by jimmy | May 10, 2008 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well I believe I have completed the study of strange and often unused muscles of the human body. I know I passed because I am back home in my bunk safe and sound. We took some back of the envelop calculations on how much concrete we moved today and here is what I can remember: 20 wheelbarrows of rock, 20 sand, 10 fifty lbs bags of concrete and a bunch of water. That equals 160 wheelbarrows of concrete. Or about 12000 cubic yards. these calculations were made by my hombres down here and even though a couple are aggies it seems about right based on my back. We have also handed out more candy than the dentist I know would approve of. The estimates for yesterday were about the same so put us 11 hombres down for 16 tons of concrete. Yikes. What a great and satisfying day. Here are some notess from today. We had a dog deliver 8 puppies under the vanwe drove down in. Some kids brought over the biggest scorpion I have seen. wayne on our team bought a soccer ball last night and he played some soccer in the streets. When he should have been working just kidding. Today was Mothers day in Mexico so everyone was dressed up in their best clothes. Amazing that even in this very poor place people still take time to do the family things. Being here has meant a lot to me. I have met some great guys he have laughed quite a bit about so many things. We work with three guys Fredrico...
by jimmy | May 9, 2008 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Please excuse my typing I am writing this on my blackberry. Plus my english is not so good anymore. Things are going great down here and I am really enjoying being around the people down here. Just wish I knew what they were saying. We finished our first full day of work today and got two floors put in the schoolhouse. There are no concrete mixers or concrete trucks we did it old school. We wheelbarrow 8 loads of concrete throw it on the ground then shovel on top 8 loads of rock like the stuff they use around railroad tracks. Add water, wait then the hard work begins. Turn over mix until you get concrete then load it back in the wheelbarrows and run it up a ramp and into the school. It is tough work but there a bunch of great guys from dallas down here and with the exception of the aggies most like to work. Only kidding. One of the aggies is good friends with rick bonner who is a kid out of corpus and his sister and jennifer were very tight in high school. Rick was his best man in his wedding. Small world. There is another red raider on the trip and a guy out of colorado. Around lunch time we started handing out candy to kids in the area and they were coming from everywhere. I took a bunch of pictures that we will post on a site and I will send you all a link. Another cool thing I saw today was a family sitting in front of...
by jimmy | May 8, 2008 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Updates from Jim’s trip. Sent via his blackberry – Day 1 – Heading to Mexico Thanks to everyone for both your prayers and donations. I am at airport getting ready to head out. I am both anxious and nervous not sure what is really going to happen yet. I do know we will be working to build shelters on a landfill inside Mexico. We are headed into mexico later today to scope out what we will be working on then come backto the US to pick up the group at the airport. We are staying in the US at night and going across the border each day I know there are going to be some young kids living at this landfill and I am pretty excited to meet them. Our kids have given me a few of their toys that I am taking with me to hopefully give out. Plus I bought two HUGE bags of Starburst candy. And then this morning I bought rattlesnake eggs in the airport. Now for those that were fortuant enough to not have this gag played on you let me try to describe. It is an envelope with a metal washer tied to a rubber band stretched between a piece of metal. You twist the washer on the rubber band tight and close the envelope. Then when the person opens the envelope it vibrates like there is some thing in the envelope. Should be pretty funny and I am sure the kids will get a kick out of it. If not sugar never fails to please! Anyway we are starting to...
