Day 3 turned out to be really full! I (Chad) got up to meet with the staff men early (6:20, ouch)... But of course, the mountains had already been up for a while so that helped me get going! We then had breakfast, met up with our crew leader (John) to go over the projects we were working on that day, and organized our tools...
Here's a picture of John going over the layout of the property... They are building homes to house some of the teens who are too old to stay in the orphanages... I'm going to do an entire entry about these homes later... But I wanted to show you now because a) that's what we worked on today, and b) it's just really cool what they are doing with these homes... The vision for Back2Back is "Care for today, Hope for tomorrow" (Atencion para hoy, Esperanza para el manana)... They are giving these teens a hope and a future for their lives by housing them, feeding them, paying for their education, providing a family structure, and investing in their character... It's much easier to work really hard on these homes knowing that this is what they're all about... It makes a day of seemingly mundane work become very purposeful...
Today I worked on installing shelving units in two of the bedrooms... These were wooden shelves that had to be fastened to the masonry walls... I worked with two ladies from Cincinnati named Shelley and Denise... They were super-energetic and not at all afraid to tackle the job! Jen worked on sealing the roof, which involved rolling this stuff onto the roof that looked like marshmallow fluff! I'm sorry I didn't get a picture, but I promise I'll get her in action for Day 4...
After we were done working we packed up, loaded some supplies onto a bus, and drove to the Rio.. The Rio is a community of people who live down by the river... They are the poorest of the poor... It's basically a squatter's village... They pick through trash and leftover construction supplies to build their homes... I'll do another post on the social and economic challenges of living in this place... But as you can see, they are using whatever they can to get what they need (Check out the tree limb they are using for a utility pole to run phone and electric lines... And someone has figured out how to tap into some "clean" water)
So basically we brought a lot of stuff to these people... We rounded up the whole village and provided food, juice, clothing and (maybe most importantly) attention... We gave them tacos, juice and shirts (for their physical need), each kid got a water bottle and a soccer ball or sandals (for an emotional need - kids need to feel like they can have fun), and offered to pray with people who were hurting or sick (for their spiritual need)...
Then we loaded back onto the bus and headed home for dinner... All in all it was a very full day, and by then end of the day we were exhausted... We had some great conversations with people working on the homes here and interacting with the people at the Rio... Day 4 involves more work on the homes (I'll get a picture of Jen) and a "field trip" of sorts... We're taking a bunch of kids to this place called Mundo de Adeveras so they can play and feel like kids :) Remember you can click on all of these pictures to get a much bigger picture... and you know you want the big picture!
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