Grandpa Galat, Peter White and Jeremiah nailing the floorboards, which were very green and hard as a rock causing many nails to "ping" off the hammer. One stray nail eventually ended in Jeremiah's foot, requiring an "extraction" in the orthopedic clinic, a tetanus shot, and a week of antibiotics. 
One of the members of the heart team told me, "You know, I saw the strangest thing today as I was looking out my bedroom window...a motorcycle carrying ten foot lengths of board, long-ways!" I chuckled to myself, knowing exactly where the driver was taking the wood.
The finished product...The Tree Fortress
Jeremiah has been asking for months for me to help him build a tree house, and I had been able to successfully deflect his advances with a variety of good excuses. However, when Grandpa Galat arrived, he changed his recruiting efforts, and very soon the project was underway. What I thought was going to be a small wooden platform in a nearby tree became, with the influence of Grandpa, a 7x10 foot veritable fortress, which was big enough to raise some eyebrows and eventually require a permit from the Tenwek Building Committee (we have discovered that Jeremiah continues to be good at getting Heather and I in trouble). After many long hours, numerous motorcycle taxis carrying loads of fresh-cut lumber, two day-trips into the bush to harvest bamboo for the roof, and a trip to Casualty for a rusty nail in Jeremiah’s foot, the project is now complete. Jeremiah and Peter got a small taste of responsibility… and the joys of working with Grandpa Galat (they each only got yelled at twice)!
Update on Joshua
After removing the large mass on Joshua’s wrist, the initial pathology looked like a type of serious childhood cancer. However, after the long three-week wait for the final report from Kijabe hospital, amazingly, the mass was deemed to be a benign fibroma! With the mass removed, hopefully it will never be a problem again, and the latest report is that Joshua is doing very well. Many of you have been praying for Joshua, and this serves as a reminder that Tenwek’s motto still hold true, “We treat, Jesus heals.” Our prayer now is that Joshua grows to become a godly young man with a passion for serving Christ!
Trip to the US
Next week, Heather and I leave for a quick, 6 day trip to the US for our interviews with World Gospel Mission (WGM), the mission that runs Tenwek Hospital. We arrive in Cleveland on Wednesday evening, and leave for Kenya again the following Monday, with the interviews being in Marion, IN over the weekend. We are hoping to finalize our transition to WGM and move forward with our calling to serve “long-term” at Tenwek. And we are looking forward to seeing the Galat family in Ohio, drinking some Starbuck’s coffee, and spending some time together (15th anniversary coming up the end of this month!). Please keep us in prayer as we travel, and meet with WGM staff, for good health for all, and for our children as they stay behind in Kenya with our Tenwek family.
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3 comments:
Danny,
I love getting your updates and saying a prayer for you and your beautiful family. What a blessing you all are to so many. Thanks for sharing the story of God's intervention and activities in your lives!
Cristine Skelnik - aka crissi freebern/manningham
Dan, it seems the grandkids can get things done when the grandparents are around. Sorry you won't be making a trip to Phoenix while you are in the States. God bless you for your work at Tenwek. May the Lord bless you all and keep you in His care. Our love, Erv and Dort
We have enjoyed getting your updates and seeing pictures of your life and all that it has been. God is so faithful and so good and your obedience to His call has been such a blessing to so many there and here as we watch and hear what God is doing. We have now had our "new" family together for a year. It has had its ups and downs but the blending together has been good. Valya, our daughter, still talks about missing Ukraine and we encourage her to go back someday. She wants to go and tell the little kids at orphanages about Jesus - that way their life won't be so hard when they are older and still living at the orphanage. They are doing well in school and the christian school has made some changes in the expectations for them as they learn and work hard to learn in a new situation. God is good. Alan still writes and puts pictures on our blog every now and then.
Greetings from Mitchell, South Dakota
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