Moving Dirt and Building Walls

I know you may think this will never end, but I'm going to finish up with the construction portion of our trip today.  There are still many stories headed your way in the future, but let's at least finish this project.

As you may recall, Monday we dug footers, placed posts, and filled it with concrete.  Oh yeah... and Tim and Shane became very, very dehydrated.  But everyone live to tell about it, and we were back on site on Tuesday.

The first thing to do on Tuesday was spread a load of dirt that had been delivered to level the ground for the house.  We didn't have a bulldozer, so we had to do it the old-fashioned way.  Also, the dirt had to be tamped down where we would be building the walls. Daniel was all over that.

Dago took a few folks from our team to fetch some re-bar, and when they were carrying it back, a group of muchachos saw them and followed them to the worksite.  They stood around watching for awhile, and then Dago decided to see if they would pitch in.  No to be outdone by a bunch of girls, they grabbed shovels and started working hard, while we stood in the shade and cooled off.  Dago spent some time talking with them while they worked about what would happen if they died today... where would they go?  We (stood in the shade and) prayed for them.  

Praise the Lord for His provision (again), because moving that dirt was hard work, and there was lots more hard work yet to do.  We would not have been able to get so far on the house that day if we hadn't had the rest.

Once the dirt was level and tamped, forms were built using the planks from the house that was torn down.

Time for more concrete mixing and bucket brigades!

 Once the concrete was all poured, all we could do was wait, so we were done for the day.  I would like to point out that this is as far as Dago thought we would get, but we still had another half day left to work.  All of the work we did on Wednesday was "bonus."  To God be the glory!

 Wednesday when we arrived on site, the concrete forms were removed, and we prepared to lay block.

Oscar (the contractor that was volunteering his time) carefully laid the first few blocks to ensure they were level, then trained a few on our team how to continue the work.

In order to mix the mortar, we had to sift the sand to ensure that there were no pebbles that would prevent the blocks from being even and level.  This was done by throwing scoops of sand against a screen.

Sifted sand was then thoroughly mixed by hand with concrete mix before the water was added, then mixed well with the water.

Mid-morning, we got another huge load of dirt to fill in the rest of the floor.  Those that weren't laying block worked hard to spread the dirt around and level it.

Here is our team again, with all of the work that was accomplished in our time there.

And, since everyone loves a good before and after:

Before:

After:

"He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint."  Isaiah 40:29-31

Next up... the feeding program and grocery distribution!