A much needed new garage door!

About a month ago I made mention in my blog of the garage door at the manse (parsonage) that fell on my head as I tried to open it. There are two doors on the garage. The one where I park my car is the worst. It is dented, it’s track is bent out of shape and it’s lost so many bolts I’m amazed it is even up there at all. Both doors have to be secured with wire when they are shut so they don’t bang against the cars in the wind. Well, today I’m getting a new one, thanks to the FUMC-RR team! But as with anything in Swaziland, replacing the doors is an experience.

The experience started with the trip to Cash Build with the person who is going actually replace the doors. He’s a plumber, but oh well. The trip there in his bakkie (pick up truck) was an exercise in constant breath prayers. I’m sure it didn’t have one ounce of transmission fluid in the transmission. I thought the gears would grind themselves right off every time he shifted. But that didn’t seem to slow him down one bit.

We buy the doors and some bolts to secure it after a conversation I don’t quite understand but something about the doors may not be an exact fit and so he’ll organize a welder for the frame. (I don’t even want to go there. Once again, some things I’m better not knowing.) After purchasing the doors, they loaded them on his bakkie. Amazing. Then he drove just as fast back to St. Paul’s. I guess having a tentative load is a challenge, not something to be careful of.

Typical Swazi style, we bought the doors on August 5^th, they started to install them on August 6^th, finished on August 7^th but oh, guess what? There was a problem. The door that Rev. Nyameka uses for his car worked fine. (It was the first one they finished.) However, they didn’t cut the grove out of the side tracks for the locking mechanism to move properly. It was binding so that you had to be inside the garage pushing and pulling on a certain spot while unlocking the door. Oki-doki. (At least it wasn’t falling on my head!) It took until yesterday (August 11^th) to get it fixed. But the good news is, they look great and they work great. No more falling down. The wait was worth it. Rev. Nyameka is so happy and so are many of the Society stewards that keep thanking me for that gift. Thank you to the RR team for the funds to make this happen!