We arrived to find the pit we had begun digging yesterday…well, how ‘bout a swimming pool instead of a septic pit? So a few of us started bailing it out with buckets. A red clay pit filled with water…well, it’s not a pretty sight, and no, Kyle, that color will not come out of your clothes…ever. Around the building, lots of finishing work was going on, sanding all the walls (inside and out), ceiling, and roof, and tamping the dirt throughout to prepare it for the concrete floor. The sanding was to create a smoother surface for accepting paint (tomorrow’s plan). Guess what the Dominicans use as sanding blocks? Well, you bust up a perfectly good cinder block, and from the rubble you grab any of the pieces that have a manufactured flat surface. Viola. Who knew? Eventually, it moved to concrete…lots and lots of concrete to pour the floor for the entire building. Again, the Dominican technique is a little different, but very effective (as long as you have 30 Americanos to mix concrete in the street and lug buckets in and out for free). At the end of the day, the building looked great and we were all proud of the work we’d done to effectively finish the building. Apparently (I can’t make this stuff up), the building was a little too inviting and welcoming. A chicken (or rooster, nobody got to check) ran across the front steps and into the front room, leaving footprints the whole way in the fresh cement, and an essentially impossible extraction scenario. I guess we’ll see tomorrow how many feathered friends have made a home in our building…and what damage was done to the floor.
We returned to the orphanage tired but with a feeling of accomplishment…and very very dirty. After showers and dinner, we practiced some songs and studied the account of Jesus separating his followers from the rest as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats based on their treatment of the poor and infirmed, from Matthew 25, in a large group and then in our small groups. Again, looking at what we are doing and why, as it relates to Jesus’ call to care for those in need as he cared for us. Well, that’s about it for today, and it is staggering to us that tomorrow will be our last full day here, and that we will have to be bidding goodbye to our friends and our work so soon. We look forward to taking advantage of tomorrow’s opportunities to change lives, including our own.
Summary:
-Hot humid long work day
-lost bags: 0 (found bags: 1)
-church services attended: 3
-days hard labor: 5
-infirmed: 2 (but now recovered. Praise God!), three others with symptoms but pharmaceutical intervention
-Children Carla has selected to take home to NJ: lots, somewhere in triple digits
-Children Sue is disputing Carla’s claim on: 1 officially, but I think her number is close to Carla’s
-Children Michelle plans to bring home: 1 (yup, this one’s disputed too)
-Young boys Pastor Mark has selected to bring home: 9 (at least, for his baseball team)
-local boys watching us on the work site buck naked: 2
-Local women taught basic sewing: more than 8, and Sarah is giving private lessons too
-Families treated: 150
-Wounds treated: hundreds
-Coming unions blessed: 1
-Beaches visited: 1
-Birthdays Celebrated: 4
-Nights with a power loss (including fans and your authors breathing machine—which makes for a rude awaking as it shuts off!): 2
-Buildings sanded: 1
-Cement floors poured: 1
-Chickens moved in: at least 1 (although some claim it was looking to roost, so we may see eggs in the morning)
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