We started with the clean-out of the church properties today – there are piles of rubble which need to be cleared out and removed before any building and repairing work can begin, otherwise the builders will charge us extra labour for doing this. Nick organized a truck from Public Works and Services, so they were there at 8 am when we arrived. Steve and Maureen, Teddy and Nick W arrived quite soon after, and Nick went to fetch Donald from the prison at 9, so we were quite a merry work party. Caleb and Aaron were tasked with clearing the bamboo from the backyard while the grown-ups were busy in the schoolroom, and I set about clearing the alley between the manse and church - sweeping out broken glass, weeding and carting out plaster and rocks. It’s still staggering to see the amount of damage a rockfall can do! I left Nick working and took the worship part of Good News Club on my own, which I prefer not to do but it was fine. Nick W did the talk, after which some of the bigger kids went back to the manse to help with more bamboo removal. Caleb, Aaron and a little girl from club cleared the pile of rubble from the bottom of the stairs. Not that it’s exactly looking homely now, but at least the Manse looks like less of a builders’ site. Nick, Teddy, Donald and Steve carried on in the schoolroom, first removing the loose roofing sheets on the mountain side, then taking down the partitioning which was creating a little storeroom for the toddlers’ group toys, which is no longer housed in the schoolroom (obviously). They also cleared away a lot of the debris. While there is still a mound of work needing doing, it looks like some progress has been made. I, in the meantime, not being of much use in the schoolroom, set to work in the manse with bin bags. I gathered old socks, bits of broken toys, magazines, mouldy books, and tossed them all. Six bin bags are now sitting outside the Manse waiting to be collected on Monday morning!
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