by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well truth be told it is Sunday so really day four but I ended up driving us home so i did not get a chance to write last night. More on that in a minute. I honestly believe that was meant to happen and i needed to be at vhurch this AM for my trip to crystalize. It did. It was not the message but a single song i think written by our worship team. But first a bus ride and a toilet. We got up early again before the sun and made some breakfast for the kids. Again cereal. It was the one thing they wanted cereal and milk a huge treat for them. Then it was time to take the trash to the dump so of course i started cleanning out Darrell’s truck bed so wecould put it in the back but little did I know we had a SCHOOL BUS. The perfect trash deleivery vehicle I mean you know pop open the emergeny door and it is just like a truck except for the obviouse part about loading kids in it later. Oh well when in Mexico I try and do as they do so we loaded it up. The my favorite part of the day Rolando handed me the keys and said aomething in spanishb which i am sure was not dont wreck it. This thing was at least 20 years old. They called it Lazarus because it had already been raised from the dead. So we load up about 8 of the boys and head bumping along the roads. Boys hanging out...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
What a great day. You know what I mean; the kind of day were every ounce of great is squeezed out drip by drip and it seems to last forever. That was today. The are great parts of a great day and not so great great parts. Web got up early before the sun and started up some cereal for the kids. We were outside just hanging around waiting to ring the breakfast bell and the sun was coming up. It was gorgeous there we about 5 or 6 of us just talking and here come the kids. Man one hug after another just like they were ours it was a beautiful moment. After we ate we were loading the kids in one of our vans so Mike M could run them to school. For the record a 15 passenger van does hold at least 23 kids. Now that was funny. We got the kids off to school and started our day of work. We split into four teams and were needing to bleach, prime and paint the walls of four bathrooms. Sounds simple right wrong. It took us the entire day and my dogs barked about noon and ran off about four. Now it is 10 and we are sitting in the kitchen watching walle. We had a great time joking around a giving each other a hard time. There is a great group down here and i have enjoyed our time serving together. We had hamburgers and hot dogs for lunch plus some gorditas from in town man they were good. Z took...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well it is a little after 10 and we are beat. We got here about 4 today and there were a few kids hanging around so we cranked up a kickball game with some interesting bases and evoling rules. Seemed alot like the 72 olympics must have been. I still dont know exactly what constitutes a foul ball or if there ever was a tag on a fly ball rule. The bases were pretty funny. First was in its normal positon although about 20 feet from home. Second was direction behind first and was the side of a school house which had about 10 older kids in class while we were bouncing balls off the side of thwe house andthe roof. We were all hoping it was english class. Third base was very confusing. There were three tetherball poles straight left from second up next to the fence. The middle pole was third. And trust me you would get beaned if you went to the wrong pole. Home was a patch of grass about 10 feet from where you kicked from. Took some time but we settled into the rules pretty much except for the foul ball thing. It was a blast. I was tired after that but then the next wave of kids got out of school about 6. We played a little bit of tag then it was a free for all with piggy back rides and spinning around in a circle swinging around kid after kid. Man I got serious dizzy and fell down at least five times. Of course once you fell down the dog...
by jimmy | Mar 14, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Off again… We are headed South in two vans and a truck pulling a seventeen foot trailer, next stop the border then Pan de Vida orphanage. This is my last trip down for a while which I am sure Mark is glad to hear. I am sitting next to Jeannie in the back of the van. We are loaded with snacks, sinners and all sorts of things for the orphange including toys, washer dryer, lawnmower, chest of drawers, food, water and much more. Would like to give a shout out the guy driving his Van Lines 18 wheeler about five feet from the back of the van. Dude? It is a church van. We had a good send off this AM and Mac and Chris prayed us off then we headed out. We are just south of san antonio headed to a small town just outside of matamoras called sandoval. We will be staying there two nights and heading back saturday. This trip is going to be a little different in that we are going to be at the orphanage and doing some painting and other odd jobs. I am really excited about being on the trip with Jeannie and shaing this with her. She has not been on one of these trips and i cant wait for her to meet these kids. And NO we are not bringing one home. Sorry grandparents. I really want her to meet Z. I have talked to a lot of you about him but if you have not read his testimony visit www.helfofGod.com. He is an...
by jimmy | Feb 9, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Well I am hanging in the Houston airport with all my fingers and toes. I am sitting with Peggy Jenkins one of the women that went on our trip. She is one of the “chicas de concreta” she lives in Austin and we are waiting our flight. We had another great day with work in the AM and a tearful dedication service for the Hart’s. The day started with our “reverse migrant worker” van ride, that is 16 gringos in a 12 person van. When you open the doors one falls out. We started out at Casa B with concrete again and except for the 30+ mph winds it was pretty easy. We had lots of people helping and was a lot of fun because we really got to joke around and razz each other. We got to see walls rise from the ground, pipes laid in the trenches and of course lots of floors. You know I am not sure I have really described the concrete process but it is not “pull concrete truck up and dump concrete on ground and spread” it is far more painful. First you take 10-12 large wheelbarrows of the grey sand and dump them on the ground in a large circle. Then drop 6 100 lbs bags of concrete on top and spread out. Next you shovel everything into a big pile and then spread it back out. Are you having fun yet? Next come the rocks, the stuff like on the train tracks, and shovel 10 wheelbarrows of rock into the wheelbarrows and dump into the circle. Just add water. Maybe...
by jimmy | Feb 8, 2009 | buildingaboat, missions, Uncategorized |
Day 3 Ouch. Well I was introduced to an old enemy today no it is not the Devil but it is definently a tool straight from you know where. It is called the tamper. It is a tool that we use to tamp down dirt before we pour the concrete floors of the houses we are building. It is about 15 pounds of steel with a flt bottom that you just lift straight up and slam to the ground over and over and over. We poured the floor foranother house today I got some great pictures of the family we built the house for. They were so excited the kiids hung around the house all day and played. Their current house has a rubber tarp on the floor and I cannot help but think about how excited they must be to get a concrete floor. Their are three kids and the mom all living together in one room. After those floors we dug more trenches and this time we found the rocks not so much fun. We dug these for all the plumbing for huge addition to the Casa B clinic. Trenches had to be 24 inches deep and we probably dug 150 feet of them. The highlight of my day and maybe this trip was this evening and a celebration taking place across the city. I am not sure what it is called but all the churches have some services and then parade to a larger central church. Now this is not the normal US parade this is mostly on foot. Well except for the band playing out...
