Grupo Uno

Wow.... so lets see. It makes it really difficult to blog in a concise way when I haven't done it now in 13 days! Too much has happened--- I am going to have to get on top of this. I am turning into my sister Jennifer--- she blogs like once a month. Two weeks ago I spent a lot of my time preparing for the first team and working on the contract that we now have with the local contractor. It was a lot of work but I really enjoyed it. And then the team.... There were 14 people total including Rob Krause's woman Emily Morton. Emily works for ATC doing all the accounting and all world travel needed--- I don't know how she keeps up, but somehow she does. I actually haven't heard from her since I dropped her off at the airport/open pavilion where planes meet up south of here. So Emily, if your out there I hope you are ok. The team was great, they all worked very well together and everything went smoothly. They really caught the bigger picture of what was going on--- that it wasn't just another construction project. It was great to make so many new friends and goof off with them. To all of you guys--- thank you again! You guys did awesome work and the locals that are working on the stucco work today were impressed with the job you guys did with the walls. We also saw the hand of God work in some awesome ways. We were able to appreciate him in the simplest of ways and enjoy his presence. We also were able to see the Lord heal one of the girls that was on the trip. She is allergic to bee-stings and the last night the team was here, she was stung directly on her throat. It became very difficult for her to breathe and her heart was racing, we all gathered around her and began to pray and it was as if the Lord filled her lungs with air and removed the venom from her body. Praise the Lord!

The team was able to accomplish a lot of awesome things last week. We now have a fully functional tool room and material room to work out of. We also have 100% of all the walls hung, taped, and floated. Today 2 locals are apply the stucco finish. Basically all that is left is some finish work. I wouldn't be surprised if we had pretty much everything on this house finished out by the first week of April. Great work you guys! Hopefully my boss will be sending down my former slave driver Jason Anderson to come knock out a bunch of carpentry work. We just need some trim work, tile work, mosquito netting, toilets, sinks, and a few others things. What's next? Pray that the Lord would give us wisdom in either contracting out the next pastor's home foundation or having a men's team begin it in May. It could really get us ahead of some things if we were able to contract it. On the flip side we are moving forward on the main building. There are about 5 or 6 guys living up at the site who have begun tying re bar and what not. Pray that the Lord would guide us in our conversations with them and how He desires to meet them.

Also, my latest adventures with the wild life here has been very fruitful. I have now seen 2 snakes very close to me, many toucans, a white-faced monkey, and lots of howler-monkeys. But the one that has really topped off my wild life experience has been a sloth! I was coming down the project road only to find two of the team members, who stayed behind the others to do some vacationing, on the side of the road watching a sloth cross the road! Don Quijote has officially moved into our home, it has been really cool having him around. This morning was the first morning he hasn't woke me up at 5am. I think he is beginning to get the picture that we don't care to hear his crying.

I would also like to just say thank you to all of you who support us financially and through prayer. Your support has been a blessing and the Lord is using you in a mighty way. Thank you!

Also here is a link to see our month of February in somewhat of a picture recap: http://lsu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2188074&l=0069d&id=23424351