Week 4 Project Finished!!!

Greetings from the USA! Heidi and I just arrived last night to Minneapolis and will be heading on furlough this afternoon. Saturday morning I was in Lima, Peru preparing to go back to Panama after finishing the project in Lucumo! WE FINISHED! The Bocatoma wall took the full 4 weeks to complete, but we are so thankful to the Lord that HE did it!
I want to give a special thanks to the group that came in the 4th week, they were dedicated to getting the wall finished before they left.
Over the weekend the water canal should have been opened up again by the people of Lucumo and water should now be running to their faucets and irrigation systems!
I am also very encouraged about the relationship that was built over the last four weeks and the change that occurred in the people of Lucumo! The last night I was there I had a conversation about the future relationship we will have with Lucumo, and the leaders were very excited and asking for someone to come and teach them the Bible. These people are thirsting for the Word of God. They've seen the love of God through the actions of the 4 groups that came down to work with them on this project, but now they want to know why. They want to understand the Hope that we have in Christ. I can assure you that we are in a deep search for the right person to come and teach the word to these people. I am SO encouraged by the people of Lucumo, they surprised me with their requests for teachers and preachers, God is Amazing. Here is a video of that shows the work from beginning to end!

Week 3--Much Advancement--Week 4 Working Hard

Greetings! I know this is a little late but this post is to talk about what we accomplished during the 3rd week of the bocatoma project in Lucumo, Peru. The group that came down for this week consisted of members from two churches: Prince of Peace in Palatine, IL and Concordia in Conover, NC. In total there were 17 members that traveled down to Lima on June 8th...they were and are the largest group I received for this project. With coordinators, drivers, foremans and the men from Lucumo, we had between 23-33 people working on the project at any given time. We put in some late nights pouring concrete mix. This group was quite different from the other groups, not just because of their size, but because there were so many youth that came down to work. I could tell that it was a great experience for them to get out of their box and see some of the REAL world.

What you see in the picture above is me and Kaleb Unverfehrt mixing cement with aggregate and rocks, by hand...I'm still breathing and finding concrete mix all over me :). This mix was to pour the first portion of the almost 3 foot wide wall that we are constructing to divert the water into the irrigation canal.

We advanced the project quite well during the third week mostly because of the number of people we had on site. We proved that if we had a body we could put it to work!

This group's devotional time was based around Ecclesiastes and I have to admit I have not spent a whole lot of time studying Ecclesiastes; but I have to agree that there is nothing better than going to bed after a long days work and not having the energy to worry or think about anything. We enjoyed the toils of our labor so much that we went to bed most nights by 9 pm. And the sleep was very necessary since we were putting in long hours in very physical labor.

It was also great to have Heidi with me for the week! It was nice to know she was close by and I could steal a kiss or a hug in between wheelbarrels! It was comforting to know she was safe with me! :)
I am currently back in Panama for a few days, but I will be heading to Peru again on Thursday morning to wrap up this weeks group. Please pray that everything goes smoothly and safely! Ask God to give the group strength to finish the project this week!

Here are a few more pictures:

Ladies working hard!

I told you we put those wheelbarrels to good use, right Landon?!

My hands are still dirty...

And in case you don't believe how hard core this group was, here is a picture of them picking out their live Guinea Pigs to eat the next night for dinner:

Week 2 Done

Hello everyone! This blog is going to be a little shorter since I haven't had much time today to sit down at the computer...even though it's the only time of the week that I have internet availability. We have finished the second week of the "bocatoma" project and all seems to be going well. We are a little behind due to some materials not showing up on time, but we are making up ground. According to the foreman of the project he thinks we will finish with some time to spare...let's pray for that!

I had quite the week...last Saturday morning around 3 Am I woke up with a fever and pain all over. It quickly got worse and I had chills and sweats...I had gotten some sort of bacteria from something I ate at a very popular restuarant...called Tony Roma's. Don't worry, I won't be going back there again. Unfortunately the bacteria then gave me some other unwanted to side affects that caused me to get dehydrated. On Monday I could hardly move and was in quite a bit of stomach pain...so I was taken to the local clinic in Lunahuana. It's the clinic where the locals go to get health care. While I was a bit nervous about the state of the facilities and the cleanliness, the nurses did a good job taking care of me and keeping the IV going. I was there for 8 hours after getting two IVS and some medications. All in all I felt better and I'm still recuperating now. My energy seems to be back at normal levels. Not bad for a $12 trip to the emergency room; including IV and prescription medications!

I leave you with a picture of the past week that shows some of the progress we made. If you'd like to see more, please check out my picasaweb. http://picasaweb.google.com/jon.heisterkamp.