Highlights from Day Four and Other Miscellaneous Bright Spots

Today we completed the gables, put up the rafters and poured the three berms for the floor. All is ready for completion of the roof and floor on Monday. In addition, part of our team built the pila and bano (shower facility), including building portions of it twice. Tom went down sick with stomach ailments. We suspect chemical poisoning from too much hand sanitizer. This is Tom's second trip to El Carrizo and we have yet to get a full work week out of him. He seems to be feeling much better this evening. Kristen, Rachel and Egla spent part of the afternoon with the children at the church, and Kristen spent some time with the ladies at the work site.

Rachael, our rookie is a rookie no more. She came from Ohio, having never met most of the team. She joined a team in which all of us were veterans and had worked together. She has fit right in from the beginning but really earned her stripes yesterday at lunch. Before we arrived in Honduras, Rachael had been part of an email exchange in which there was a discussion of who would have to sit beside Bob on the plane rides down. Someone volunteered the rookie, and Rachael graciously responded that she was sure she could handle it. Joel responded to Rachael that she did not know what she was in for. He suggested that if her choice were to sit in first class with Bob, or in the rear with a Honduran woman with a bunch of chickens, she should choose the chickens! Yesterday at lunch, we were sitting around the circle and someone asked Bob if he had brought his guitar to play for the children. Bob said he had and then turned to Rachael and said, "Rachael, go get my guitar from the van." Rachael never blinked, looked Bob in the eye, and said, "I choose the chickens, Bob." A rookie no more! We look forward to many more trips with this vibrant, Christian young woman. I suspect we are just beginning to learn of her talents. Several of the team members took a late afternoon/early evening stroll to the market with Orfilio, where they purchased a huge cooking pot, avacadoes, tomatoes, and peppers. The team members had granted Rosa an evening off after three great meals in a row. The team prepared our own feast in honor of the last day of the Festival of Kristen celebrating her birthday which was Friday. We had guacamole, tortilla chips, pounds of shrimp boiled in Honduran shrimp seasoning in the huge pot, garlic cheese grits, and Eastern North Carolina cole slaw. We missed you Brian and Wylie. Tomorrow morning we go to Iglesia Bautista Vida Nueva in El Carrizo to worship with our friends there and with the family whose house we are building! We always eagerly look forward to worshiping with the congregation in El Carrizo.