Day Three - update

Today is the third day of our trip and the second work day. It began like every second work day for Team One: the excitement of getting started has worn off, the muscles are tired and sore, everyone is moving more slowly, and the anxiety of staying on schedule has set in. The work day ended like every second work day for Team One: lots of block laid, a sense of accomplishment, some minor setbacks, and Rosa's rice, beans, plantains and tortillas awaiting when we returned to the house" (as I was typing this David just randomly exclaimed: "Those rice and beans were good!" Eat your heart out, Tom). For Bryan (who we were glad to see post a comment on the blog - Keith and Tom, your silence is deafening) we finished another five courses of block. Quite an accomplishment considering that for most of the day our work team consisted of the eight of us and five Honduran workers. Gerardo worked about a half day with us but had to go with the Greens to conduct some business in Choluteca for most of the afternoon. This house is considerably larger than the house we built last year. We began to worry that we would run out of block, but had enough to finish the tenth course. The rest of the block was delivered late afternoon and we will finish laying it in the morning. God always provides.

After dinner, Dennis, Kristen, Bob, David and Mike went to visit with Daisy and her family. I will let them update you about that experience, but all came back joyful, some at seeing an old friend and some at making a new friend. We then had birthday cake purchased from the bakery next door by Mike to celebrate Kristen's birthday early (Feb. 3). It was delicious and this time everybody ate some. Then it was time for our devotional.

It is hard to describe what happened at our devotional, but God moved and we were all moved. I will try to describe the highlights. After we had gone around the circle with each talking about the day, Joel gave a short devotional about Nehemiah rebuilding the walls around Jerusalem in 52 days. At the end Nehemiah stated that the surrounding kingdoms grew afraid because they realized that the wall building had been done "with the help of our God." He reminded us that all our anxieties about staying on schedule mean nothing because we are building with God's help and it will be done on His schedule and that is good enough. This led to more sharing and was capped by the observation of the rookie, David, who has acted as our translator this week, that he is amazed at how we work and have formed loving, lasting, real relationships with people down here with whom we do not share the language. This led to a discussion reminiscing and sharing about those relationships, the relationships of trust and love we form with each other, and the miracle of God's love language. There were laughs, tears, smiles and blessings. We talked about our new friend, Javier, a simple but joyous laborer filled with the spirit of Jesus's loves, and how much we miss our friend Manuel. A perfect ending to another beautiful day in this small, poor, blessed, wonderful corner of God's Kingdom. Our Lord and Savior walks these dusty roads with us each time we come. Those of you who have been here know exactly what I am talking about. To those of you have never been we extend you the same invitation Jesus extended to Andrew when he first met Jesus: "Come and you will see." John 1:39.

In His Love,

Team One