Eddie and Mary are working in the Galana area in Southwest Kenya, where Derek and Linda Roulston were involved for eight years with the Galana Community Development Programme (GCDP), before relocating to their present work at Timau.
GCDP is now under the management of the PCEA Pwani Presbytery 'WHEAT' Project, a charitable trust which has seven founder Directors, including Derek Roulston, all of whom are members of PCEA.
The Programme continues to expand, with Eddie and Mary working in partnership with the Roulstons, as they continue their commitment to this work. The Dorrans are serving as volunteers under the Ignite scheme of Presbyterian Mission Overseas, and while in Kenya are under the care of the Pwani Presbytery and attached to the Malindi Congregationof the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), whose parish includes the Galana District.
Eddie is Project Manager and is responsible for the design and construction of a the second cable suspension footbridge over the Galana River, as well as for the provision of wells to provide clean drinking water to various communities in the area.
The new bridge, to be called the 'Bridge of Hope', will serve a community of about 2000 people, who, up to now, have had no means of safe passage across the crocodile and hippo-infested Galana River. It will join the isolated but growing community of Hawewanje north of the river, to the village of Shakahola to the South, from where people can travel by road to Malindi to sell produce at the markets there.
Contruction of the new bridge is well under way with the concrete bases for the two steel towers and anchor points for the suspension wires all in place prior to the start of the rainy season at the end of 2011. Eddie and Mary, who have been back in Ireland since September 2011, are due to return to Kenya in February 2012, when work on the bridge will begin again after the rains.
Eddie worked for 20 years as a civil engineer prior to answering God’s call to ministry within PCI. He was ordained in 1990 and, together with Mary, served in the congregations of Cuningham Memorial, Ray & Newtowncunningham, and Ballycastle & Croaghmore, before retiring from parish ministry in 2010 to accept the call to work overseas.
Mary is a primary school teacher who retired from full-time work in 1992 when she and Eddie moved to Donegal, eventually giving up part-time work in 2009. She is involved in various aspects of the 'Bridge of Hope' Project, including administration and the care and welfare of volunteer workers.
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