Tonga!

On Friday we went into the office down town. The parking lot was a lake! We had to park right by the door in order to get into the office. We met with another village leader today that wanted help with a water pump. This village has an old pump but it is still running. He wants a new one so that when this one dies they won’t be without water. They have no money saved for a new one, in fact they are 7,000 pa’anga behind in paying their water bills. There is no way the church is going to step into a situation like that. We felt so sorry for this poor town officer. He is a member of the church and he was just elected a month ago. He is trying to straighten out the mess that the last town officer left behind. We did some training with him and he is going to get his water committee organized and start collecting money each month. Hopefully he can make enough progress before they really need a new pump to have some money saved. It’s hard to tell people that we can’t help them but it is important to help them become self-reliant.

Sister “Y” is finally back from Hawaii!! I talked to her on the phone today and she will meet with us on Monday morning to get the Hygiene training going in Lavengatonga. FINALLY!!! I was beginning to wonder if it would ever happen.

We had a conference call with Elder Reynolds this afternoon. He seems really pleased with what is happening in Tonga, but he worries that we have too many projects going on at the same time. I worry about that a little myself. He wants to be sure that we can get everything completed before we leave next spring. Right now that looks like a doable thing if everything comes together as it should. That seldom happens in Tonga, but we have allowed for delays. By the time we got off the phone he was asking me to submit 3 more projects and write up a report on the meetings we have been attending with the government leaders here. When those phone calls are done, Alan and Ana just walk away smiling and I end up with days worth of work to do! Where is the equality in that??? I am supposed to train Ana so she will know how to submit projects in CHAS. She will be here when we go home and she needs to be able to keep the work going.