Day 3 - Santa Alicia part 2

The truth is that I structure my life in such a way that I spend very little time doing things that are am not ultimately confident in my ability to do. What I mean is that I fill up my days doing things I'm very comfortable with. They are the things that partially make me who I am.

One of the things I love most about coming to the DR is how often I find myself in the middle of something that makes me completely uncomfortable. At times it's trying to communicate with someone who does not speak the same language as I do. Other times it's setting out to accomplish something I've never done before. Today was a perfect microcosm of that struggle.

We returned to Santa Alicia today to continue the work on the new church building. I spent a lot of time shoveling concrete and pushing a wheel barrow. I've never mixed concrete before, at least not in the sheer amount that we mixed it today. We mixed up two different piles of concrete today. One included 8 bags of cement mix and the other included 13 bags of mix (each bag of mix was 95 lbs). This was a BIG pile of cement. It was very intimidating trying to get this stuff transformed into something that could be used in the floor of this church. There was one guy out there with us who really seemed to know what he was doing and how he wanted it done...however, he could not tell us what he wanted us to do and HOW he wanted it done. So we watch and mimicked the best we could. When we were not doing it the right way, we were gently corrected (by someone coming and taking our shovel or pick ax away from us). I'm not sure how that guy was able to be so patient with us while he was working but he deserves a medal for it.

At the end of our work day we had moved about 2,000 lbs of concrete and while we did not get the job done completely it was so neat to see the church continuing to come together. I'm so grateful that the Lord has provided this church to these sweet people. And incredible humbled to be a small part of the process.

(The team with Pastor Bona and Bernardo)

Oh, I also had the opportunity to reconnect with my little friend Ariel. Cannot believe how big he is getting. It always blesses my heart so much when he says that he remembers my face (whether he really does or not, I'm not concerned with).

Better Than I Deserve,
ZS