It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our final day of working on the studio. I first just have to say thank you so much for all of your prayers! A lot of great things are happening here and we can see God's hand in it.

First off, Jamison ended up with a little bug of some sorts on Saturday and spent most of the day in bed. He was quite disappointed that he didn't even feel up to going to the beach that day, but he felt much better that evening already and had made a complete recovery by Sunday morning. There could not have been a more perfect day to not feel well- on a day where we had absolutely nothing planned anyways, and it did not keep him away from the church service/player distribution on Sunday or any work on the studio. Thank you, God, for good timing. Chad also had a slight cold last week and for a few days this week had nearly lost his voice. Thankfully, though, he felt fine this week, despite the voice issue, and was able to continue his work too!

As of today, we have the entire apartment area complete with all final coats of paint, the rest of the interior covered with white paint, and about 1/3 of the outside painted white, too. As I said in an earlier post, time is working against us...all of the areas that have been primed must be covered by real paint within 30 days or it will start to break down. So the 30 day clock stops once we get those areas covered with the white paint. Our goal is to get the rest of the exterior walls done tomorrow, but we are thinking that we will run out of paint before they are complete. We are all amazed, though, at how quickly we covered ground this week. Prayers are being answered! And Chad and I even lost a day of work, since we traveled to Maputo on Tuesday with Sergio to purchase more paint and other supplies. (We are still struggling to find tile that will work and that will not cost the studio a fortune. Who would have even thought picking out tile would be so hard? I can't even count how many times we have commented on how nice it would be to open up a Home Depot here.) :)

Honestly, I didn't think we would even get this far before we had to leave. Praise God! The more we can do now, the less Chad has to do on his own later. It takes a huge burden off his shoulders. So please pray again for efficient work tomorrow, that the paint will stretch as far as we need it to (we can't get any more in town...we have to drive 3.5 hrs to Maputo for more, so this is officially the last bucket that we will have a chance to work with), and for safety as much of tomorrow will be spent on scaffolding.

I will try to put some photos up  on Facebook maybe tomorrow...or at least before we leave Mozambique on Sunday. I can confidently say for both Jamison and myself, we wish that Sunday was not just around the corner. We are having a great time here doing this work and building relationships. We are tired, but would rather continue this work for a while longer before returning home. It is so crazy how God can change your heart. I don't think you could EVER get me to paint every single weekday for 5 weeks at home and have me still WANTING to do more of it! There is just something about doing it for His glory that changes your whole perspective. There is nothing better than playing even a tiny part in His plan for this ministry. We know God is going to do great things through this studio...we have seen and heard about such things first hand...and are so excited to see it get up and running! We are so thankful that God has called us here for this purpose and are already praying that God give us a purpose to again return in the future.

Thank you again for your prayers!