sky reminds us, "Red sky at morning sailors take warning." It looks like we are in for a storm. As we sit outside at breakfast under lowering sky I suddenly remember Jesus promised, "Truly I say to you, whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven. "Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven. "For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." Matt. 18:18-20 (emphasis mine).

Alina gets her chickens under cover.

So we all pray a prayer of agreement. "Dear Heavenly Father in Jesus' name we ask that you DO NOT ALLOW IT TO RAIN ON OUR BUILDING UNTIL WE GET THE ROOF UP."  We remember to ask only for the building so as not to exclude local farms from much needed moisture. 

I am not sure How God does weather, but I remember that Elijah prayed both for and against rain and God answered. (1 Kings chapters 17 & 18). By lunch time the wind whipped the market umbrella over our table so hard it tried to take flight. The clouds were rolling in...OH NO! LORD you promised to answer our prayer of agreement. Still thunder and lightening heralded a heavy shower in the offing. I remember Satan is called, " the prince of the power of the air." The heavens above us are in uproar. 

Big drops of water began to fall. Not many but with all the wind and thunder it looked like we are in for a heavy downpour. Sasha and Sergei take shelter under the uncovered ceiling and began to crack nuts. I rushed to that house, looked in the front door. The ground in the porch area was not yet fully covered with water. Remembering the believer's authority I SHOUTED these words."SUKA, SUKA. SUKA, (DRY, DRY, DRY, ) RAIN YOU STOP IN JESUS NAME!"  

The rain stopped right away. The guys went right back to work.  

The next day we learned that a tornado did a good bit of damage just a few kilometers away about then. Seems the wind prince was angry.  

I went to buy boards for the roof framing. They asked me to buy rolls of plastic as rain insurance. I bought the hydro-barrier we were going to need anyway for the waterproofing layer after we had the boards up.  Perhaps it would show no lack of faith to do that much. 

Sasha and Sergei laid it on the rafters before continuing. I wonder why we have so little faith in the one who put the whole weather system together. Stay tuned for more graphic updates....

My roofers are not yet paid for last week. Today another missionary offered to loan me money to get that done. I believe God will provide...always.

To donate please see the yellow panel on this page for how to send help. (link)
http://www.riverofjoy-crimea.org/donation.html

Love & Blessings, David

EVERYONE NEEDS A ROOF

PUBLISHED 8-8-12 Yesterday I was in Simferopol walking in extreme heat from the tax office where I got my Ukraine ID renewed  (WHEW!)  to central market with Sasha Zuyev, my new ambassador to the bureaucracy. It helps that he is a deputy minister in the Sel Soviet in Zelenogorsk, the controlling agricultural land office in the micro-region where River of Joy project is and where I live.  Sasha is a member of the session. In addition to doing the bureaucratic interface work he will lobby for our interests before the next session which will determine our lease cost, hopefully obtaining a lower cost lease for us based on our non-profit charity work. That is as it should be, but it does no harm to have a man known for his integrity take your case. We were walking and talking for about a mile on burning sidewalks of broken blacktop because Sasha is a fitness freak.  I like him in spite of that.

We were talking about the SBU (Internal Affairs, like KGB but new internal Ukraine police) He had a meeting with one of their officers scheduled. They were asking his advice on another land issue. That triggered a memory for me. I told him about one time we had a humantarian aid container waiting for custom's clearance. It was one of 22 we have received from NIICCA in Northern Ireland. It had some pretty cool stuff in it, including used notebook computers and hospital supplies. We met with the commissioner of Hum Aid in Simferopol. He was also the local Director of Aid distribution for the Red Cross and incorrigibly corrupt. He asked for something from our container, (which he would sell and pocket the proceeds). We told him flatly, "NO!" He said, "Then I will hold up your customs clearance."

What this man didn't know is that the previous container we had distributed came with an old used G.E. CAT Scan unit in it. None of the children's hospitals or regional hospitals we helped wanted the enormous contraption. But the Military Hospital received it even though it was over 10 years old, not working and G.E. was not supporting it with parts.  They needed it for P.R. so it seems. We let them have it, grateful to get it off our hands..

Immediately the SBU took us under their wing! We were supposed to help them fight terrorism. That seemed good so long as it did not take much effort or hurt the help we were providing sick children. They asked for three used notebooks from the container from NIICCA. We agreed. So even though the Director of humanitarian Aid didn't sign off on it for lack of a bribe, our container was quickly released from customs! He was one dumbfounded big shot. "Who is your roof?" he asked. "SBU!" Surprise is not a strong enough word to describe the look on his face.

That was eleven years ago.  Now we are working on more fundamental cultural problems like how to put hurting children in God's care with loving parents rather than a governmental orphanage.

EVERYONE NEEDS A ROOF
Speaking of roofs, the old farmhouse we warehouse hum aid in prior to distribution and things like toys and costumes for use in our children's  camps has sprung several leaks! We had water damage problems last winter/spring. This is how it looked when I came back the first of June.

ANCIENT ROTTEN RAFTERS NEED REPLACING

SAGGING CEILINGS HOLDING UP CLAY AND STRAW INSULATION

Local contractors asked firstly $10.000 then over $8500 to do the reconstruction...rafters and all. In America it would be a bargain but here at least half of it will go to the contractor and it won't get done right.
I waited a little nervously until Sasha Zhitkov, who helped me do our other roofs was finished with his other work in Simferopol. He and his brother are doing this work now and I am self contracting. At first it put a huge load on yours truly. Up to day before yesterday I was buyiing groceries, preparing all the meals for the guys who are from Simferopol but camp out here all week. I am buying building materials, dealing with local authorities on land issues and drawing our builders pictures of how I want the roof bracing done. Now we have a cook.

ELECTRIFYING!

SO I am taking an hour or two to do this newsletter in hopes we can get a little more money help. So far we have gone through $3800 including my Social Security money. Another $2500 should finish the project...HELP PLEASE.