Half a million to fix

We’ve just finished a horrible day of school, and I am hiding away in Nick’s office for a while to get away from the boys, I guess! Caleb had his bad-school-day hat firmly on, so I sent him to his room during maths. He was more than happy to skip it and reappeared very cheerfully when it came to the read-alouds. Well, I am not cheerful about that!! We’re enjoying the read-alouds though. For history we’re doing an easy book on the Great Wall of China, and we’ve added George Müller’s biography to our history as well. Aaron sailed through his work this morning. Yesterday’s school was quite fine.

Now, about the church buildings which were damaged in the rockfall, we have had an estimate from the government engineer that the total cost for repairing all nine buildings which were damaged is estimated at ₤414,000. We have four of those buildings, so you can see that it is going to be somewhat expensive. However, we have not had an actual breakdown yet of specific figures for each building, and it seems that to get a private contractor to come in and quote would be more efficient and cheaper. Therefore, Nick is contacting a few independent contractors (builders), to arrange for them to go to the manse and church on Friday and see about quoting. So far he has one meeting arranged. Sadly, none of our buildings were insured against rockfalls. There is a specific rockfall insurance which can be bought, but I think it’s a fairly new type of cover, and it never occurred to anyone to take it out? Also, it would cost ₤800 per annum to insure against fire, water, rocks etc, and the church only makes about ₤1200 per annum! But whatever the reason, we aren’t covered. The governor has been trying to get some funding from the UK, but since no one was killed in the rockfall it doesn’t classify as a major disaster for them and so it doesn’t seem that there will be any help forthcoming. So, where does that leave us? You can see that it will be quite impossible for us to raise the kind of money necessary, even though there have already been some attempts at fundraising (so far some people on the Falklands have raised ₤800, and people on Ascension have raised ₤700, and Nick’s CD should bring in another ₤1000). We are therefore praying that God will do the impossible and provide the funds – because it seems so helpless from a natural perspective, it would be a real testimony to His power and provision.