Bienvenidos!

After surviving the evening winds, they continued well into the morning. Our poor cook crew handed us wonderful bowls of fruit only to have them destroyed by the dust and dirt blowing in the air. I ate as much as I could before throwing it away. Granular food...not so great. The tents looked like they were about to die on our way out of the camp site. I hope they can hold on until we get back! All of our work gear on, and the trucks loaded up, we headed out to see our sites.

The families we were sent to help had just moved into new houses a month ago after their old houses flooded. When I say 'new' houses I mean four walls made of old double garage doors, and a hole cut for the door. Amor Ministries works with the churches in the area and builds homes for people who need them (which is pretty much everyone). There is a waiting list for homes of up to a year and a half. We were going to attempt to build three of them.

The goal for day one is to mix cement and get the cement block set for overnight drying, and build as many walls as possible. Mixing, shoveling, hoeing, and pouring concrete by hand is quite the job. Without a skid loader, leveling the ground is a difficult job. Shoveling, raking, picking the dirt to get it as level as we possibly could. I've always wanted to learn how to finish concrete, so my team let me work my magic on our block. I showed Greg Barker (a professional concrete man) a thing or two about how to finish concrete. By the end of the day, he was taking tips from me on how to do it! :)

The homeowners were walking around watching us work today. They were never seen without a smile on their faces. Gratitude spilled out their eyes, mouths, and hands. One man even grabbed a shovel and pitched in to help us move rocks and dirt. Mothers with little babies walked by on the street, children with broken, dirty bikes and toys, and vendors selling bracelets, ponchos, blankets, and all kinds of native goods. Sleeping in a tent for 3 nights is nothing compared to living this way. I'm so glad we came to help these families.

Back at camp the poor cook crew continued to battle the wind. We decided to take down the Taj Majal this morning for its own safety, so we had to try and fix it once we got back to camp. The wind was down a little, but still shooting across the open land. We still managed to take a solar shower in the wind. It was by no means pleasant, but at least it got the first level of dirt off our faces and out of our ears. I piled on about 5 layers of sunscreen today. It'll be months before I get it all off! Another sandy supper, no worship tunes due to the weather, and we were back in our half inflated mattress. Let's pray the tents stay put tonight.