"Happy Independients Day"

What an amazing day! You may be excited to see some pictures today because I did not build a house! Instead today I went out the the Didasko orphanage to help paint and fix the playground "Terry World". We go out every year to fix up this playground, see the kids, and help them in whatever way that we can. 

When you're too tired to stand in line but you want to be first to sign up for the day. 

We got off to a bit of a late start because we had to wait at the mission house for the wood to arrive. Once it got there we loaded it and hit the road. On the way we ran into one of the worst car accidents I have ever seen in Honduras. I believe what happened is a mac truck crossed traffic, hit a car, and then also hit a concrete light post.

Loading wood.

The accident we passed.

When we arrived at Didasko, we had our hands full. There were 12 tasks on our list to accomplish....we did not finish them. We worked hard all day and we did get a large amount done. I will just let the pictures talk today.

So if you cant tell. I am standing on the ledge of this...as they are cutting the support post off on the other side. It felt very safe.

Mary working hard.

Taking down the walking bridge to fix it.

Some of the work we accomplished.

The kids loved having the swings fixed!

Myself and Norma, I haven't been out to Didasko in 2 years so it was a treat seeing this girl.

Sadly Rosa was busy all day and I didn't get to see her. 

Painting

In the evening we celebrated the 4th of July by singing the star spangled banner, eating cake, and we were going to do fire works but the rain changed those plans. Hopefully we can set them off tomorrow. 

Cake and ice cream!

Love these people.

Honduran spelling of independence. 

It's Only The Drive Shaft.

Another day has come and gone here in Honduras. We started off the morning with devo on the deck, which was nice since we hadn't been out there yet this trip. Chad spoke about remembering that following Gods word may not always make sense or be the most fun but that in the end He is looking out for what is best for us. 

Chad speaking to us.

We broke off into 4 groups today: 2 house builds, medical team, and Santa Anna work crew ( moving cinder block, handing out bags of food, etc) Today I was on Scott's build in Santa Anna. This house was built in dedication to the Flannerys father who died a few years back.

It was another rocky location. We literally built this house on a boulder. Luckily, the boulder broke apart pretty easily considering it was a boulder. By around 12:30 our 4 posts were set and the concrete was poured. 

 The wise man build his house on the rock.

I was lucky enough to be on the build with both of my girls, Cassidy and Hannah. There was not much around our build site today. Nothing much to get us any extra height or shade. We had a lot of people standing on buckets, climbing the sides of the walls, and using the one step ladder that was available. 

Scott and others getting concrete into the post hole.

Hannah nailing in a wall.

Working on the floor and the roof.

The floor had to be slid in underneath a barbed wire fence. Once the floor was put in we were able to get the last wall up pretty quickly but then we still had to put the window in. Normally we try to have the door and window on a wall that isn't last but sometimes that simply isn't possible. 

My girls <3

We always have someone go back after the floor is done to be sure all the nails are well pounded into the floor boards. 

Some of the kids carved this into a rock near the house. 

I was a little glad that I had some down time while they put in the last window because I got to do a few yoga pictures.  

The house was finished around 4:00. We had a pretty long dedication for the house to tell them about Neal's father. The family was very appreciative and told us how they had be praying for a house for a long time but they never gave up hope because they knew God would provide for them. 

After the build we picked up the Santa Anna crew and arrived back just as dinner was being served. The other house crew however ran a little later. They got odd to a late start because their build was farther away and then on the way back the drive shaft in the bus fell off....so they had to push the bus to the side of the road and wait for Marloan to get another bus down the mountain to pick them back up. 

Kittanning group

This view will never get old to me.

Once they got back and ate we went out to the Jesus statue for Devo. Going there never ceases to make me smile and think about the wonders of Gods power. I love seeing the lights continue to grow in the area that was taken out by Hurricane Mitch in 1998. 

Tomorrow will be another day of adventures. We have a house build, work at Didasko to fix the playground, medical, and a group going out to do daughters of the king (a time that we take to pamper the girls in Honduras, which many times does not happen here). 

PB Egg Sandwiches, Rocks, Concrete, and Chainsaws

Well to say that today was an eventful day would be a bit of an understatement. Be prepared for quite the story of today's build sight and other events of the day.

We started out the morning pretty normal. Tricky ate his peanut butter, jelly, and egg sandwich. We had a very short devo. The group was able to raise another $250 to give to the Santa Anna youth group so that they could have a youth get together, something that doesn't ever really happen. *Big shout out to Chad for making that happen* And after devo we loaded the buses, 2 groups went to build, a group went to Santa Anna to paint, and a group went to begin our medical clinic.

Cassidy has an infected bug bite. But she keeps going! 

*Leanne and Matt don't worry she is okay

I'm not sure how this is a good sandwich but he eats them.

I was on a house build, I know shocking.

The build was located out in Santa Anna...which we knew would mean rocks. However, we did not realize just what that really meant for us. Our sight was literally a large pile of rocks....on top of a bolder.

 The build site. Like I said 1 or 2 rocks.

Christian working on cutting out a bolder so we could put a post here.

The view from the build site. 

It took us till after 12:00 just to get all of the posts in so that we could begin to put up the walls. Part of the reason it took so long was that the house was not the normal measurement, we had to make a 14x16 instead of a 16x16 because the space was smaller. It also was difficult because when you are chipping away at a bolder moving a hole an inch or two requires ALOT more work then normal. A third thing that caused it to take longer was the fact that we also had to pour concrete into the post holes to be sure that we had a strong foundation. Luckily, we had an amazing team, who waited patiently.

Patty did manage to find one hole with dirt!

Once we had all the boards in everyone worked extremely hard and the house began to go up in no time. I was able to work on putting up the high wall and climbing the side. I always love putting that in because it scares my mom. Don't worry mom, I am okay. Tricky also had me cut out the door and Chris had me cut out a window. I am getting better and better at using the chainsaw, but I still prefer to have their assistance.

When your little sometimes you get stuck being a monkey. 

Nailing in the floor.

Putting up the last wall!

Patty is the woman who raised the money for this house. It went to a gentlemen from the church at Santa Anna. We actually worshiped with this guy on Sunday! He told us that he was so blessed for what we were able to give to him.

Dedication for the house.

The house was build for the man in the blue. 

The rest of the people are some of his family, including his niece Zoe, who I am holding.

She was so beautiful. She was 9 months old. 

Fisher LOVES babies. 

We finished up the house build around 3:30...which was really good considering walls didn't start going up till after 12:00! Then we made our way to the Santa Anna church to pick up the team who was painting. It was then that we found out about an accident that had happened at the other build site.

One of our members had an accident with a chainsaw early this morning. *HE IS OKAY* His leg was cut and they had to take him to the hospital for surgery. The surgery was to clean out the cut, cut away some bad flesh, and stitch it back up. Again, he is okay. We were blessed that it was not worse and also that TORCH has so many amazing connections here in Honduras. The doctor that did the surgery is a friend of TORCH and actually did it at no charge for his services. Please do remember to pray for him though, I am sure he will be needing it.

We love dong hair at the Mission House.

My Nello hand...sadly Scott and I got caught. We went double nello and caught 1 trick.

Miss Jody had to do I'm a little tea pot to get her phone back. 

Tomorrow is sure to be another day filled with activities. Hopefully this the our last trip to the hospital with this team. Accidents happen, but I am hopeful that we will have no more.

My right hand man. This guy never ceases to amaze me.

Ethel someone else posted this on facebook. I wanted to include it because it your hubby was in the background. :) the was the other house build today.