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: