Living Among Them Ministries: Trip into the north jungle of Chiapas (10/20/08)

This update has lots of photos…..

About 10 hours after I preached my last sermon at the missions conference, Sarita and I parted ways for 4 days as I headed out with three other missionaries to go to a little indigenous community about 5 ½ hours away up in the mountains of the north jungle of Chiapas. We went to build a small house for a man that has now become a native missionary...He has a burden to go back to his community to share the gospel and disciples those that are already Christians.

I have included a whole bunch of pics because I wanted you to travel with me as your support has helped me in participating in this endeavour.

Thank you for your prayers in this as well as I know that many of you were praying for this trip to go as planned and that the Lord would be magnified in all that happened…and He was!

We left early Monday morning and about an hour into our trip we ran across a community that was making every car pay 20 pesos to pass by...this is a common occurrence in Mexico...they wanted to "build more speed bumps" with the money...who knows...we paid and went on...

this is the mountain range that we ended up in...way off in the distance...

we had good roads for about 4 hours and not so good roads after that...

Here we are unloading the gear...the guy in the blue shirt is the man that we built the house for, his name is Johel...(it is for him and his wife and new born son)

ok, remember this generator that was unloaded by three people...

so we had to take all the gear and supplies about 300 yards into the jungle...but these guys from his community were ready and willing...

the whole path was muddy and here we had to cross a small rock bridge over a small creek...I almost went in TWICE!!!...to the laughter of all the guys...

remember that generator...well this guy decided that he would just take it himself...this is not unusual as the people down here use these head straps to carry their firewood and anything that is heavy...you will see other photos with more people carrying things in this way...

here I was just watching the guy take off with the generator and just wondering if he was going to make it...he did with no problems...

told you it was muddy...I am taking this photo straight down...somewhere down there is my boot that sank in the mud!!!!

laying the first boards...this is Reise, another missionary from a neighboring town (San Cristobal)...he and his family have been here in south Mexico for like 20 years or something...

first wall to go up...

had to work into the night as we were on a time line...

good meal of eggs and tortillas the first night...man were we hungry...notice the absence of utensils...that is just the way it is...but they got Coca Cola....

we worked through the rain for most of two days but this downpour was just too much....we just all camped out for about 30 minutes...in the second photo below, another missionary named Nathan (Reise's brotehr was underneath an umbrella trying to work)...

me and a new friend....

some onlookers...they were frequent as Johel's house is right off of a path that leads to the only bridge for miles...it is across a very large river...notice the way they are caring their things...yep, on their heads...

you can see the top of the suspension bridge on the left of the photo...those two white posts...

Nathan again...working away....

starting to put on the first side of siding...check out the onlookers...

here we are, Reise and Nathan and myself after working all day and some of the night...told you it was muddy...

setting up the hammocks for a goods night sleep...first time for me to sleep like the natives....

ok, so are you with me...me in my hammock and you in yours...now image....a bunch of Zzzzzz's and than all of a sudden you are on the floor...man what a rude awakening...of course I couldn't share it with the other guys as they were fast asleep...

here are the first trusses going up....not a carpenter so I am not sure if that is how you spell those things are not...the other guy with Nathan is another missionary...his name is Nicky...

ok, so this is the story...me and the guy in the blue shirt worked most of the days together...he is a deaf mute and could only point and utter sounds...it worked really well with me to work with him because pointing and motioning with my hands is almost as good as my Spanish :)

so he had this good idea to start taking out some of the mud from the center of the house...all well and good except that is exactly were we were going to be working for the next 4 or 5 hours...but i explained it to him and all was well...by the way, he and his brother are both deaf mute but they are so well loved by the community...it was a blast to see them all joking with each other and being so patient with these two guys...i love this guy named Pascua (translates Passover)... I don't know how it will work, but I have a desire to teach this guy and his wife sign language so that they can communicate better...please pray for that end...

here are the two of us on the bridge that is the only path to the other side for miles...

here we are not yet finished but we knew it would be dark before long....notice the guy walking by carrying that huge log with his head gear.....

can't see it very well, but we all have our tools that we were working with up in the air showing them off....

can you say lunch time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! can't see it well, but most of the women were barefoot...man that has got to hurt....

another path to the house we were building...

working on the roof....

my little friend...he couldn't speak Spanish nor English and I couldn't speak Chole, this communities native tongue, so we just had a blast trying to get along and figure out what each other wanted...ended up playing games alot... (this was one of the deaf mute's sons)...

the veiw from Johel's front porch early one morning....that is the river down there....

finshed with the roof...ladders were not going to really work....that is Nathan by the way...not me....

finished product....well everything that we set out to do...they are going to put in the doors and windows....all that you see here is about $3,000...this house will probably last him about 7 -10 years if he will seal it like it is supposed to be....

so here are the two mute brothers...they are both married and have kids...those guys are the greatest...

so this is how it works...when you first get married, you build a little wood house and then when you get more money you build a concrete block house and use the old wooden house as the kitchen....that is what is below...this was the house that Johel's parents lived in for many years until they saved up and built a concrete one...but, many of the community still live in these wooden houses....

and last but not least...after working the first day and night (actually every night) i was looking forward to a shower...well i got one but it was out of this large drum with a small bucket and it was really cold!!! i was praising the lord for the littlest things on this trip...like hot water!