Long time coming

First day of work with the group here went extremely well. Talk about hard workers! What we thought would take us two full days will likely take only a day and a half.

We split everyone up into three different projects. The first was helping pour another section of the parking/turn around area for the new clinic. We have been waiting...well it seems like nine months or more to get this done. The second is cutting all the pieces needed for bunk beds for the new mission house in Sampedrana. That seems like it has been in the queue to do for...almost ten months. And the third group is helping the Church with their fence/retaining wall on the front side of the property, which has been an ongoing project for over a year.

All of these have been very encouraging to get going and see progress made for sure. The concrete pad for the parking/turn around area went very quickly, then we slowed down to dig out the next section for some hard work of removing debris, dirt, grass, and the occasional massive rock (one of which took the combination of hours of grunt work, pulling it with the Ford, and six of us finally pushing it out and then to its new home.)

More of the same is planned for today...along with finally sealing the new clinic to get it ready for its Hawaiian Waters Blue paint in the future (gee, another project that has been waiting over a year to do!) and likely some food distribution to those in need directly around our facilities with some brothers and sisters from the Church going with us in the afternoon.

Last night we had the best group led singing time I am sure we have ever had with a group. Sure...people still are a little reluctant to sing with gusto in such a setting, but it was still more enthusiastic than most groups. Having not only a guitar player/leader there but also an excellent violin player worked together very well and surely helped stimulate all of us even more.

And I discovered that as always, each group is different. I always share that there is a hidden meaning in the wall of the shower, something in the design of the tiles that can be seen and figured out, and that the first one to figure out what the design means gets a prize. Some groups take almost no interest, some moderate...and some like the close to ten people last night...get so into it that they go into the shower and diagram it out to help try to figure it out. I very much enjoyed that...and I think most of all because it reminds me that in our Kingdom work...many times we do things that seem trivial or that do not really matter to anyone or in fact we are made fun of or put down when we are doing them...but that can bear fruit in the short term...almost ten years later (as in this particular case) or even longer. We must keep running our race...yesterday that meant mixing concrete, cutting wood, carrying rocks, or simply helping out where you see it is needed. It does make a difference in more ways than one.