Cloud Covering Ps.121:6

It's hard to believe that another month has gone by. I have just spent the last 12 days in San Pedro Sula which is in the northern part of Honduras and very, very hot. I had the chance to help a team from MA build a couple more rooms onto the school in El Progreso.

I have heard of bucket brigades, but have never actually seen one in progress. These buckets contained cement. They were hoisted to the second floor by a rope with 2 hooks made of re-bar. They were quite heavy, and not even full, but it took 2 men to pull the rope and get them to the top. Then they were passed from person to person and poured into the proper place. What a job. Only half of the floor could be done in one day. The other half was done the exact same way the next day. One room had to filled with dirt in order to get it ready for a floor after the sides were built with cement blocks. It was good to have a backhoe come in and do the filling. It would have taken several days to shovel it all. And speaking of shoveling, I found my niche. I shoveled the rock and sand needed to make the cement, or is it called concrete? Sorry, I haven't taken time to find out the difference. I think you use cement and when it gets hard, it's called concrete, right? I'm expecting one of you fellows to straighten me out on this. Anyway, I had to throw a shovel full of dirt and rocks against a framed screen to separate the sand from the the other stuff. What a job, but I loved it. I used muscles that I didn't remember I had.

It was soooo hot, but we were all praying(thank you, Betty) for cloud cover and a slight breeze. God answered our prayer every day, and boy did we praise Him for it. Everybody's clothes were wet with sweat. What a workout. And the amazing thing was that we didn't HURT. We were sore, but not hurting. Amazing God that we serve. People were getting red but not burning. What an experience.

I was asked by the Nationals to translate their Spanish to English and the English asked me to translate to Spanish. Oh, boy! But I got the messages across and everybody was happy. I told Raul, the jefe, (boss)Yo estoy sudano como un caballo-I am sweating like a horse. He had never heard that and thought it was hilarious. Guess what he was saying in English the next day? You got it. Jose told me I had good Spanish. It was so funny because everybody knew my job was the shoveling. No one said it, but we all kind of knew what each person's job was. Jose wasn't there the first day, so when he came, he started shoveling. I finally just stood back and watched because I wasn't for sure what to do. I thought maybe I had taken his job. Well, when Raul and one of the other guys saw what was happening, they immediately told him that I was doing it. So bless his heart, he quit and let me continue. But he did step in and help me when they started going faster and he threw the rocks into the other pile for me. I really appreciated that. Plus it gave us time to get acquainted and for him to learn some English and me to practice my Spanish. And I have to give credit to 2 of the women on the team. They came over the couple of days and shoveled too.

When we drove in the first day, all the kids had lined the drive way to welcome us. What a sight. They sang worship songs in Spanish and had learned some in English, which they also sang on the last day when they did a human video. What a powerful lesson they gave.

We were able to play soccer and volley ball with them. No, I didn't play soccer, but I did volley ball. The guys thought the kids had decided that if the Americanos were losing, they would let them win, so the goalie just let that little ball go right on through at the end of the game. It was funny and everybody had a good time.

I was able to check out some English workbooks at one of the school book stores in San Pedro. I bought enough for my 7th graders, thank you Covenant Assembly, and will check out the book stores in Tegucigalpa for the other students. Will start in them tomorrow and see what happens. They are not used to having books of their own to study, so I'm curious to see what transpires.

I guess I should tell you that I didn't go to Costa Rica. I just renewed for one month and will go this month. I hope this finds you all well and blessed. Again thank you for all your prayers and giving. God always blesses with much more.