WOW!! What an exciting couple of days already. Most of the team is in bed now. We have had a great first day of work. The weather was incredible. It was much hotter last year. God
truly is shining down his grace on us.
Today we made the hour long bus ride to
Tippi Tappa. It was our first opportunity to really see what lies before us and to have the
privilege to meet the Pastor and his family. All the students and team were very anxious to jump in and get started. After meeting with some old Nicaraguan friends that we worked with last year (Including Wilson, who we helped this past year with support as he had some much needed eye surgery) we found out about our objectives of the day.
Our main objective today was to make the footers for the room. I was very excited to see how much extra room we were going to be able to give the family. Most of the guys started digging like mad men trenches where we would be forming the concrete foundation and digging deeper to create the footings. Most of the girls were inside making the
rebar that goes in each column and in the footers. It was a learning experience today for most as we learned how to build a house the Nicaraguan way.
The morning of work went great!! I was very proud as I am always of how well the students worked. FYI parents - They are extremely hard workers when they are motivated! By lunch we had the 3 footers and trench dug for the back wall.
Nick Graves, Nick Freed and Abby made us some delicious lunches of tuna,
peanut butter and jelly with chips, snacks and soda.
After lunch we had a great opportunity to pull out the soccer ball for a while and kick it around with the kids - several of whom had came over and helped with some of the
rebar.
I got to meet on kid that lived across the street. His name is Christian and he is 12 years old. He was so excited to get
to meet us. Knowing very little
Spanish always creates so fear in me to approach the people - but he
truly made me feel at home. He later brought out some cards with action figures and called me Iron Man and Justin The incredible Hulk and well as bringing Drew and us all some Mango - it was really good!!
Then it was back to work - most
of the
rebar got completed for the first phase so several of the girls joined the guys in the back for shoveling and making concrete.
2 parts sand, 1 part rock and a HEAVY bag of concrete.... 2 no..... 3... no too much..... 2 1/2 buckets of water. Make a volcano with the water in it and then scoop and turn until it breaks the wall. Now shovel.. faster!!
Rapido!!!
Then you have concrete. Needless to say, everyone on the team will learn it before we leave.
Oh yeah and the girls rocked at making cement... even being from
lakewood and
eastside!!
Well about 2 or 3 the
sky grew dark. By this time we had poured all but 1 of our footers and were preparing to pour the foundation in the trenches. We made it half way when the drops began to fall. And they fell harder. And then the floodgates open and it flat out POURED!!
Work must go on.
have you ever tried to dig out a hole as water is gushing into it. Or tried to make concrete, shoveling rocks and sand and mixing it all with waterlogged clothes and skin when you can't see?
It's a BLAST!! We
worked like crazy to try and finish the foundation. We pray that it sets tonight and that we got enough so we can start laying block
tomorrow, but only time will tell.
We got to a stopping point - cleaned the equipment and just relaxed for a moment talking and playing soccer in the pouring rain with the kids. Of course we got the side with the huge puddle that just stopped the ball in a moments notice (sorry
Protsman and Justin!)
Then we told everyone
HASTA MANANA and loaded the bus to come home -
drenched. On the way back we had a great time singing camp and children's songs and just enjoying each others company - the
lizardfish that Old McDonald had on his farm was quite interesting.
When we got back we were intoxicated by the amazing smell of supper - it was so good!
We quickly showered (the water is limited and we could run out so we are very careful.) Now we smell better!! Then had supper and relaxed.
We had a meeting about
VBS tomorrow which I am ending with.
The Pastor said we could have up to 80 children
tomorrow. That's Incredible for a first day!!
So pray for our team as several will be building great relationships with the children
tomorrow.
thanks for reading about our day.
Now for the pictures. It takes so long to load pictures on the blog - especially when I already have close to 1000 from everyone. So I set up an account and will be downloading all the pictures there. They are
unedited and raw meaning that some may be out of focus or blurry or may look like duplicates. I have been down loading the students cards from their cameras and frantically working to get the pictures on the blog and finally got it all to work tonight!!
yeah..finally.
So there are several easy ways to see pictures.
1 - Click the Pictures of Nicaragua Link to in the right column of the Blog under PICTURES
2 - You can preview random pictures at the bottom of the right column of the blog. If you click on a picture it will take you to our picture web page.
3 - Go to the website. Click on this link (
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcstudents/) and it will take you to our
flickr page.
Whichever way you choose they will all lead you to the same page. Once on our
flickr photo page you can go page by page looking at all the pictures or I will also be dividing the pictures into sets for each day and event (you can look at the sets by clicking on sets under the large heading name and clicking the picture of the set.)
If you have difficulties connecting or need help please email me and I will get it to you asap. Share this blog with your friends and those who have supported us to get here. THANKS FOR ALL YOU'VE DONE!! WE LOVE YOU ALL!!
thanks. Until next time,
Chad