Our Work Here is Done

This will be the last post for this blog, as we have finished the work at the job site, and made our last appearance at the local Ebeneezer Seventh-day Adventist church here in Guyana.

We worked just a half a day on Friday, and we did our best to get our construction project as close to completion as time would allow. There is some work left to do, which the Maranatha workers will finish up in our absence. But if you look back to the first few days of these posts to now, you will see that we have made quite a bit of progress in putting this a restroom facility together. This is the third building in this project, as other teams have built two large classrooms adjacent to this restroom facility.

Putting the last touches to our work on Friday.

Because this is the first church school to be in this area in 40 years, there is a whole generation of people in this town who have not grown up with Adventist education at all. So, it is sort of like reintroducing the concept of Adventist education back in to this local community. As such, the school is being built is a conference run school. In talking to one of local pastors, it is unclear what the participation of the local churches will be. The hope is that it will be completely self-sustaining by tuition alone. This is the way that most schools in Guyana work, but economically not very practical as a concept in America.

Our building team at the end of our last day.  Tired, dirty, but with a sense of accomplishment.

After work on Friday we took one more trip downtown for souvenir shopping. The only thing that looked particularly interesting to me was the ice cream cone at Dairy Queen! Of course as it turns out, and consistent with my luck, Larry decided to treat everyone to Dairy Queen on the way home! While many stores and establishments seem to be quite happy to take US dollars, the Dairy Queen's in Guyana do not take any US dollars, and they do not take any credit cards. Just Guyanese cash only! With a run to the local ATM, and cleaning out the pockets of some of the participants, we were able to get our cold ice cream fix!

In the evening after dinner, we were honored to have the president of the local conference stop by to talk to us. Elder James talked to us about having a strong spiritual life. A very nice and engaging fellow. We enjoyed his worship message, and he spent some time just chitchatting with us as well. He seemed very excited and honored to be the conference president that would reintroduce Adventist education to the people of Guyana. Keep him in your prayers, as financially this is a little risky for them, and it may be an interesting transition back from state run schools and local private schools back to Adventist education.

This morning we attended Sabbath school services and provided the church service. Church service consisted of a review of our vacation Bible school activities from the week, and Larry presented the sermon, which was received very well. When we got through, we were treated to a very nice and delicious lunch. These people are very gracious and very friendly and we really enjoyed spending the time with them this Sabbath. As you can imagine many local kids bonded with our kids and there were lots of hugs and connections that were made as we made our way to the bus.

LJ using his musical talents in the church service.  Actually, they switched out the keyboard right before he
came out to play for song service.  Thanks LJ for being so flexible to make things work!

The song service team.  Some of the local kids came up front to help out!

Eric taking part in the service, as did most every other student.  We have great kids.

It would appear that Sophie has the perfect hair to braid . . . and many of the local girls wanted to give it a try!
All our kids did a great job of integrating with the local kids.

Our work here is essentially done. A week ago we barely knew were Guyana even was. Today, that name will not go by without our attention, and our fond memories of traveling to this beautiful country and meeting these wonderful people. The people of Guyana are not as wealthy as Americans, but they are very rich in spirit, commitment, and the Adventist people we met here have a strong relation with their maker. We have been greatly blessed, and we can only hope that our new friends have been blessed as well.

Starting to Look Like Something

Fortunately for us, while we were out looking at some of the natural wonders of the world, the Maranatha workers are still of the job site working on the project! We were very surprised when we gotto the job this morning to see that they had laid four more courses of block, which included the windows and the tops of the doors.

There did not seem to be an abundance of cloud cover today, so it felt warmer than some of our passed days. As a result some of our team had to back off a little to deal with the heat. Additionally, the higher we get on the project the more difficult it is to lay the block. It is up high, it is hard to level the block, it is hard to grout the cells, it is hard to move grout and mortar up couple levels of scaffolding. So, each day as we move along we find that our progress in terms of just looking at rows of block laid is a little less each day. However we are still feeling good about the progress we are making and looking forward to tomorrow as our last day to work on this building. I have a few photos taken near the end of the day to show you our current status.

We all took off work today at 230, so we could all participate in the Vacation Bible School program being held at the church. Somewhat like American churches, the membership on the books is around 800. However the pastor said the weekly attendance is more like about 200. As you can see in the photos, the Vacation Bible School program is a jam-packed couple of rooms with a lot of high-energy kids. Shana and Kaitlin do a remarkable job of making this program fun and meaningful for the kids. The local pastor told me twice how much he appreciated our team working with the VBS program, and he seemed genuinely grateful for what we were doing for their kids. This is a joint program with their staff and ours. Culturally we have some differences in the way we run programs at church. However, they have been very gracious, and I think everyone has had a good time, and the kids have gotten a glimpse of just how fun Christianity can be.

At the end of the day we had one more item of business that need to take care of his Shana Williams birthday today. We have Candy to thank for very arranging to get the cake and ice cream for the event and we enjoyed a few minutes of celebration with Shana who could also celebrate her birthday with all of her kids.

Tomorrow is Friday, and just like school at home, we will just work to noon and have the rest of the Friday afternoon off.

Tallest in the World

Well today was a little different, in that we were all tired of laying block and pouring concrete. So we took an excursion day to day to the Kaieteur National Park to see some falls that are claimed to be the longest single drop of river water in the world. But before we did that, we took a few stops on the way.

First stop was to the beach to have worship. As our friend Barbara pointed out, the term beach in Guyana has kind of a different meeting than we usually picture in our minds. I have included a photograph of the beach where you can see all of the garbage and trash that has washed up on the beach. The water is brown. We were told that the reason for the brown water was all of the silty rivers that flow into the ocean along the South American coast. I am guessing this is probably true in part. But seeing all the garbage and trash upon the shore makes me think that there was something more to the brown water than just silt!

Next, we took about 45 minutes to do a little souvenir shopping. Nothing struck me as being a must-have, but others came back with some pretty nice treasures.

We waited for our bus in front of an old church that was being restored.  We decided to go in and take a look.  Turns out this is supposed to be the tallest wooding building in the world!  At 147 feet tall from the ground to the top of the steeple, it was quite impressive, and you had to respect the engineering knowledge that had to be used to construct the building  out of wood nearly 125 years ago!

Next up was the zoo. I have included a couple pictures of the animals we saw. As you can see, the zoo does not look like the San Diego Zoo. However, they really had a wide variety of animals that I had never seen, and I think we all enjoyed our time there looking at these very unusual animals.

Flying this bird looked like an owl, but we were reassured that it was a hawk.  Never seemed to have a grin on his face  . . .

These guys were pretty noisy

This guy had sort of a bad attitude.  I saw him try to take a nip of Tressie . . . but, that dang wire fence . . 

We traveled to one of local airports that specializes in tours to the Kaieteur National Park in Guyana. As far as I can tell the only real access for tourists is to fly into this park that has a very short runway carved out of the jungle. We piled into a couple of 12 passenger Cessna aircraft that are designed for these kinds of flights. Our flight was just under an hour and we got to see the transition from the fairly flat terrain were were located in Georgetown to the incredibly beautiful and mountainous terrain near the park. Just as we are getting ready to land our pilot makes a right-hand turn a left-hand bank turn in front of the falls to give us a nice birds eye view to see what is in store for us. The view is absolutely magnificent. This river runs through incredibly dense jungle and empties over the falls for a drop of 741 feet, bounces on some rocks, and then drops another hundred feet to the pool at the bottom.

A pretty tight squeeze to get thirteen passengers on this plan . . Maddy sat in the co-pilots seat!

Our pilot does a great job of dropping us in this little tiny runway and there we find a little veranda building that serves as the park headquarters. Cold drinks and snacks were offered, and readily taken- especially the cold drinks! After a little time to get things together, both a park ranger, and a member of the tribe of indigenous people took us for a short walk to our first vista point. Unlike America, there is no safety guardrails for people to hang on to look over the edge  -  there is just simply… The edge! This may not make for the safest situation, but the unobstructed view was absolutely amazing!

Five times taller than Niagara Falls, this was an impressive sight!

We stayed there for about 10 or 12 minutes just looking at the incredible site. Then we moved on to the second vista point. And because it is even closer to the falls it was in a more spectacular views than the first. Both the view of the falls, and the river gorge downstream are just amazing. There used to be a third stop where you go right out to the edge of the falls and look down. However a couple years ago two girls committed suicide by jumping off that vista point to their death below. Since that time, that part of the tour has not been available to day trek visitors like us. Many of us were disappointed that we could not get that view, but it was understandable why they were taking the precautions.

I  wonder how many other natural wonders are hidden out there in some dense jungle. 
We love the opportunity to visit this wonderful beauty.

A short trek back to the ranger station, another cold drink of water, and we were ready to get on the plane and fly back to Georgetown.

These falls are one of the most breathtaking sites in the world, and yet because of their location very few people get to see them. I think we all count it a real blessing that we have had this opportunity to see one of the great natural wonders on the face of the earth.

Washington was a great guide.

We got back to the hotel about an hour before dinner. Our hotel prepared a very nice meal for us, and we finished up the evening with worship presented by Tressie.

Looking down river from the falls, The gorge was nearly as impressive as the falls!

We have had a wonderful day of rest, and I think we are all ready to hit the work site tomorrow with renewed energy. And we are hoping to convert the renewed energy into significant progress! Meanwhile Shana and Kaitlin are working on plans for the church service, which we are expected to provide! It may not be the quality of their used to, but will give it our best shot!

Progress on the Building and at VBS

Well there are only a couple of photos today  . . . because that is all that I took!

It was a very busy day on both our projects.  Shana and Kaitlin said there were about 60 kids at VBS tonight.  I don't know if others are posting photos of VBS tonight.  I worked late on the construction project again tonight, so I did not make it to the VBS program.  But if you could see the room that VBS is being held in, you would understand why several in our team described this evening as chaos!  But, I think it was a good kind of chaos!

Mike, Candy, and Lars making their last pass through the building before we head for the bus!

The building project is moving along very nicely.  We hoped to get one more course of block up today, but with having to erect scaffolding, and having to lift heavy block and concrete ever higher, we didn't quite make our goal.  But everyone worked hard, and we are very happy with what got accomplished at the work site.  I just have a couple of photos of when we left the job today!

We are up seven blocks high - it may not look like much  but we are pretty happy with the progress so far!

I should mention that our hotel and the David Memorial Adventist Hospital have kept us fed with really good food.  There is usually rice or beans  . . or both.  But there is always something new each day!  And we have been introduced to several new fruit juices some with spices added.  Pretty tasty!!

Candy is still smiling after a long day of back breaking
work.  Yes, we finally have the walls taller than
a person!

One special feature is occurring at our hotel tonight.  They are having a community party, with  live rock band from 8-11, and then canned music until 2 a.m!  This hotel is located in sort of a residential neighborhood, but apparently this is a feature, not a nuisance! Fortunately, we are not working tomorrow, so maybe we can sleep in for an extra hour.  Seriously, in my room with the room closed, it

is like being in right in front of the band!!  We are creating memories!!

Hard Work, Sore Muscles, Big Result

This morning we were greeted with cool overcast skies as we headed breakfast. Monday was a national holiday in Guyana, and the cook was given permission to come in a little late today. So, we had a slightly later breakfast and we got on the bus and headed to the job site. Therefore buildings on the job site two of them are just about completed. These buildings are large classroom space for the new school that will open soon. The other two buildings are a restroom facility and an office. Our team is working on a restroom facility. These two smaller buildings are steel framed with masonry block exteriors. Our job is to lay the block for the restroom building.

At the start of the day

The first block is always the hardest

I estimated that the combined block laying experience of our group was somewhere around 15 minutes! And I will have to admit that my first thought was that maybe we would you get a single row of block laid on this day. That certainly ended up being a major underestimation. The Marinol's team was well prepared and ready for us, and soon each team member slipped into a role that work for them some Lang block, some cleaning up block, some sawing block, and some filling in the joints between the block. As you can see the pictures, we were able to play for Rosa block around the perimeter of the building, grout all the vertical cells with steel in them, and grout the bond beam on the fourth row. I think most of those who worked on this project today would agree that going from the job that each of us does every day to a very physical job like lame block is not the smartest approach to a career change. Everybody seems dead tired tonight. But, I will have to say everyone did absolutely amazing job.

I called this group the chain gang .  they were hammering
the cells open at the bottom of the blocks.

Part of the fun of working on this job has been to see how much communication can be accomplished with two groups that speak different languages. In a very short amount of time, we seem to be able to convey everything that was important on the job to our Spanish-speaking construction workers who are charged with keeping us from making a total mess of the project.

And this appeared to be the chain gang boss  . .

Many of us need to stay at the construction project have get the last few items finished before the day was over. So, we did not have a chance to go to the vacation Bible school program tonight. However, those who did, so it was very successful even though the numbers of kids was relatively small, I think 17. Tomorrow they are supposed to be a significant increase in the number of kids and our team is ready for it.

Grouting cells with a nifty grout  pouring device

Kaleb works a block into the corner

All in all, the kids a great job today. They worked hard, stayed happy, learned lots of new things, and I hope that tonight as most of them are already in bed seriously considering sleep, they will be proud of the work they did, and know that all of us who work beside them today hold them in high esteem.

We will see how we do tomorrow!

About lunch time!

A teaching moment

Getting it right

Make sure it is level

Our project at the end of the day

Off to Vacation Bible School after working block and mortar all day. 
Strong women!

Let the Work Begin . . . Well Sort of!!!

Well, I can see that we are officially here! I can also say that we are dead tired. Is taken as a couple days to get here, and for most of us that meant about three or four hours of sleep one night, and about two and half hours of sleep last night. So it is all we can do to keep our eyes open to enjoy the beautiful country of Guyana. Our plane left at a brisk 6:30 AM this morning, which means we had to be up and ready to go at our hotel at 3:20 AM! It is only about an hours flight to Guyana from Trinidad. That means we get to Guyana and through customs about 930 this morning. Our driver was here to meet us and we took the hour bus ride to our hotel. Many of us took just a little free time to take a nap in trying grab a couple hours of sleep just to try and get a handle on the sleep deprivation that we were all experiencing.

This afternoon we took a quick tour of our job site, and I am a little disappointed in myself that I kept my camera in my pocket and just looked at the work that had been completed prior to our arrival. However, I will make the same mistake twice! We also stopped at a nearby church and helped Shana and Kaitlin decorate the church's have basement for vacation Bible school, which starts tomorrow.

There were streamers to be strung, believes to be blown up and hung, and a variety of other materials that needed to be put in place to make for a fun environment. We are doing this vacation Bible school in cooperation with the local church ladies, so's been interesting to mix two cultures and two sets of personalities altogether to realize the vision of vacation Bible school as we had hoped to bring it to the kids. By the time we left this afternoon it looks like a pretty fun place, and I know the neighborhood kids who attend will really have a great time. I am always impressed with the creativity that people like Caitlin and Shana exhibit when you let them loose our project like this. Kids will have a great time, and the coming of Jesus is little better.

This evening there a couple kids swimming and getting cool off from the heat of the day. The most of us are hanging out in our rooms, basking in the cool of the air conditioner. We are thinking about the minimum set of tasks that must be completed tonight before we can go to bed and attempt to catch up on some that sleep that we have missed so badly, before we have to wake up at 6 AM for breakfast, and get ready to head for the job.

Tomorrow I will have more pictures and more stories to tell. Check back in each day for the latest on this mission project for which we have had the honor to participate.

Also if you want to get the messages automatically each day, at the bottom left-hand side of the screen, I believe there is a place to subscribe. Click on it, fill all the information, and usually an update as soon as I post. Hope you all have had a great day today.

Where are we working anyway?

I have just been thinking about all the stuff that I yet need to put in my bag for the trip.  I came up with a list of about 15 things I needed before we leave.  It will be a busy day tomorrow.

Also, for those who would like to see exactly where we are working, Maranatha gave us this link to the worksite location.  For me it comes up on maps.  Click the satellite button and zoom in.  You will see the Adventist Church and the Davis Memorial Hospital on the same grounds where we will be working.  If Google flies over while we are there, we will try to wave!!!    Go to:  https://goo.gl/maps/CXSBSty5vx82