Egg-cellent News!!!!!!

    I got an email from Mama Betty this week that brought me so much joy!  She was writing to let me know that a few eggs have appeared in the chicken coop meaning only one thing.... THE CHICKENS ARE FINALLY LAYING EGGS!!!!!!!

A picture of 39 eggs Maurice collected one morning from
the precious chickens!

   Waiting for these chicks to lay eggs has really grown my patience!  When we were told that it would take about 20 weeks for the chicks to start laying, for some reason it didn't register to me that it meant they wouldn't start laying until October!  I was ready for eggs in August.  But, the Lubangas have done such a wonderful job being faithful and taking care of those precious chicks that I can imagine they are even more excited than I am about the arrival of the eggs.
   Since the email, I have talked to Mama Betty about 3 times on the phone this week eagerly getting updates.  One day Mama Betty told me she spent the whole day taking care of the chicks - she is as excited as I am about them!  The first day the chicks laid about 6 eggs.  The picture that Maurice sent me from a fews days later has 39 eggs he collected in one morning!  It is "normal" for between 85% and 90% of your chickens to lay eggs everyday once they are in full swing.  So, hopefully in the next few weeks we will be collecting 180 eggs every day to sell!  Can you imagine???
   We have also decided that since we have an empty chicken coop now (the one we raised the baby chicks in before they were moved to the new coop) that we are going to purchase 100 broilers (which are chickens that we can raise and sell for their meat).  These chicken have a quicker turn-over and hopefully we can sell them by January-ish.  We are excited about this project too and I am hoping that some of the student teachers that are there now will also contribute to this project.
   I wanted to thank everyone who donated to the chicken project before.  I hope you are just as excited as I am that the chickens you helped purchase are now a money-making machine that will help Epico Jahns be more self-sustaining.  Mama Betty and I decided that the money collected from the project will be split between paying for food for the students at the school and paying the teachers' salaries.
   So, Asante Sana (thank you very much in kiSwahili)!  I will keep you all updated on the project as I hear more from Mama Betty!