We are all going to sleep well tonight.
We woke up at 5 am, ate at 5:30 and took our hour trip to the village where we are working on getting a concrete roof and floor laid for 4 different rooms of Saini Church. The plan was for us to get the concrete slabs and concrete blocks laid for the two of the roofs, we laid all four. I think to say we killed it is an understatement. Everyone pulled their weight, worked with everything we could muster and there were some of us who were forced to take breaks. During our time there were some falls, but no one was seriously hurt, thankfully. Once, while I, Hope, was helping Stephen Mustard move one of the concrete slabs into position to pick up, my foot got caught under the slab and I went down. I knew I was falling and I just let myself fall. I have fallen enough in my life where I have learned to do it as graceful as one can while falling, therefore I laid there for a moment laughing at myself, let everyone know I was okay and then popped right back up. I am pretty sure I ended up with the most boo-boos by the end of the day, but again, that doesn’t surprise me since I tend to be a bull in a China shop most of the time.
Our next accident came when Carter Brooks tried to assist in moving a slab into position and he was not able to keep up. Before we knew it, it moved past him nearly taking is curly head off, and thankful, he was able to quickly move out of the way. Don’t worry, Kelly, your son will come back with himself in tact! Steven and Emily quickly ran to check on him and later in the day Emily checked on him again to make sure he was doing fine. The funniest accident that happened was when poor Benjamin Milner’s feet went flying in the air, but no worries, he too was unharmed. The slab was in the middle of being picked up to hand up to the guys on the roof and Ben was not quit ready. His feet went flying, but he was quick like Carter where he was able to catch himself and walked away unharmed.
Our next task was moving concrete bricks on an assembly line from a large stack to the roof. For each roof we needed 140!!! We moved and the locals on the roof laid 560 concrete bricks in roughly 2 and 1/2 hours! I don’t know about you, but I am impressed with all of us! Every single person was doing something rather it was moving the bricks, making sure everyone was well hydrated or taking time to rest (which was very important). By the time it was time for lunch we were all dripping with sweat and exhausted. I am typically not a sandwich person and to be honest, I am not sure what meat was on it, but I ate two of them. There were some of us who ate 3, before I could finish my 2, and he knows who he is!
We rested for about an hour and then hosted VBS for the local kids. I am going to let the next blogger talk about that, because I did more of walking around taking pictures and making sure everyone was well hydrated and taken care of.
I wish you could have witness how fast and efficient we all moved together. Benjamin and Carter jumped in and worked as hard as they could. I am pretty sure my entire body will be hurting in the morning or at least my arms are going to fall off, but it is worth it. Since we were only expected to finish two rooms today, we have had to change out schedule around and will start laying the concrete tomorrow for the floors! If anyone is honest we are not looking forward to it, however, we will get up and doing it!
We are at Sarah’s Casa right now getting ready to eat some well deserved pizza! Then we are looking forward to getting back to Shalom and taking some nice cool showers. I am going to go now, because the Pizza is being served and if I am not careful, the starving young men on this trip will destroy the pizza! But again, it is well deserved!
(I am not sure how to airdrop pictures to Steven’t computer at the moment so we will add picture on the next post!)
