2016 (Aug-Oct) 2nd Mission Trip (6 of 7) – Construction continues
1 October, Saturday – New day, new month, new blog, morning prayer at 8:30. Hope to get a lot of construction done today and hopefully be able to pour concrete tomorrow. Since this is the beginning of the month that we will be returning at the end of, and since the floor/ceiling once poured needs to sit for two weeks, we have come to the realization that we will not get as much done on the new building that we would have liked. It’s actual becoming really useable, other than as a covered shell with a dirt floor, will have to wait until next year. But still a lot of progress has been made. Lily still has hopes that we can get the electrical and floor done as well, but I have my doubts.
Picture on the left is the crew this morning finalizing all the support ‘trees’ that support the temporary wooden planks laid up as a ceiling frame to support rows of hollow blocks between the planks and rebar over the planks that will tie all the soon to be poured concrete together. Actually rather interesting to see how they do this. The newest method uses styrofoam instead of the block, a lot faster process and lighter floor is made, but our contractor hasn’t done that method yet so we are sticking to the block.
The workers finished up a little early today on the block and framing and called it quits to return tomorrow to do the rebar and beam forming. Along with the rebar work, electical lighting tubes are also put in place for the ceiling electrical. Hopefully that will be done in one day and we can start the concrete pouring on Monday, Tuesday at the latest.
We will definitely finish up Maria/Luciana/Jose’s new kitchen & bath this month and they will have 24 hour running water for the first time, an indoor bathroom and kitchen. All from Jesus!! Praise the Lord. Off to prayer as I hear Julio playing his new sounds on the organ, which we were able to bring on this trip as well. Every trip has it’s advances and disappoiintments .. So much to do. We are elated that Irma will be joining us in November, expanding the Missionary work even further. Later in the day, we had our regular OANSA leadership team show up. Regular ritual of fun together, breaking up into three smaller groups by ages, and then coming together again at the end for a weekly message. Great team that Victor brings with him every week. Blanca is a real character, and friend, and we enjoy hosting her and the rest of the team every Saturday.
We had a meeting internally with Victor concerning overlap, graduating students, volunteer roles, etc. (picture of 3 of our ‘grads’ below that came by the mission today, and are part of the maturing youth that we are desiging a program for.)
Looks like we will have the Sanchez’s focus all the more on the older children, building a program for ‘after OANSA’, for the teenagers that no longer have anything like OANSA to occupy their time. This is a key focus for the mission and an important one. Keep us in your prayers.
After OANSA, we had a hlf dozen kids stay around at the mission, some doing homework on the computer and internet, others playing games. The Sanchez’s and I worked on fixing a remote device for the new temporary projector. We got everyone out before 9pm. Rebar work tomorrow, and church too !! Three graduates from the mission (Angela, Diana & Madelyn) spent time with the Sanchez’s getting some clothing gifts that we were able to bring. Based on their helping out the next day during Sunday services with the children, I anticipate a ‘deal was struct’. So helpful in running a mission when you have many volunteers to rely on.
2 October, Sunday – As promised, the construction crew showed up today (minor atonement for missing 6 days in the Sierras). We got tamales for breakfast from the bread man, a usual Sunday treat offering. But something didn’t sit well with me. I was not feeling whole last night going to bed and definitely, after my tamale, I was feeling worse. So I went back to bed and we skipped going to Ica for church (knowing we had services later this eveing here as well). Later on in the day, I got worse but slowly mended by end of day. Something I ate .. think it was a 24 hour bug …Turns out with all the hopeful thinking, we are not going to get the concrete poured before Wednesday most likely. Today, they started the rebar fabrication of beams, and by the end of the day they said they won’t finish that till after tomorrow at best if not on Tuesday. They they have to do all the plumbing and lighting runs before pouring so Wednesday at best.
By 6pm we had church services going and I came out of my sick bed for the start of it, but went back about half way through. We had a good showing, and all the seats were full until after worship when we had the teenagers take the little ones upstairs and leave the adults.
We treated the teenagers afterwards with volleyball game which I got back out of bed to set up. I saw them playing across the street without the net, and Luciana who was having me help her with her homework (although the internet was rather uncooperative) and I went over to watch for a bit. Bought the net when we first got down here, Theresa and I, and this is the 2nd or 3rd time we have set it up. Hope to use it more and more after just making a ball purchase this week as well.
3 October, Monday – Crew returned for another day of rebar & beam work. Lily and Abel were sitting going over the plans and asked for my opinion on expanding the upper floor for one meter (something that I was suggesting to Lily for 3-4 days since the direction of the beams allow this as an easy overlay, gaining 6 square meters upstairs that we can’t get once the construction is done.So glad that she agreed and was negotiating a price. I reminded Abel that this was ‘for Jesus’ and a church so, after he gave her a quote of S./350 or so, I said “300 for Jesus” and he came down to S/.330.
God will know that i saved his mission S/.20 today (over $6!!! )Anyway, we now need some more block and cement, not much but still another run to the store. He can do the framing and rebar work while he waits for us to get it. My stomach is a lot better, still not regular but much healthier. Think I will still let Lily make the merchandise run without me.Had a late night working with Luciana on her school paper on Paracas. Was also wanting to go to bed to finally kill this stomach bug. Good night. Did get Luciana’s homework done though.
4 October, Tuesday – Woke up refreshed, feeling much better. Lily informed me that we will be going back to Pisco tomorrow. OK. Work crew shows up during prayer, immediately goes to work.
Hopefully this will be the final day of rebar work. A lot to do to get all the rebar laid between the block, plus the 1 meter newly ordered overhand portion that will give us 6 additional meters of floor space on 2nd floor.
If lucky, we might even get the electrical and plumbing runs laid as well. So either tomorrow or Thursday, we will definitely be pouring the floor. Praise the Lord. News just in, Edwin informs me concrete pour will be tomorrow afternoon after they run the electical and plumbing tubes in the morning. Excellent.
We had a great showing for the crocheting for youth today. Personally I would thnk we could easily have a second day for the youth and they would make the most of it as there not a lot of recreational activities in this town and the enthusiasm for the hobby is pretty high. Luciana showed great interest and was quite active in leading and teaching some new young boys how to do their first loom. (I told her that three days of this and she would have to wear one of the official LAMA mission leader T-shirts that I would be forced to give her! She liked that!!
The youth were pretty active today, a total of 14 of them along with 3-4 adult helpers. We have a few completed projects which were very proudly displayed by their creators. Sad we had all ninas’s in this lesson today until later in the day when a pair of boys showed up. Some of our earlier boys are popping by and passing, waving thier hands like ‘not for me’, although we know they enjoyed it before. Peer pressure exists in all lands. Sad that such skills get so stereotyped so early. We will strive to get some our quite active boys re-engaged.
Lot of progress today on the construction, a lot of time is being expended in the final walls and corners around the staircase which is rather complex, being that it is a junction of 4 stairways. We have an existing stairway corner that goes up a floor, and then takes a right turn and up 3 steps, which we have to add a left turn to, also going up three steps and another full flight of stairs going all the way to the next entire floor (yet to be built). Lifes challenges.
Also we have the cisterna pump directly underneath the stairs that needed to be relocated to the other side of the column it was on. Finally all of this area is also above a new bathroom where a lot of plumbing will be. the final wall being formed is a small one directly under the current stairway, and will be used as support for the new stairway being added. It is solid rebar and concrete, with no brick so it will entail a complete new pour. Work always gets slower when you start to approach the details, and really slow when you get to finish work.Later in the night, well after crochet and the contractors left, we had a planned bible study for 7pm that we had a few adults show up but a lot of children, so we turned it into an exploration of their walk with Christ and discussion on the meaning of being saved. Although a lot of regulars were in attendance, Luciana continued to be the main bold one expressing how she has to endure others making fun of her walk. Julio carefully and skillfully walked the youth through Pauls instructions in Timothy and also a few other key chapters and verses and drove home the message. Well done.
After which we had a few stragglers hang around, and two little daughters of one of the adults were especially rambunctious during and after the study, where they found the ‘ball stash’ and started playing kick and retrieve with me , Hermano William. Loved these two. They did get all excited quite a bit and fell a few times, but seemed to recover well and loved to chase the ball and laugh when they were able to get all three to me at the same time. You should have seen them when they found the fourth ball!! Anyway, they all eventually went home. Later I installed some free Office software on Luciana’s computer since she needs it for school. There seem to be plenty of similar packages available as freeware, so we tried one .. hope it works well.
I had gotten an earlier Facebook friend request from a friend of a friend of Lily and I, the common Peruvian friend now living in northern Spain. It was a surprise request since we don’t know this gentleman at all and was odd to receive. I didn’t initially accept it but then got a spanish text message from him asking about my knowledge of doing electrical work. I worked with Google translate and responded that I am not an electrician but did get quite a bit of experience putting up the electrical work at the mission and gave him the website, and was curious as to his request.
It was far later this evening when I found out much more about him. It seems that his friendship with our common friend was when she lived in Peru. He and his wife have founded and run two different orphanages in the Arequipa area (large city in the mountains, 2nd only to Lima), with these orphanages specializing in children who have cancer. He needed expertise to redo much of the electric at these two places and was wanting to provide the wire and such and labor but needed expertise. I sent his rather long text to my wife Lily so that she could understand and communicate for me rather than me doing it through Google translate.
I forwarded this pastors text message to Lily, telling her I may be needed in Arequipa, half joking but very touched by the story of these orphanages and their needs, Not looking forward to a 10 hour bus ride (I think that’s what it is) up to Arequipa, but we do have time and there is not going to be a lot to do once the floor is setting to dry, so a week side trip up to an area I love that we have only visited once, and for such a great cause, why not. We will set up a WhatsAp call for tomorrow by cellular and learn more.
5 October, Wednesday – Another new day – hopefully today we pour the ceiling!! A lot of work though is yet to be done.
Lily and Abel spend a good amount of time lining up the interior walls, primarily the bathrooms, with the addition of the extra meter of space. We want to give most of that space to the kitchen on the eastern end of the new building so that means moving everything as much as possible to accomplish that. At this junction, it is mostlly important to get the plumbing lined up as that is within the concrete pour we are about to do. Outside of plumbing fixtures, we will still have some flexibillity on the interior walls when we do the second floor.
A Mini-wall for downstairs bathroom, entirely made of concrete, is a challenge to frame in such tight quarters. It is also a support wall for the new short staircase to be constructed. Threee workers are focused on this challenge today.
While all this is going on, we need to make a run to Ica to get supplies and to return some electrical tubing that is marked 3/4 but is not satisfactory to the contractor. Too thin, mismarked, whatever .. it”s not what he needed. And we have a short list as well. Not enough to rent a truck to come back, so we will get a taxi both ways. Waiting for the pickup. While waiting we placed a WhatsApp message to our Pastor friend in Arequipa. No response as of yet.
Had Abel working on running me a large video cable feeder pipe in the roof for the 1st floor, so that I would have position for video projector cables, and in two places, both for current projector and a closer position for a newer projector (prayerfully hopeful someday).Later in day Yareni ran a choir practice for many of the regular kids of the Mission. I love harmony and I do hope this turns out beautifully.
Tried to get a good shot of the mission later that evening when I saw a beautiful crescent moon over it. I should have got my tripod though to capture it right.
Julio asked me to do a lesson, so I prepared a talk on John for his bible study in Invacion tonight. I brought a bunch of pocket Gospels of John to give away and all were very receptive to have it. The Bible can be so intimating to those that are new to it. I did discover that we have a long road ahead here, when I discovered that knowing how many Gospels there are turned out to be a challenging question. God has us here for a reason.
6 October, Thursday – Again hoping for concrete pour today but still so much to do to prepare. I had a great idea on adding audio speaker wires in ceiling along with the video cables that I had Abel already started making place for. I expressed my idea to him and he got to work on it. The final result I am pretty glad about. We will be able to make this gathering room into a real theatre now, with 5.1 or even 7.1 dolby speaker system eventually, giving us ‘surround sound’ someday. Why not. Kids do love their “Cine night” on Fridays and it will be of good use for many other ministries as well. Now I am just going to have to get an Entertainment receiver and many wall speakers in the next 6 months!
Doesn’t look like we will be getting that concrete pour today, as they still need to do the framing all around the roof to contain it, but should finish that mostly today, along with the rebar, running all the electrical tubes for the ceiling lights and fans, my audio/video tube added load, and the ongoing stairway work. Tomorrow is the day though, thank goodness.We did get our second day of crochet at the mission this week, this day being for the adults. I believe I counted 14 as a number but still need to validate it with the log.
The talent and creative works were also shown. This is getting to be a rather creative group of ladies that have something new to show off every week. We are still looking for a certain ‘rythme’ of the group, not just tied to ‘free yarn’, but so far we are still looking. In the meantime, we will strive on forth.
Although the rhythm is still being located, the talent here is very good. I am surprised evey week at the creations that those that are crocheting through the week bring back to share with others.
At the same time as crochet on the first floor, and construction on the new building in the back, we had choreography training getting underway on the 3rd floor. Well it was a small group of 4 girls (1 actually watching the other 3) lead by Blancha from El Shaddai. Later on the group had far more showing up but this initial ‘ontime’ small group gets my vote!!
While Choreography was going on the 3rd floor with two ladies from El Shaddai, and crocheting was going on the 1st floor with Yareni and Deysi, Lily and I were on the 2nd floor assembling another bunkbed, and moving some beds around trying to optimize the housing options at the Mission. I had earlier also replaced the shower head on the 3rd floor that the Sanchezs use since it was no longer heating the water and we could not find a replacement coil part for that brand as it apparently has been discontinued. Yareni was happy when she got home from shopping today with Julio that their shower would be fixed, no more trips to the 2nd floor for a hot shower. Although she confessed she likes it mostly cold but Julio likes it hotter. Anyway, can’t interrupt my marketing for attracking missionaries, ‘hot shower and hot coffee for all!’
7 October, Friday – Big day today, we have it on good authority that TODAY we do the concrete pour. And early in the morning I am walking around on the job site waiting for the crew to show up so I can make two more audio tube requests and ask a question about the kitchen drain, where is it? Glad I got both in, before we started the big pour.
We did have a major gathering of workers that come with their personal bucket on days like this, when they whole village knows that there is a chance to make a few bucks in a concrete ‘bucket brigade’. Not sure what the pay is for doing so, but when you don’t have a pump, it takes a lot of buckets to get the right amount of concrete to the place of need.
So, with the crew doing some last minute adjustments to the job (two changes from me) I return inside and my dear wife fixed me some great french toast. However the Sanchez’s who loved it, never having it before, turned it into Mexican-French-Toast! That’s when your Americanized Peruvian spouse introduces your Mexican missionaries to French Toast and they really take to it, but before you can tell them about putting syrup on them they already have them covered in ‘Ají’ ! Anyway, we all loved our breakfast!!
After breakfast, went out and verified all was ready, crew was ready, new delivery of sand (S./540, about $150 worth) arrived. Time for the show to begin. Although the work began sometime after 10am, the focus was to fill the large trough all around the building first, as well as the two beams that are being made across the mid-section. Once these are filled, then the eleven smaller channels between the block would be filled, lastly, a top layer of a few centimeters to cover all the electrical tubes. During all this work, Abel (our contractor) was doing the directing and smoothing as everyone else was part of the bucket brigade. While the buckets were coming up, there were some last minute rebar ties being put in place by both Charlie and even Julio.
The work progressed rather rapidly but was also wearing on Abel who was constantly working with every bucket that came up once the major holes were filled. The bucket brigade got to sit down between mixes but no reall rest for Abel. We had about 14 workers total and we arranged to feed them after the effort.After all was done, we had all the workers join us on the front porch for a meal. Lily had Kelly’s mom cook for the whole crew. A great rice, chicken, salad and punch meal. Julio took time to sit with the men as well to get to know them. Big Day!
After the construction crew quit for the day, we had a choir practice session meet.Before choir practice, I got one more photo of the finished work of the day in the back. Now it will sit for 20 days on ‘trees’ before we can really work downstairs.We closed out the day with movie night, watching “Big Hero 6”. It actually made little Jose cry when the robot made the big sacrifice. We all teased him about that, but it was sweet. Time to call it a night. Big day.
8 October, Saturday – Last night we were actually surprised that the crew said they would be back today, with such a big day yesterday, but work goes on. Today, they need to fabricate framing for and pour the header on part of the property wall. While half the team does that, Abel and maybe one other will go over to Maria’s (Luciana’s mom’s) house and work on the sewer, plumbing, electrical, etc.
We only got the sewer hookup made last trip we were down here (2016/Feb/Mar) but today, after constructing the bathroom and kitchen for Maria’s home (Luciana & Joses’ mom), he hooked up the new bathroom to the new sewer. I assume that the kitchen drain hookup will be on the other side of the bathroom drain as well. Tomorrow, with plumbing done, and electrical tubing put in, the concrete floor will be poured. Halleluah!!
While Abel was busy on his lonesome preparing Maria’s home for tomorrow’s flooring, his three workers were still at the mission working on framing for a header on the property line wall that was built. Tubing for camera and electrical were run within the framing and then concrete was poured by end of day.
Inside, by late afternoon, OANSA team showed up and our weekly meeting got underway. Great team, good showing, but a different sequence for some reason today. Usually they have a 40/40/40 minute format (exercise/study/worship). Today, they didn’t break into separate study groups and stayed together for the whole 2 hours.
9 October, Sunday – Debate on going to ica for church this morning. I won. We need to get a few items at Maestro near by as well. We have Abel coming by before working Maria’s kitchen/bath. He wants to meet before we go to church so looks like we may be catching the end of one service and the beginning of the next.After Abel came by with his crew, they gave us a ride to town so we needed just a short taxi ride to El Shaddai church in Ica. They even let the gringo drive!
Got to church pretty much at the start of the 2nd service. Pastor Martin is traveling but his family was there and they had Victor Castagnola do the service. Excellent job Victor. During service we spotted Raymundo Palomino and went to see him, after which we got an update on his move from the Mission to Ica.
Leaving church, we went over to Maestro (Home Depot like place) and picked up a few needed items. Being quite hungry going without breakfast so far, Lily had arranged to meet a friend of ours (Nancy) downtown before we left for the mission, as she was selling some food as a fund raiser. So we had a couple of good chicken and potato lunches at the Plaza de Armas, a central area within Ica and nearby the collectivo that we needed to catch.
Church services were held at 6pm to a quite empty town but still a good showing. Apparently there was some sort of ‘happening’ up in El Olivos that we were unaware up as there were a good number of people taking Collectivo rides north, which is unusual. We found out the next morning, since the school was upset that no one showed for their parents conference night, that there was a Festival celebrating the ‘Virgin of El Olivos’. There are more excuses for festivals, and idolotry here than one can ever imagine. Sad that this is so prevalent.
Even so, we had a good showing and a few of our teenagers took the children upstairs after opening prayers as well. It will be a blessing when the new building is open and functional for this purpose as well. Less noise, safer being on the same floor and larger room.
10 October, Monday – Abel and crew came by and were headed to Maria’s house to do the electrical, plumbing and concrete floor. Before going, Lily had them muck around with our “Fiat fiasco” some more. Hopefully today, they complete Maria’s house to the point of making the kitchen and bathroom useable. We still need to get the place secured with windows and doors. However, apparently advanced planning did not include getting enough water for the concrete pour so that will actually have to wait till tomorrow, being satisfied that all is prepped now.
We did get a couple bids on the windows and doors, and a final one today that beats the others. Weighing all the people that do welding around here, we need to put weight on reliability and price. Looks like we have a good price and scheduled for Friday.Was doing some lock and chain adjustments on the back gate and took a picture of the garden area that Palilly built for us. Hope we can put it to use as we go into planting season. That will be up to our resident Missionaries .. how green of a thumb that they might have? Hmmm …
Speaking of Palilly, guess who stopped by? Palilly has been working with us since long before we demolished the old earthquake building on this site, and has done a lot of labor for us, especilly with adobe, demo work and earth moving. Not sure of the reason for the visit other than just to update us on the garden area and what we need to do next, and to discuss what to plant, etc. He also made the odd statement that he has a strong premonition that he only has seven (7) years left to live. I immediately said time to get to know Jesus really really well!! Found out that he and I are the same age even. Lily quoted Romans 10:9 to him and I grabbed a booklet on Romans and we discovered he can’t read without glasses that he doesn’t have. So we next found him a pair. Prayers for Palilly. He left with a new pair of glasses and Pauls letter to Rome. Will keep checking on him. We have a lot of stories from him and he is quite a loveable guy. He just has never really been a believer as far as we can tell. Thank you Lord for touching him .. We pray we can reach him and bring him to you.
11 October, Tuesday – A new day, with morning prayers interrupted by the construction crew .. but of course! Crew is headed over to Luciana’s home to pour the floor now that the water is available. Will have to check on them later. Just got a request to ‘make a video’ for Sunday, which will be our 3 year anniversary of having services here at the mission, basically 3 years of being open. Have to get down and start to work on it …
Early afternoon, decided to go check out Luciana’s construction work. I like the fact that Maria choose to have the concrete colored. Looks good, especially if the walls stay all brick. Would be nice to tarejeo the walls and ceiling but that’s more money and doesn’t add anything functional. Maria’s a little short on funds so this is holding up the finishing of the bathroom (tile, fixture installations, etc. ) We do have the windows and doors scheduled for installation on Friday though.
Crocheting started for youth about 4pm. We had about 16 kids and 4 adult helpers, good group. I sincerely wish we could have this two days per week for the youth since we don’t allow the kids to take their work home, and the two hour session once per week is the only time they have to work on it. Will discuss with Yareni but it is their decision.
After crochet, we had a short break of an hour and then we had bible study at the mission. I didn’t know that I was ‘on’ for tonight, but Julio wanted me to do the same lesson he had me do last week at Invacion, on Gospel of John introduction. Later he asked me to do a continuation at Invacion tomorrow night. So, now I have a lesson plan to work up for tomorrow and a video before Sunday … I am falling behind already!!Anyway, love the interaction with the folks reading scripture and my wife translating for me.
Last time we were here, we had this particular bible study over at Juvilee’s home. Juvilee is one of our mission kids that have out grown OANSA and became a volunteer when she’s not busy with school work and watching her little two sisters. Her mom and her have been with the mission since it’s founding, her littlest sister having a baby shower for her at the mission.Last trip, it was pointed out that one of her little sisters poured perfume or something all over her computer keyboard and although the computer survived, it was basically not very functional.
She got a quote to get it repaired in Ica but they said that they had to order the parts and that was the bulk of the expense. I took some notes and told her we would bring her a replacement keyboard next trip, knowing that we can get those things pretty cheap on ebay. I did find one for $20 and we put it with the luggage to go down early but it ended up making it only as far as Lima until we got down to bring it the rest of the way. In trying to install it, I got the impression it was the wrong one and was in dialogue with the e-Bay source who educated me about a part on the old one i needed to use so I tried again. Ta da!! Yubilee has a working keyboard again at no cost to her. Love to see a happy face. She was working with Yareni on learning more about Microsoft Office and other ways to use the computer for research on the internet. We do seem to be a good place for kids to get school projects done here .. and occasional computer repairs!!
12 October, Wednesday – A new day and perhaps we need to move our 8am prayer up since we keep getting interrupted with the construction crew!Anyway, better than them coming later. They are off to do some electrical work at Maria’s … well at least Charlie is. The others are disassembling some of the framing out back around the remaining border wall section that still needs to be built. We have a lot of debris and dirt to move out of the work area before we close the wall, and also to move out of the vacant lot next door before we leave for USA in a few weeks. Lot of building materials in the vacant lot to also salvage.
One of the objectives is driven by an abandoned well shaft in the field. It was dangerous enough, but now that we have raised the ground level around it to the lip, it makes it even easier for an accident especially at night. So, we are committed to getting all the ‘fill’ that is now around the well, removed so it is again a few feet higher than the ground.I guess we are officially in ‘wind-down mode’, but was hoping to have made further progress on the building but funds and time ran out again. Hope to also make some progress on some welding corrections on the 3rd floor of the current building so we can install a soft roof up there. We will finish the security and utility hook ups for Maria’s house though, that is a great accomplishment.
I did some helping with the construction crew as they were slowly moving buckets of sand from the vacant lot to the roof of the new building so we can use it in the future for the 2nd floor brick work. Abel is campaigning to get some of that brickwork underway, since there is not a lot of work down here, but Lily is resisting as we wind down from this trip and have spent a lot of funds already. Maybe we will maybe we won’t. Here’s a picture showing the work site, and two of our workers screwing around with the open well … long fall if you slip, so we do need to get it less dangerous.
With the material that is mostly within the mission property now (except for some additional sand and gravel that will be continually taken to the 2nd floor, we can now close the final brick property wall segment. Tomorrow they will form and pour concrete columns and cap on the wall where not already done. Hopefully tomorrow we will also get the rest of the materials brought over and if time and funds allow, we can do some more work on another floor? Not sure.
Choir practice got underway later in the afternoon under Yareni’s leadership. Much later, we left for Invacion bible study. Julio had me commit to continue teaching in Juan. By the time we got there, Lily was way behind to the point that I was wondering if I would have a translator. Just going from the Mission to Invacion has us going by a lot of people we know and everyone wants to talk in the evening, catching Lily a lot. And we also went by Maria’s house where we have been engaged in a lot of construction, so that was a stop. Anyway, the teaching went well.
After which we were walking back to the north end of Invacion with a kind woman who attends that bible study. We stopped into her home, and apparently this was the home of Estrella, a regular OANSA attendee at the mission who is active in the knitting as well. This kind woman was showing us a particular area within her home that needs some new plastic. Her house is made of plastic, with some old damaged adobe walls, and some mud and straw walls, and she is asking about some new plastic. All I could think of was how much would it be to brick this place, but she is only asking for fresh plastic. God bless her. There is so much need here, it is surprising how people live in these little houses made out of whatever they can come by. After leaving Estrellas, we stopped again at Marias and I got Jose to turn the new lights that Charlie installed today in the new kitchen. Hopefull Friday they will have windows and doors.
13 October, Thurday – Morning prayers and a new interuption is our welder who is working to complete the 3rd floor roofing structure so we can put a soft roof up there.
Our primary construction though is coming to an end. Heres a picture of the 2nd floor walkway on the existing building looking out to the future 2nd floor of the new building. Note the stairway between the two buildings goes in four directions when complete. Of course one of those directions is the yet unplanned 3rd floor of the new building, but we will have at least a stairway to it!
Julio does some cleaning of the cross outside in anticipation of adding some LED lighting to light it up at night. We will hopefully get those lights up before this weekends 3rd anniversary celebration.On the third floor, a lot of cutting and welding to correct many unfinished elements of the framing that was put up over a year ago. Once that is done, we can put some sort of shading roof up. We originally planned for polycarbonite, but that is very expensive. We can still do that some time in the future, but a lot faster and more economical cover (with the hot summer coming) will be just using fabric. We can get a good 5+ years out of it. Once the roofing is up, hopefully the OANSA youth can use this area a lot more as the weather warms up. When we next return, I will plan to do some lighting up there for more utilization in the after hours.
One last coreography lesson for our mission kids, before they are to perform in Ica this Sunday at El Shaddai. We have arranged (and paid) for the bus to take them to Ica. Looking forward to it.Later in day we had our 2nd knitting group for the week, this one aimed at the adults with many youth that are more advanced that the youth that come on Tuesdays. A good group with much new work displayed as well. Later in evening, the Sanchez’s and us went to Ica. They had weekly discipleship training at El Shaddai, and we needed to get paint supplies and a few other items, one being some adhesive for the LED light tape we were to install tomorrow. While shopping we apparently had a nationwide earthquake drill that all businesses were being compliant with. One has to wonder, as quick as earthquakes work, how having a drill to stand in specifically marked circles in the parking lot is supposed to help. Oh well, I don’t have any improvement suggestions so good to see a country that gets as many earthquakes as Peru does having a national coordination in preparedness. After we were allowed to go back inside, we finished our shopping and returned to meet again Julio and Yareni for the ride back to the mission. Normal end of night at the mission, with some late night youngsters coming by before we hustled them out to call it a night.
14 October, Friday – New day. We have the welder finishing up the framing on the 3rd floor. Apparently he hired Charlie to help him with the painting of the frame today, before he hangs the fabric hopefully as early as tomorrow.I also worked with Julio to put up the LED lights on the cross in the front of the mission. We bought some adhesive yesterday to use, since we didn’t trust the sticky backing on the light strip to last long or to adhere very well to the cement cross
Later we had a small group choir practice, headed by Yareni. I assume that they will be performing this weekend as well. Looking forward to this 3rd anniversary celebration.
Before it got too dark, we added the lighting to the cross outside. Love the look and options we have for colors. We made one mistake in mixing two different sets of lights that we will have to correct tomorrow, but other than that learning curve, love the result.
After dark, we tried to play a Netflix movie which was streaming really well but by the time everyone was sitting the internet got really slow. So, back to DVD to play a regular favorite, requested as usual, Narnia. We actually had an adult come in and enjoy the movie, that I didn’t see until I took this picture … Guess our Friday ‘Cine night’ is getting to be more reliable! That’s good …
15 October, Saturday – Busy day, starting off with some bible verse memorization, choir practice and some piano training. Love these kids who really love coming to the mission, and we are so glad that we can expand on the prior ‘one day a week’ that they could for OANSA.
Later in the day we had mostly three things to accomplish. Correcting the cross lights, capping the well next door so no accidents occur and getting the third floor framing ready for cloth cover. As to the well cap, that was handled very early in the morning. When Lily went to town, I couldn’t resist the ‘call of wet cement’ and in actuallity, hopefully we did save a kids life by capping that deep hole!Lily went with the worker to pay for the fabric and to get it stitched to size for later pickup. While gone, I caught a pic of Yareni trying to get her daughter into basketball, one of the balls Lily and I bought a few weeks ago for the mission. The city just recently added hoop’s to the courtyard, to support some traveling basketball camp that went through. Maybe we can get some more interest going at the mission for this sport.
As to the fabric, Lily called me from the store. Although we wanted something other than the standard green you see everywhere, there was blue and black. However, the one that stopped the most light was green so we bowed to the majority. It is supposed to be picked up at 1pm for installation but I anticipate this being a tomorrow thing.
Before it got dark, I restrung the correct LED light pair on the cross but in a rush to go do a bible study and to beat the dark, I didn’t glue it (will pay for that later) just using the self stick on the back. Got some good pictures of it. After doing so, we all walked north, with a couple of nino’s following us (Luis Angel & Jean) to do a bible study at Nellies home in Altura. Altura is a kilometers north of us so we walked there. Her daughter lives next door and we met at her home with the two of them as well as a friend, Anna. Julio had me do the Juan intro one more time.On the way back, I think Julio and Yareni got into further discussion as we beat them by more than a good 30 minutes or more. The lights looked good, got a few pictures. By the time that Julio and Yareni came in, the lights were sagging on the side that I didn’t glue them so will need to repair tomorrow. Oh well, don’t rush things is the lesson here, but I did prove to them that the other strip was good which is why we didn’t use it in the first place. Another day ..
