The group consisted of Lavelle Beiler, Jonathan Peachey, Matt King, Steven Glick, and Darren Stoltzfus. Earlier this year, Nata (our director) had wondered if some guys would be willing to come down and work. This was the group that volunteered.
They arrived last Monday night, the 15th of August. The very next day, after a brief visit to school, they set to work on cleaning up an area out past the school. (For those of you that have been here, it's the place where Daniel and Orpha Lapp used to live while the property was being used as an orphanage.) The place is separated from the rest of the property by a field and has been largely untouched over the years, except for expeditions to gather mangoes from the numerous trees that have grown quite tall.
Recently there have been a lot of people loitering there because it's so secluded with all the tall trees and underbrush, so we decided to clean it up.
Earlier this year, Shawn and Ivan had started by chopping away at the weeds and underbrush with machetes. The next step was chopping down some trees and knocking down the old buildings that served as a house and barn for Daniel and Orpha many years ago.
The guys worked hard every day in the sun and heat and probably changed clothes and showered more often than they had anticipated. :) I was proud to say they were from my youth group and we are all very grateful for all the hard work they did.
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| Free ride, why not take advantage. |
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| I some students out the first day to see what was going on. Of course they, being the energetic boys they are, wanted to help too! |
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| Trying to pull down the re-bar reinforced concrete posts. They all got pulled down after breaking the rope at least once. |
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| Breaking down walls... |
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| I think almost everyone added a few arm muscles after the week was over. :) |
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| And the walls came tumbling down... |
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| Another stubborn post. And yes that is me helping with the work. Hard to believe I know, but office boy that I am, I do have a few muscles that come in handy sometimes. |
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| Working on tearing down the house. We had a real system with this. Once you weakened a wall a little, it was pretty easy to push it down with a good pushing rhythm if everyone helped. |
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| After all the walls were knocked down, we started on clearing a few of the trees as well. |
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| And these were not little trees... |
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| Barn before and after. All the weeds (that aren't there) had been cleared by Shawn and Ivan when they were here. |
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| House before/after. |
At around five close to the end of each day we usually did something together. We went out for pupusas one night, and then went to see the volcano where we again ate pupusas. Pretty sure the guys all loved our national food!
Nata had told me that if they guys work hard, we can take the school van (usually reserved for school purposes) to the beach on the last day and stay overnight. Since the beach is close to the airport we then planned to go directly there afterwards.
So that's we did and they all earned it, too! It felt so good to relax at the beach with sand in our toes and salty water washing away the sweat. The waves were high and wild which made it even more fun. I think we all got bowled over at least once by some rogue wave we never saw coming. And since we were there overnight, we also got to see a beautiful sunset in the evening.
The next morning, we got up fairly early (for a Saturday morning anyway) and had some more leisure time on the beach and in the pool until the time came to leave for the airport.
And then they were gone! I was very glad for an (albeit brief) increase in male population here at CICS. :) Don't worry, I'm fine. I can hold my own most days. :)
The guys worked extremely hard in the hot weather and accomplished a lot in the short time they were here. I was blessed by their hard-working attitudes and also how they interacted with the children. After the first couple minutes, the boys were constantly asking them for piggy-back rides or baiting them into a tussling match. So thanks guys for coming! Can't wait to come home soon and see y'all again!
Speaking of which, as the year winds down, please continue to pray for me as well. I want to finish strong and do my best until the end.
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| A new friend for Joel. |
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| Pupusas! |
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| Paola trying her best to outrun speedy Darren. |
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| Someone has met his match with JP. |
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| Steven and JP submit to being tagged by Teresa after getting caught. |
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| A view of San Salvador from the volcano where we were eating. |
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| A beautiful sunset on the beach in Costa del Sol. |
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| Goodbye! |
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