#22 - Fix the roof while the sun is shining

24/02/2011

Slightly overslept this morning (probably due to the shovelling) but still fitted in a quick shower and brush of teeth.

Don came to teach us on Spiritual Growth again, but spent the first half talking about Middle Eastern politics and how prophecies are being fulfilled thick and fast i.e. Iran and Russia joining together, the rise and rise of a country from the east (China). I could listen to him talking for days. We then all talked about how to heal damaged emotions and how if they aren´t healed, they will eventually surface in a range of negative ways - the only way to overcome theseis to ask God for forgiveness which He promises to grant us.

This made me realise how many times in the past that I had been a hypocrite, acted stupidly, abused people, manipulated people and generally wronged friends and family and that I had just buried and tried to forget most of these instances.
That was at the back of my mind for the entire day, so when we got in this evening I locked myself in the training room which was peaceful and started meditating and writing down all the times I could think of where I´d acted shamefully. The list was very long indeed.
I then went through each event in detail in my mind, tried to reason what had led me to do such a thing, and at the end I begged God for forgiveness.
That was less than an hour ago, and I finally feel that I´ve laid to rest some demons that were holding me back.
Thank God for that.

Returning to a chronological account of the day, we had an early lunch before setting back out to the house we began working on yesterday. By the way I was wrong, the woman doesn´t have five children: she has seven. If you could see the conditions of the interior that these kids live and sleep in, you´d be as heartbroken as I am.
I finished digging the drain right down to the roadside so water can run all the way down and won´t collect - this involved a lot of effort and moving several boulders that had been part of the ground for years and years.
While I was doing this, the others started work on the roof: the plan was to first nail across some wooden supports to reinforce the structure, and then nail tin sheets on top of those to make the roof.
By the end of the afternoon, that was exactly what happened and so we left the family with one half of a proper roof. ´One half?´, I hear you ask. Yes that´s right, the other half is on the side which doesn´t get quite as badly affected by the rain and so we focussed on the first half to begin with.
But after completing that challenge, none of us are in the mood to leave the job half-finished and so we plan to remove and rebuild the other half tomorrow.

We were so blessed not to have any rain during this process - at one point the entire roof was off so any rain would have further devastated the interior of the house.
While we were doing this, the girls did a stirling job entertaining numerous kids for 4 hours. Not sure quite how, but they did it and the kids had massive smiles on their faces throughout which was great to see.

After another exhausting but rewarding days work, we went to the church where two women cooked us a delicious dinner and we had homemade pineapple squash with loads of the pulp still in it. mmm.

We then got home and practised some of the songs in both English and Spanish, then called it a night at about half 8.
We are all exhausted in one way or another, but knowing that we are making a difference to a family that so desperately need something good to happen to them is spurring us all on and also uniting us further as a team.

So there we are, another day´s work done.
Sorry I don´t have the energy to write more, but I´ve tried to describe the key events of the day whilst prising my eyes open with my hands.

I can sleep a little better knowing that one woman and seven children are sleeping under a strong tin roof, not old rusty sheets weighed down with stones.

Until tomorrow.

JG