The guy's trip to Ethiopia

A couple weeks ago, Jarod and Matt took a trip to Ethiopia to help Gary and Peg Ifft on a school. They were wanting to take a one room school house and make it into two rooms. So Jarod went as the mason and Matt went as the carpenter.

Here they are the morning after they arrived. On their way home from the airport, they stopped at this restaurant, owned by a good friend of Gary's (second from right).

Here they are on one of the first days on the job. At the end of the day, the men in the background would figure out their wages. They would get paid depending on how long they worked and how hard...reminded them of the Parable of the Laborers.

Here Matt and Jarod ate their fish that they were given. They thought they ate it pretty clean, until Peggy said, 'you better give the rest of that to someone', so they gave it to some children who ate the rest of it.

Matt on his coffee break. I love this face, because he doesn't like coffee, but Jarod said politely drank it every day.

This is the donkey cart that the man with the blue shirt would deliver materials on.

Here is Gary's 'taxi'. They ran out of gas while they were out this night and had to have someone bring them gas.

The same night, they were taking crutches to this little boy who had just had surgery on his one leg and the family couldn't afford crutches, so he had no way of getting around. Isn't he so sweet.

Here are the guys that they worked with all week.

Then they were able to go to church on Sunday. Peggy sent this picture to us and said, 'Here are your guys with their new Brothers'. So neat!

All aboard!

A few weeks ago Dad Rink emailed me about a old co-worker/friend, Mr T (nothing like the real Mr. T), who had been asking Dad to bring up his grandkids for an afternoon train ride. We set a date, and yesterday after church, we drove to a Mr. R's house for a train ride. When we drove up to Mr. R's house, I thought, 'it must be a little kiddie train that you just ride in tiny circles'...which still would have been awesome with Will, since he is infatuated with trains. But when we got there, he had real rails and a train, little, but not really that little that went all over his back yard. It was so amazing. He then also had a small 'kiddie' train that went all around his side yard...his property is very large. Will could hardly contain his excitement. As you can see from the picture below. Mr. R and his son, Chuck Jr. keep all these hats for the kids that they give rides to, it was all very fun and quite impressive.

We went with Brandon and Mindy and their kids too, and Austin and Kyle look a little unsure here on the 'kiddie' train, but all had a blast.

Here is Chuck Jr...who was like a kid himself, they said. When we got there, they kept saying, 'where is Chuck Jr?'...we figured maybe he was the only one who knew how to run the train, but Mr. R gave the first ride since Chuck Jr. wasn't there yet. When Chuck Jr. pulled up, he was so disappointed that we had gone on one round without him already. He loves to give the kids rides...such fun people. He said the horn wasn't working right, and instead of just going like most adults, he had to fix it real quick before they took off because, 'you can't ride a train with no horn'.

Another joyful face of Will's on the big train, where everyone got to ride.

Mr. R Sr. and Chuck Jr. with all the kids. Chuck Jr. made sure he had his hat on for the picture.

Jarod and Will in front of the fabulous train.

I said I think this was Will's highlight of his life so far. Thanks again Grandpa R, Mr.T, Mr. R and Chuck Jr.!