Que grande es el armadillo!

The last 2 weeks have been the craziest, most productive, and non-productive weeks since I have been here. In two weeks I have pushed for a new foundation to be built, a massive 42,000 watt generator to be hauled up into the middle of the jungle and placed on a concrete pad in a very difficult spot, and be part of our third team. In the middle of that I had to deal with an angry tractor guy, a couple of thieves, a day trip to the US Embassy, generators that didn't work, and a truck that didn't work. Where should we begin....?

I suppose I will start with the foundation. As part of the general contract we have with the contractor here we made an addition to have the workers complete the column foundation for the 2nd pastor's home. The motto here isn't always, "whether rain, shine....we are at work." I don't know why the foundation was started just 3 days before the team arrived, but it was! Nevertheless, it eventually did and did not become a problem for the team. By Wednesday of last week the foundation was finished, only to find out on Friday that it wasn't entirely level and needs some adjustments. The goal of the team was to frame up the entire sub-floor and framing of the walls. There was a lot of prep work involved in that as we decided to build the house out of steel instead of wood. We figure we can fight off rust a lot easier than the termites, which have already begun their feeding frenzy on one of the homes on the site. The team wasn't able to frame the house because there were some leveling issues, it sounds like a downer but I think it was just the Lord's provision. Our engineer that we have hired to oversee the engineering side of things happened to be on site the day the team was going to frame up the home. Had the Lord not placed him there, we could have framed up an entire home on a faulty structure and wasted a lot of money! I know it is a change of plans and kind of jacks up our flow chart on some things, but the Lord knows exactly what He is doing and He is orchestrating something greater than we can comprehend.

Monday afternoon one of the sagas of my life came to somewhat of a end. We bought this beast of a generator from the capital and it was like a political process in getting this thing down here. Nevertheless it finally got all the way down to us on Monday afternoon. The plan was that if the truck carrying it could not bring it up the mountain we would take a back hoe and put it on a 4x4 truck and then bring it up and put it on the concrete pad we had made. Well the truck couldn't make it up, so the back hoe put it on the 4x4 truck, but that is where the problems began. We were able to get the generator onto the 4x4 truck and it was ready to go up the mountain when the back hoe guys starts getting all aggravated and starts saying that he isn't going up the mountain. Which makes the whole process pointless, because if we don't have the back hoe we can't take the stinking generator off of the truck that it is on that has to return back to the hardware store it came from an hour and a half away! So I start calling everyone I know who is connected with this guy and then he finally says he will go up the mountain. Then when we get up there we hook the chains up to the generator and the back hoe guy is ticked that he has to be up there. He proceeds to take the machine off and totally treats the machine like it is a chunk of scrap - instead of a very expensive generator. He jerks it around and sets it down kind of hard and just smirks and that is when my first Latino temper came out. I let loose on the guy, which the Lord just later used to humble me as I was able to apologize to all of our workers that where present as well as the tractor guy. I think the Lord really used it though with our workers to open up relationships with them because I was able to be real with them. God has really given us favor with these guys and I think in the days to come there are just going to be awesome opportunity to share the life of Jesus Christ with them.

The team was awesome. We meshed with them really well. The team was willing to do whatever and whenever. So to all my dogs--- Thanks. We had a real encouraging and refreshing time with them. And because of the Lord's provision through one of my dogs, Sarah and I are going to see all of the team again this weekend in Wilmington, NC. Right now we are actually in the capital staying at the home of some friends of ours awaiting our flight to the states tomorrow afternoon. Jehova-Jireh! One night while we were eating one of the team members came out of his room saying his backpack was missing. We soon learned that someone had broke into their room stealing 3 backpacks, one which contained one of the team members passport. So last Friday I went with the team member to the capital via a little hopper-flight, caught a taxi to the US Embassy, chilled at the Embassy for 3 1/2 hours and then caught a taxi back home. It was a super long day, but I think the Lord had purpose for it all. I don't know the full scheme of it all (which I usually don't), but I met the coolest taxi driver who turned out to be a very sincere brother in Christ. It was really cool, he actually has offered me his home if I ever need a place to stay. I thought it was a really cool depiction of the body of Christ, here is a guy I meet on the side of the road, who drives me 5 hours back to my home, and by the end of the trip he is offering me to come and stay with his wife and 4 year old son based on the sole connection that we are brothers in Christ. I called Luis today and he gave us a ride to our friends home, and he told us in the car that it was a blessing and encouragement to see us because he had somewhat of a rough day. Praise the Lord! You would have thought we had known each other for years.

Things have somewhat calmed down now. The generator we just bought is on site and running and concrete mixer should start turning tomorrow. On the flip side, I think I recently made one of my best international purchases yet. If you don't know already, my cousin Ben and I collect armadillos. I came across this bad boy and knew it was going to be the best possible way I could spend $30. Meet my 20lbs.+ hand carved wooden armadillo! Also-- good news on "Old Non-Faithful" which is the nickname I just picked out for the truck I have here. I was contacted today while I was riding a bus that the truck is fixed and ready. The sad part is it only cost $12 to fix it. After all the problems these thing has given me I wanted to pay $100 to fix it. $12 just seems so little for as much problems as it has caused me, atleast I have my armadillo to bring me joy.