When Ants Attack

Well today was definitely a welcome to Honduras day. We had 3 groups yesterday, 2 house builds and a large group that went out to the Didasko orphanage. As much as I wish I could have went out to the orphanage I was on a house build.

If you read my blog last year then you will remember that we went out to the indian village that we did concrete work in last year to build the school. It was amazing to pull up and see the finished product of the concrete work. The school now has desks and other items in the classrooms, electricity, and it is painted blue.

The school that was built last year.

I finally was able to be on Tricky's house build today, everyone was more interested in signing up for Didasko. We loaded the buses at 8:30 and set out toward the village....it was about a 45 minute drive.....however we sat in traffic for over an hour. We got to our build site around 11 or 11:30.

The house site.

Tricky setting the pole.

Manuel, the father of the family we were building the house for had already dug a few posts....however they were not all exactly 16x16 so we had to fix it a little bit. Manuel worked with us all day and he was very excited and anxious to get the house done for his son's family.

As were were getting the floor supports set and the siding boards in place we ran into a very annoying problem. FIRE ANTS! This house was set on top of a very large ant hill....at one point Hope was trying to move some boards and she stepped right in what must have been the entrance to their home because it erupted with fire ants. Her shoe was covered in ants in a matter of seconds, you couldn't even see her shoe. We covered the ant hill with gasoline to try and get the ants to die down a little bit.

Die Fire Ants!!!

This is Hope, she is the one who was covered after finding the ant hill.

All day long while we put up the house people were hitting their ankles, legs, arms, back, and even stomach to try and get the ants off of them. It was amazing how little complaining there was in our group even though we were being eaten alive by all of these fire ants, haha. We really have an amazing group of people this year, very positive and encouraging.

Working on floor supports. 

Finishing the high wall.

Frank getting the last nail in our high wall. 

I climbed up the side to get my nails in. 

Another problem we ran into is somehow our one post ended up being set and the house was 16x17. Many of our boards were too short for us to put up on the wall. There were some that we couldn't do flush but we were able to do it on half of the 4x4 and get the wall done.

TRICKY TOOK A LUNCH BREAK! Robin you would have been proud of him. He took a lunch break and drank 2 bags of water. I wouldn't have believed it but I saw it with my own eyes! :) 

When we finished the house we went in for the dedication. I don't know if I have ever seen a family as happy as this family was to be inside of their house. Denis, the father had a grin on his face as big as the grand canyon. He and his father were talking over by the window about how beautiful the window of the house was and how amazing God was to give them this house.

Miss Mariana....this little girl is with Onaida, Yoni, and Melvin who work with us every year. She is getting so big!

We did our prayer dedication and then Denis told our group how awesome God was. He said how blessed he and his family were that we were able to come and build the house for them. After that we said our prayer, and it was the most beautiful prayer that I have ever heard. In Honduras many times when prayers are said the people in Honduras join and it is like a chorus of prayers. I believe every Honduran in our house was praying, they were all praising God and thanking him for the day and the blessings that He showered the family with in that moment. We also gave the family a Bible and that again brought the biggest smile to their faces and they were so excited to be able to read and study with their children. Denis and his wife kept looking at it and flipping through the pages.

Tricky putting int he window hinges

Will cutting out the floor.

Ethan working the roof

The family we built for. 

Finished product. 

We left the work site around 4pm, which is a really good time considering we didn't get to start the house until after 11:30. We were set to get back to the mission house around 5pm....well that did not work out. We got stuck in the construction traffic again on the way back. We sat and sat and sat and finally arrived back at the mission house at 7pm (Dinner is at 6pm). When we got back those who went to Didasko were nice enough to unload all of our tools so that we could go ahead and eat dinner.

Our group finished about 15 minutes before the other group so we had a little time to play with the kids by the school. 

We got ice cream while we were waiting in traffic. It was really tasty. Mine was strawberry :)

Jonathan and I played with some wiki sticks while on the bus. This is my portrait of him. 

Our devo tonight was in small groups. I was with the Kittanning/Independent group. In our small groups we are asked questions and given time to just soak in everything that we are seeing and feeling while on this trip. This year my group got emotional at a few different times. Many of you may know Miss Sarah from my blog posts in the past.....this is more then likely her last year coming....she is having a lot of health problems and will be unable to come. After knowing her for so many years it is hard to think of a trip without her here. It is hard to think of her being in pain. If everyone who reads this would say a prayer for her.

Sunday is a rest day in Honduras so we will be going to Mi Esperanza and the Valley of Angels to do some shopping.