Foundations

We began Monday with a devotion by Howard Swinford based on scripture from Matthew and emphasizing the spiritual foundations we are building through this mission trip. These foundations are for the people who will live in the houses that we are helping to build, for the Senior High youth and advisors that will come in June and for ourselves. These spiritual foundations are just as important (and actually are more important than the physical foundations we are building out of concrete).



Rem Bennett, our lead construction guy, split us into four teams and we started work. Since most of us only do this work once a year, we need some retraining to get back up to speed and to remember the little things about building the forms. Although it is not rocket surgery as the saying goes, it is still important that we build a good foundation. After a somewhat slow start, we got rolling and by lunchtime we had finished four of the seven sites. Having the pickup truck to deliver materials and tools to the teams worked very well. Here are some pictures which illustrate the work being done. Fortunately, although it was hot, it was also overcast most of the day which helped keep it bearable.
















One of the houses we are building is for a grandmother who is raising her two grandchildren who were apparently abandoned by their mother. Her new house will be at the back of her lot. To get the concrete truck to the back of the lot required that her existing outhouse be demolished. To call it an outhouse is actually a stretch, because it was merely some old pallets that had been nailed together. The walls were covered with various pieces of cloth and it had a flimsy tin roof. Although we thought we had explained that it had to be demolished on Friday night, apparently she had not understood it like we thought. After some careful measurements and explanation of the situation, she accepted the fact that it had to be done, smiled and proceeded to start tearing it down by herself. We tried several times to get her to let us do it, but each time she would come back and join in the demolition. She is a woman of small stature, but her determination was amazing. It was readily apparent that getting a new house was very important for her. Although we were hot and tired by this time of the day, her spirit lifted ours and her lot is now ready.

It was a great day of construction. Everyone pitched in to get the work done and everyone had a well earned sense of satisfaction with what we had done.