Team Guatemala 2012 Thursday

Thursday

Today started off just like any other day with a wonderful breakfast prepared by the staff at Hope of Life. The staff here really go out of their way to make you comfortable here. I guess they realize that within a few hours, we are going to be out in the fields and desert working on projects.

We split up again into three separate groups. One group, lead by Joanne went back to the warehouse to continue working on packing food bags for Friday. She was joined by Margaret, Terri, Natalie, Meghan, and Sarah. For such a small group, they packed over 200 bags by themselves before lunch.

A second group went back to work on the houses They are build in the hope of Life village. This time around Will, Aaron, and myself got to go to the construction site along with Rick and the boys from Washington State. (Kyle is actually from Alaska!) We spent the morning finishing filling out the floor to make it level and helped sift sand and gravel for future concrete making. Once again I walked away with a pocket full of rocks to bring back to my classroom. Some people never learn!

The third group went back out to the Greenhouses to work on the irrigation lines. This time we sent the "youngsters" to represent us. Zack, Sam, Foster, Amanda, Tessa, and "Big John" were digging out trenches to run pipes later.

After lunch, the Greenhouse group went back out to finish the pipelines. Will opted to go back out with them this time. I think he was afraid they were having too much fun without him. that meant Zack was able to join the group at the Warehouse.

The Construction group joined the Warehouse group since they wanted almost 800 bags filled with food supplies. we didn't make that number since they ran out of some of the food stuffs to put into the bags. We then packed the truck for the food delivery tomorrow morning to the School/Church dedication. We also started to put together some furniture. Carlos has purchased several pallets of furniture from Walmart of all places. I think that several big wigs from Walmart are coming down tomorrow to see what is going on with the stuff they sold Carlos. It is amazing the stuff people return that can't be resold so they sell it to countries like Guatemala. Aaron and i tried to put several pieces together but some were missing a few important pieces. Like table tops and such.

After dinner we went out to one of the other churches in the village. Aaron actually got to share the message he prepared for a service last year but didn't get to. It was a moving message about the prodigal son. Margaret lead devotions tonight and after telling us her story, she had each of us share something we learned or appreciated about someone in the group. It was a very moving devotions and I think it showed just how close a group of strangers can get when thrown together in the name of Christ!

It is hard to believe that tomorrow is our last full day here before making the long trip home!