Monday, July 30, 2007

Today was our first day on the site. We arrived around 8:45 am on the top of the mountain and were greeted by Jenny and two of her children as well as Dina and Melissa. To our surprise, Jenny told us she was going to have another baby and that it is due in December.
After making the trip down the mountain, we arrived at the work site. I was amazed to see how far along the second story (which we worked on last year) has progressed and to learn that it is already in use. Luis informed us that the new construction will include a room for the women’s sewing center and one for either Sunday school or child care. Also, there is a bathroom, but a very minimal one without plumbing yet.

With guidance from Marco and his crew, our main task for the day was to demolish the former outside Sacristy wall. The plan is to build a new wall on top of the guard wall we built around the parish in 2004. Using a sledge hammer and numerous smaller hand hammers, we started to work. Most of us took a swing with the sledge hammer, but it was really Anker and Joe who pounded away with that tool.

By lunch time, which consisted of peanut butter/jelly and cheese sandwiches, about two thirds of the wall was gone. After lunch, we returned to work and found that the afternoon duties were a little more dangerous then they were in the morning. Due to most of the wall being gone, we had a few close calls of cinderblocks nearly falling on people, when larger chunks fell off unexpectedly. Luckily no one was hurt.

Around 3 pm, the wall was gone and we were very tired. We packed up to leave, had our afternoon prayer meeting, and headed back up the mountain, which always seems much longer walking up than down. We arrived back at the hotel, took showers and had some down time before dinner. We met with Maria del Carmen (our mission coordinator) and talked about dinner and upcoming plans.

We dined at a really nice Brazilian restaurant – the perfect ending to our day.
Our first construction day went really well and I look forward to the rest of the week.

~Britta