Interesting Work Day

Well the day started like yesterday. Breakfast and then a walk to the work site. We got there and promptly started moving dirt. Over the course of the day we moved about 10 tonnes of rock and dirt to the middle section of the floor. The first section of flooring we raised by another 3 - 4 inches. So it was a back breakin day in many ways. Not many of us realized the work that moving rock and dirt is.

While this was going on Doug & Roy made mortar and the team as a whole made more mortar and more mortar. All in all through the days work we laid about 400 + block... about 8 or 10 mortar mixes. We completed about 65 running feet of block laying about 6 feet high.

A number of interesting things:

• The worksite would never pass OSHA. Today on the work site we had geese(which I Doug named Widdle and Waddle), turkeys, chickens, dogs and tonnes of kids. When we were moving dirt the kids worked incredible hard. At times we simply directed them and made sure that they didn't hurt themselves or someone else. Its an unbelievable work site.
  
• The work can be repetitive in nature. John Summers spent the day twisting steel bars into squares to hold together rebar. He did a great job and got it almost finished.


• The block laying is different then in the US. A complete layer of mud is layed down(not just a beeding) and then the block is laid. The next block is laid about an inch a part. Once a row is done they have this contraption and they push morter down inbetween the blocks. Then we go down the row and fill the inside gaps of the blocks with rock and dirt. We can't figure out why the dirt goes in the middle piece... but it does. John Stancliff has spent his two days laying block Nicaraguan style and is loving it.







• Lunch was fantastic. They brought us fish, salad, rice and some beautiful cup cakes. The fish was complete with heads.






• John Stancliff gave out baseball cards to the kids and they loved them. In Nicaragua the kids love baseball and everyone knows who the Phillies are.

The picture of Pastor Doug below is him with Pastor Noel of Iglesia Evangelica. Noel has a deep love for God. He is a great man.

Tonight we are eating at a restaurant outside the hotel. We will post more later about the day.

Well we are back from dinner and what a great experience it was. We took three taxis. It costs the equivalent of 0.50 cents a person regardless of distance(within city limits). Marshall gave each taxi the directions and off we went. The first taxi had Marlene, Mary Jo, Linda and David F. The second had Doug, Roy, John Stancliff and John Summers. The final one had John Burns and Marshall. The first and third taxi's arrived no problem. The second one dropped his group off at the wrong restaurant.

With a phone call to Marshall we figured out where to go and began trying to flag a taxi. When we got one we didn't know a word of Spanish so we called Marshall and he gave directions. We got to the restaurant and had a great meal. The meal itself was great. Of the 10 of us one had chinese, four or five had mexican and 4 of us had a great hamburger and fries.

As the team gathered at the end of the day for devotions we talked about 2 things. First we talked about being tools available to God to be used. Over the last couple of days we have sensed God using us in some neat ways with the kids and the workers on the site(today we were joined by two men from the community and the church). Secondly we talked about our experience. We are thoroughly enjoying the work...one of the delivery people said today that we are making incredible progress and that feels good. But more significantly we are enjoying our interaction with the people. The kids are amazing... Anna, Helena, Israel, Jordan and many others have worked their way into our hearts. Beyond that we have gotten to know a woman named Betty who it appears has had a tough life and just connected with the church in the past little while. We spent time praying for her tonight and Marshall was able to pray briefly with her as well. She is a sweet woman with obvious needs and a need for Christs hope in her life.

Anyways it was another good day.