A Great Monday

What a great day!

It started early with a number of the adults gathering for coffee at 5:30. We all got up and met in the restaurant for a good breakfast of cereal (with boxed milk), scrambled eggs with ham, fruit, tang and, of course, tortillas and refried beans.

After breakfast we spent some time going over today's devotions with our roommates. Then we headed out to the buses and rode to the colonia church. Once at the church, we all walked from work-site to work-site to see where everyone would be working - leaving teams at their worksites as the rest went to the next site.

The four house sites started working right away to build the foundation for the house and to set it on cinder blocks. The most work was then in digging out below the cinder blocks to get everything level and square. Most sites were still working on this when we broke for lunch at noon. After lunch, things went much quicker so that every site got the foundations leveled, nailed down the plywood floor and even started building one of the walls (really part of tomorrow’s tasks).

Meanwhile, a fourth of each site went to the church in the morning to conduct a Vacation Bible School (Kids Club). We broke into teams and walked the neighborhood streets inviting the kids we saw (in Spanish) to come to our VBS. We had a good turn-out of kids and moms for our first day (it usually grows every day as word gets out). We started VBS by playing games with the kids, then brought them into the church to sing some songs, then performed a drama on the story of Gideon, then helped the kids with a craft (making a Gideon torch), then sent them home with some snacks. We also had a craft for the moms who were there to decorate a canvas bag.

Our fifth work team had a number of projects at the church – mainly related to building four concrete pillars that will be used to hold up a new second floor over the existing courtyard. We built rebar cages, constructed wooden frames for the concrete pillars. We seemed to spend a lot of time waiting on materials to arrive. We’ve been told that all of the materials we will need tomorrow will be there tonight.

Things got ready to mix and pour the concrete just as we reached the 2:30 time when we were to return to the hotel. Since the two frames we built for two pillars will be needed for the two other pillars tomorrow, we decided to stay longer and complete the pillars. The Junior High members of our team were sent back to the hotel while the Senior High members stayed and finished the job around 4:00. We then went back to the hotel and joined the Junior Highers in the pool for some good fun.

We had one injury – a hammered thumb. It swole up pretty good so we sent the injured member back to the hotel with an adult to get it on ice. It’s feeling much better now and there’s a real pretty black thumbnail for a souvenir. Ask Callie to show it to you when we get back.

It’s time to break for dinner. We’ll give more updates later.