I was reviewing my last post and it appears that it was 15 days ago. Man, does time fly when you are having fun!
Here are more pics to show the progression of our work on the orphanage. The Lord is so faithful to us, as He always has been, as we are right at having enough funds to complete the first phase of the new orphan facility. We should be able to finish up the cafeteria and kitchen within the next 4 or 5 weeks if everything goes according to plan.
Have fun looking at the pics below!!!!!
These first 10 photos show our progress again from beginning to where we were last week. The last photo shows all of the column supports up and the first layer of blocks laid for the foundation. If you don´t remember, we broke ground on Thanksgiving day...the photo of the four of us show us actually breaking ground...
These photos show how the main man in charge, Augustine, constructed the supports for the columns that we will be pouring in the days ahead. That little one is Maki who likes to get right in there and help out whenever and wherever he can.
And here we are setting the supports and so that we can cement them in when it comes time...in the third photo below (you can´t see it very good) Señor Augustine is taking a small pebble and centering it on his plumb line and then dropping it so that if falls in the center of the hole that we dug...I told him that in America we would have went to the hardware store to purchase some kind of laser level or laser plumb to do what he just did...we all got a laugh!!!
Praise the Lord becasue we found water on the property!! We were still pondering how we were going to get all the water we needed for mixing up cement when one day pastor C gave out a big yell and said that he had found some water down below...so we went to work with our machetes and cleared out a path for my truck and off we went to get water...why do we doubt the faithfulness of our good God so many times???
So after we receieved this awesome blessing we now were ready to mix up the cement and start setting the supports in concrete...We shoveled the right amount of gravel and dirt into a pile, then put the cement on top and then mixed this pile up twice and then made a little bowl with this dry mixture...we then added water and started mixing...
Now here is the fun part...after you mix it up you have to get it into each of the twenty 3ft x 3ft x 3ft holes that we dug...Literally, I have seen someone constructing something out of concrete probably 80% of the days we have been here and they make it look so easy to haul those buckets of concrete around, but let me tell you that it isn´t...they all got a laugh the first time that I tried to throw that bucket up onto my shoulder to carry it over to one of the holes...but practice makes perfect so as time went by I got much better at it...then again, after about 2 hours of doing this, each one of my throws (of the bucket up on my shoulder) got lower and lower so that at the end of the days, my bucket was only making it up chest level...
After pouring the 20 holes, it was time to mix up the cement in a little different way...we needed more fine cement (actually it was mortar) to begin laying the blocks for the foundation...so we used a little finer gravel and used a big strainer...then we (as you can see I had some help with the blocks on this day) transported the blocks were they needed to be and there we were, the first part of the foundation was done...
that´s all for now folks...
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