The work has begin!  Hi everyone.  Most of you are not familiar with me, I am Chris(sy) Zimmer's aunt and Don(ald) Zimmer's aunt.  We have all arrived safe and sound.  Don, Lindsey and I arrived first.  The rest of the crew arrived several hours later. The three of us spent a lot of time with the kids before the others arrived.  I was able to see Don in a whole new light.  The children adored him.  He was almost always covered in kids.  I do have pictures.
We have a great work crew.  I feel having a small groups enables us to really get a chance to know each other.  The six women are in one room on three double beds.  There is plenty of space and the beds are very comfortable.  The food has been decent.
There are 112 children here with all kinds of heartbreaking stories.   Most are between the ages of 1-4 which means they are FULL of energy.  As a general rule they are happy, however there is almost always someone crying.  It is hard to comprehend how much work is involved in caring for that many children.  The women here do an amazing job.  They hand wash the laundry then lay it out to dry.  Laundry for over 110 people takes an enormous amount of space.  I have pictures of this as well.  Picture bathing all the children. Also imagine trying to potty train 20 children to go in a latrine.  They do it on newspapers all at once.  I did not take a picture for obvious reasons.  Their foundation is structure.
We started the actual work today.  This included moving a lot of sand to the foundation, laying out rectangular stones of different colors in a random order for the walls. We even have the last layer of stones down and cemented in.  We will all be skilled at masonry when this is all done.
It is interesting to hear how everyone came to be here.  It is also fun for me, being originally from Pittsford, to know where they are talking about when they are describing something.
I think we are all touched in different ways by everything we see here.  Life is so different here.   It is hard to believe that we are from the same time period.
I believe God has us all here for a reason and I am pretty sure we will all be affected dramatically after our stay here.  Please continue to keep us in your prayers.

Yours in mission,
Lisa