Fence for Sheep and Lamb in Slovakia--and Loving His Lambs

One of the first things we wanted to see in Slovakia was the new lamb on the grounds of the girls' home. It was so darling!

 All week, Jonathan was stuck in the dingy little room that he was transforming into a usable bathroom, but on Saturday he went outside to help Ed start putting up fencing to keep the sheep from running all over the place eating Natasha's tulips...

and getting into everything that they thought might be nice to nibble.

They decided to fence in this area of grass on the side of the large garden, between the rows of fruit trees. How I enjoyed wandering down between these trees to the end of the property and feeling like I was back in Pennsylvania again!

Most of the back yards in Slovakia had fruit trees or grape vines. Unfortunately most of the people turn not only grapes but even apples and other fruit into wines.

Here Natasha is pruning a plum tree, along with other fruit trees that day. I loved watching these happenings, although I was still too weak and sick to really get out much. But I got a few pictures at least.

Jonathan hauls a ladder to where he needs it, around the side of the shed.

Hannah perches up in the tree through which she is helping her daddy run some electric wire.

Of course, we let her know that what would we have ever done without her!!

We tried to include David, too. He absolutely loved Jonathan's cordless driver!

Working on fencing.

I put on my coat, even though I still felt weak and rather awful, and went out to see what was going on and if Jonathan could use help. He said he would soon be ready to cut pickets from the pile of scrap pickets they had behind the shed. So I got Carrie, David, and Hannah rallied to help carry old pickets over to where Jonathan was putting in stakes. He started pulling out old nails, and I decided we all could do that part for him, too.

Soon Carrie was dutifully pounding out old nails, and then I got a bright idea to have David help.
All of a sudden, simple Russian was coming back to me, and I was talking to David in Russian!
He knows Slovakian, Ukrainian, some Russian, and a little English. 

 So here I am showing David how to pound out the nails. It appeared he had done such a job before, for he did a good job of pounding and straightening them if they bent. 

I dearly love this picture of him and me, with his arm around their sweet little puppy.

I think it's so important to include the children, and make them feel valuable and important, 

to say nothing of teaching them the simple skills they will need later in life. 

Then Jonathan got the bright idea that while Carrie and David were pounding out nails, his wife could start measuring and sawing the pickets to length! 

I was petrified of the idea of operating this power saw, but guess what?

I did it!

My poor nose dripped onto the ground once accidentally while I sawed one picket after another, but that served for a big joke at the table that evening when I mentioned about it, and Ed made it into a joke, and Natasha translated for Martina, who joined in the laughter. I thought it was worth the misery to see and hear Martina finally laughing with us at the table! She was such a dear girl!

Well, that is not the end of the story--on Monday, Jonathan decided the nails he'd pounded into the pickets weren't strong enough to hold up against a big, fat ewe sheep hitting the fence, so Ed found a carton of screws, and yes, you guessed it, Jonathan's wife ended up not just using a power saw but a cordless driver to put two screws apiece into the fence pickets.

Saturday evening, Jonathan was grouting the tile after it was finished being laid...

 and Carrie was washing up behind him. Of course, David wanted to help!

So of course, they got him a sponge of some sort, too and let him help. 

This is part of our ministry--letting the little children come, as Jesus said, and not hindering them,

but welcoming their eagerness to help and their need for acceptance and love.

When we go to a foreign country to do a project, one of the biggest blessings a person can be

is to simply love, accept and enjoy the people. 

That was what I felt the Lord whispering to me after we arrived.

It was not my job to let people know how I thought things should be, 

but to love them and accept them and listen to them, and just try to be a friend and help in this type of project.

That was freeing for me.

There are times when we need to speak up, and have an answer for our beliefs.

But we have to pave the way for that with loving attitudes and kindness that values the other person however different they  may be.