Day Five

We began the day with enthusiasm and vitality. It was great to see our fellow workers already on the work site preparing for the days work. We said our greetings and began the work of putting the roof on. There were a few rafters to lock into place and some rebar that needed to be bent over and moved out of the way. We were making great progress. But shortly after lunch, we ran out of materials. A slight miscalculation must have happened on the corrugated sheet metal for the roofing, so we got as far as we could while Duane went on the hunt for more.

There was still a lot of hard work to be done, mostly in using this clay and gravel mix to try to level off the floor of the church. It was a lot of hard work in heat of the day, but it felt good to get as far with that as we did.

Today is Al's birthday and there was a surprise birthday cake and a birthday song sung in Spanish to mark the occasion. There were several old man jokes throughout the day at his expense, but he took the ribbing quite well. He certainly carried his share of the work. Happy birthday, Al! So glad we could share it with you!

Tomorrow we will have a little different day starting with a visit to Dr Sylvia. Then we will work on a different location with a different church. The work will mostly be block laying. More on that tomorrow.

For today's prayer request, we ask that you pray for our family members who have been such a wonderful encouragement to all of us. Another prayer of thanks is for our congregation who have been such a wonderful source of encouragement and support. We also want to thank our employers and supervisors who, in some cases, needed to make alternate arrangements for work or have had to wait on some projects while we are away.