Frantically, I pull on work attire - t-shirt, jeans, and workboots. Grab my floppy hat, a bandanna, and backpack, then head out to hop in the Hyundai for the trip back to the church. Breakfast is continental - bread, butter, jam (pineapple and guava - two different choices), coffee, orange-carrot juice, warm milk, and hot water.
Pastor Mario and the skilled workers are running strings across the grounds, getting ready for our work - whatever it's going to be. We're speculating as to what the task can be. Something that will utilize of all of our "gringo" skills and will give us a chance to flex our North American muscle!
A couple of words to describe the church building as it is and the grounds. The lot is on a busy corner - many cars, trucks, buses, and people on foot passing by. A tall (6 feet on top of two feet of block wall) iron bar fence topped with razor wire surrounds the property. There are three gates to get in. One on the north for foot traffic to get into the existing church building and two on the east for vehicles. The earth is rocky dirt covered with crabgrass and slopes gently to the north. An older frame constructed building is in the northwest corner (this is where church is held) and a new concrete "educational wing" is in the southeast corner. The educational wing will have four class rooms (all one large open room where we store our stuff while working and where we eat at one long table right now), a storage room, the garage for the pastor's residence, and on the second floor (presently under construction) will be the parsonage (two bedrooms, kitchen, bath, and living area). The educational wing and present church building form an L covering the west and south sides of the property.
Breakfast is consumed, reflections shared and it's time to get to work. Structural steel needs to be cleaned and painted for work to continue on the pastor's residence. Tables are moved for the beams to rest on and the ladies (Veness Walters, Margie Gibbens, Emily Gradle, Stephanie Johanpeter, and Shirley Rodgers) get busy on that. The men (David Carpenter, Bud Gibbens, David Johanpeter, and myself) are taken into the open area and given shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows. Pastor Mario explains that the land needs to be leveled out for the next stage of the project. The ropes are set to be a level guide and we have a board that will show us how deep we have to go to get the ground leveled out. Thankfully the north end of the lot is too low, so our dirt can go down there to fill and bring that area up. This task looks like it could take all week, especially with the area of concrete in the middle - 8-10 inches thick from mixing it for the educational wing. Within the day we have the concrete broken up, the dirt moved, and the lot (in that area) leveled. Never have I worked as hard (physically) as I did that day and on the whole trip. I would not have thought it possible to do all that we did. God certainly multiplies what you put toward His kingdom!
One of the things realized was that here we would have hired a back hoe, front end loader, or a bulldozer to do the work and get it done with a minimum of effort. In the US, the equipment is the least expensive cost and the labor - the most expensive. In Costa Rica, the opposite is true - labor cheapest, equipment most expensive. So while we could have pooled our money to get the equipment for a couple of days, it would have taken away from the other work that continued on the parsonage. Besides, what else were we going to do for a week? None of us were skilled laborers. We all are involved in "technical" work or mental labors - a former high school principal, an emergency room physician, a mechanical engineer, and a pastor. Maybe God wanted us to know that our hands could still get something done - inspite of ourselves.
The day went by slowly, but there were breaks scheduled for food and we took brief rest times whenever they were necessary. In the afternoon, it rained a bit and that was another welcome respite.
That evening I borrowed a Spanish-English dictionary from someone who had an extra one in our group and started trying to wear it out when I got back home with my hosts. A lukewarm shower did wonders for my disposition and my odor. Following that, I walked with Marco to a little convenience store in the neighborhood where he picked up a few things and I was quite an attraction for the locals - not to many gringos around that area!
I was in bed and asleep before nine that night to be ready for another day tomorrow starting at six am.
1 comment:
I need to get out of the country. Thanks for sharing your experience.
Post a Comment