Friday summary

Friday was the final day on the job site.... and Oh what we accomplished. The day started with hauling all the roof beams up the hill along with 5 loads of heavy gravel. Then we added the beams to support the roof - John and Rick were brave enough to sit on the outside walls of the house using a machete to notch out the spots for the beams to sit in. The we installed the tin roof. After a short break for lunch when we bought the workers Polo Compero (Guatemlan KFC), we were back at the site. Then we (mostly Steve and Jim) mixed a LOT of concrete and we poured the floor inside the house. I don't think either wants to hear "more conreto" ever again. And for some reason Tim and Rick kept complaining about the amount of concrete in the buckets they were hauling and dumping into the floor of the house. Door jams, frames and the doors were all hand cut out of wood for the bathroom and shower, and a real (pink) toilet was installed. Again, the children from the entire neighborhood came and played with us most of the day. At one point they discovered Jim was ticklish and there were 5 of them tickling him..... I am not sure who was laughing harder, the kids or Jim!

The day ended with a visit from the family who will be living in the house. The family is a single mom with three children. She does not have housing and this will be a temporary house for her and her family until she gets back on her feet. We prayed over the house and she prayed over the team.

Thursday summary

Thursday was a day of work work work for most of us. Most of us headed straight to the job site for lots of hard labor to get the house ready to finish. We poured the final support columns and cut more angled blocks for the top of the walls to create and angled roof. We added a type of stucko finish to the house and used a hand made chisel to create channels in the block for the shower and water lines in the "bathroom".

Our guatemalan construction team added a member, David's 4 year old son Alfredo came along to learn from dad and grandpa (julio) on the job.

At lunch we ran into a group of Architect students from Canada and, in the spirit of Tom Sawyer, explained how much fun digging a trench for the water and sewer lines was - so we had 5 extra sets of hands for the afternoon. They were some great guys and a lot of fun to work with.

We also learned a lot of new words both in Spanish and Katchekel and our new friends enjoyed learning some new English words.

While the other 6 of us worked at the site, Tim and Scott went to visit some of Tim's sponsored children. What a great experience to get to visit each of your children in their own homes. The families were thrilled to welcome Tim and meet Scott, and many hugs were shared.

Wednesday summary

What a busy day! We started the day by heading down the the lake and catching a boat across the lake. For those of you who have wondered "Is it pretty there?" or "What is the scenery like?" this should answer your questions:

We departed the boat for a walk up the hill (the side of a mountain) into Santiago. We hiked with a tour guide to the site of the Mayan idol "machiman". We were admitted to the home of the shaman where Machiman is on display for worship.

We visited the large catholic church that was the site of many masacres in the 1980's and early 1990's. The church was beautiful and set in a courtyard where the steps were built by the Mayan people in the 1500s. This is Jenny from Mayan families who has been interpreting and taking care of us this week.

After a gormet lunch at a resort (yes resort) we headed back across the lake to get back to work. Jim and Rick jumped in the back of a pick up truck for a one hour truck ride through the switch backs to meet Rick's sposored child and two of Jim's.  Other than a slide down a corn patch hillside on Jim's back-side, it was a fabulous trip. What a joy and blessing it is to be welcomed into the homes of these beautiful people.  The adorable 6-year old on the right is Julio Alexander, Rick and Carla's sponsored child.

This is Rick with the entire family.

 And Jim with his sposored family:

Meanwhile the rest of the team went back to the job site to pour more concrete pillars on the house. We are having a great time learning the spanish words for all the work tools and today we started learning some Kachaquel. The guatemalan construction team loves teaching us and is learning English as we go. It is amazing how with very little language in common we have learned to build together, laugh together and even poke fun at eachother. Scott has been tagged the "pide piper" of our team. Not only do all the vendors follow him through town, the small children just flock to him. He spent a good part of the day yesterday manning the water spiket. And between calls of "Scott mas agua,"  he was playing soccer with the small local kids. Then they all followed him town to the local store to let him buy them snacks.

We ended the evning with dinner and a devotional led by Steve and Tim focused on the friendships and relationships we are building with eachother, our guatelaman co-workers and all the lives we touch.

Day 3 begins Ash Wednesday

We are beginning the day a little later than usual so that we can take an excursion across the lake. We are going to the village of Santiago for an indepth look into the culture and a tour of a famous mayan/catholic church. Then we'll be back in Pana for the afternoon to pour more concrete.

FYI, the blog setting have been updated so you all can leave comments! (Sorry for the confusion).

Day 2

Day 2 began with several of us popping the cipro. (no fun). The rest of the crew headed to the construction site to begin hauling 3 yards of of sand (by wheel barrow) and 50 cinder blocks from the street up hill on a dirt/gravel path about 300 yards to the job site.  The neighborhood kids helped (including one young boy carrying TWO 85 lb bags of cement on his back). "The hill was the killer" is the sentiment of the day!

Steve & Diane and Jim got to meet with sponsored children today. Steve & Diane took both families to Polo Compero (like Guatemalan KFC) and Jim got to meet with his daughter Jill's sponsored child. He was able to present them with a solar light. Little did Jim know, that two of the little children in the family are afraid of the dark and cannot fall asleep at night without a light. The mother has been struggling with this issue because she cannot afford to keep the electic light on for them. What a blessing that little light will be to the family.

While Steve, Diane and Jim were off visiting, the rest of the crew finished the forms, tied re-bar and began the slow process of mixing cement (in a pile on the ground) and hoisting it bucket by bucket to the top of the wall to pour the concrete support beam at the top of the wall. Muscles ache that did not exist yesterday, but its a good ache. 

We are heading out for a quick dinner, quick devotional and then everyone will crash early tonight.  We are looking forward to an excursion across the lake to visit another village.

Monday - first day of house construction

Today was a great first day. We spent the day working on the job site. We learned how to lay block and how "not" to cut them. We have already developed friendships with our two Guatemalan construction workers who speak no english (none of us speak spanish), and have has some very good laughs. So far at lease half of us have been laughed at (with) over our great "skills". Steve was harrassing Jim for his attempt at proving him wrong on how not to break the block cutting it, so Jim snapped this picture of Steve being "helpful."  Diane was getting some lessons on how to apply the mud properly. Instructions consist mostly of motions, demotionstrations and a lot of "no, no no". Today Rick was assigned a very important job.... standing on the end of the board being used as a scaffolding so it didn't flip the worker off the end.

Seriously, we are having a great time. All of us got to interact with the local children while taking breaks from working. The small children (pre-school age) were actually helping to carry cement blocks from the wheel barrow to the site. Afterwards thy enjoyed wheeling eachother around and dumping eachother into our pile of pea gravel. We had a nice dinner out tonight, and are all exhausted.  We'll  be back at the site tomorrow for more block laying and cement mixing.

Welcome

Welcome to everyone! We hope to post often during our trip. Thank you to everyone for your support and prayers.