Back in the groove...

This is the bathroom in our factory. We caught these guys sleeping on the job! They were supposed to be finishing the wall but got sleepy and decided to take a catnap:)

This is the electrician installing all the light fixtures in our Finished Product room.

Chelsea with one of the kids that lives in our neighborhood, Mark, and our dog Barnabas.

View of the Salone mountains behind our apartment

Wow, it has been a long time since we have last posted on our blog!

We went to the U.S. for a month in Dec/Jan, then we got back to Sierra Leone January 18th. It was so great to see family and friends!

FACTORY

Now we are back and some really exciting things are about to happen with PPB!!! First of all, our factory machinery is coming. It was supposed to arrive last Sunday, we thought it did, then we finally received confirmation that the shipment is running a week late, grr! So our shipment should be arriving this Sunday, March 29th. Even though we were anxiously anticipating the equipment's arrival, it endedd up working out better this way. We went to the villages last week to run PPB clinics, and we left what was left of our factory construction in the hands of our contractor. Well, they ran into a few minor problems, so things were not finished as quickly the construction team thought they would be. So our factory would not be ready for the equipment even if it had come last Sunday.

DR. MANARY IS COMING APRIL 12th, EASTER SUNDAY! We are so pumped that he is

coming for the first time to see PPB Sierra Leone in action! We have been talking, planning, and working with him over email and when we were in the U.S. It is great that he will now have the opportunity to see what we have been discussing and will be able to help us direct PPB as the program expands.

CLINIC SITES
Our clinics are going really well. With our three sites we treat about 150 patients every two weeks and screen close to 200 kids in all. At our Njala clinic there was a team of nurses that came to help and obseve our program last week. On a regular basis they do a lot of work at the community level, teaching by using various hands-on approaches. One of the things they do is teach the basic principles of nutrition for the family. Next Wednesday, at the Njala clinic, these nurses are going to begin teaching the mothers about nutrition for their families before the PPB clinic begins. It was a blessing that they were willing and able to come and add to our clinic in this way!

OUR LIVES

Since we returned in January, we have moved to a new apartment. This apartment is located on the outskirts of Freetown in an area called Regent Village. We are really happy with our decision to move here. Being outside of the city a bit makes a huge difference. It is so much quieter, there is grass, and we do not have to have as much security as we did at the last place. Our dogs absolutely love it here! They have grass and mountains to run around in! We have gotten to know our neighbors which has been fun. They are mostly Temne. Since we work in all Mende areas, we have not been able to learn as much about the Temne tribe. It has been cool to learn about it in this way. The neighbors right beside us are a family that just had a baby! The mom is Isata, the father is Michael, and they have another little girl named Victoria. Victoria is scared silly of us! She hasn't been around white people before, so our skin is pretty frightening to her. She is already starting to come around though, so we will just give her time. Their baby is a few weeks old, and a couple days after she was born they asked us to name her! It was such a delight and honor to be given this priveledge. We decided on the name Isabel. It is a fairly common name here, and we both think it is a beautiful name that suits this beautiful baby girl perfectly. The family has been going to church with us, and last Sunday they had a special prayer for baby Isabel.