Monday, March 7th
Up this morning at 7:00 (me at 6:30 to give me time to drink coffee, quiet time, etc)
Breakfast of champions: cheerios and peanut butter/strawberry toast.
Arrive at "Refuge" to start work: digging out trenches for a foundation to the guard shack and hauling that dirt away using wheelbarrows PLUS pushing the van that got stuck PLUS hauling reebar about 1/4 mile to the job site (all because the city employees decided to dig a trench in the middle of the road to bury the electrical cables - it was supposed to have been completed the previous week, but for whatever reason it didn't work that way.)


We all gathered together before working for the day and prayed together then got started. To say it was the most physically demanding thing I have done in a long time is probably an understatement. It was hard work - the closest I can compare my level of tiredness and physical utility would be when I was in high school and went to basketball camp at the Univ of TN for 1 week under Pat Summit. Pretty much similar level of exhaustion.

We were digging trenches that have to be 32" wide, approximately 4 feet deep and about 15-20' long. It requires one person with a pick ax breaking up the dirt and the second using a shovel to throw dirt on a huge pile above us which is then shoveled into wheel barrows and hauled down a crazy long hill about 300 feet (maybe?)


Here's a video of one trip up and down the hill with a load of dirt.

Here's Kory (The Intern and our 11th team member) along with Matt (our college pastor and fearless leader)


The dirt's being used to fill in a gap for when the road gets completed. There are three guys on the job site that are overseeing it all: the Foreman - , the Brick Mason - Remigio and the Brick Mason Assistant - Hugo (pronounced OO-Go).

Here are some photos from working on the first day:


I couldn't help to think that while I respect their method of clearing dirt, I sure appreciate that I can go to Home Depot back home and rent equipment that would have made it not only easier but more efficient and faster. We worked 9-5pm today. It was tough. I was starving and completely out of fuel only to find out it was just 10:30 - 1 1/2 hours until lunch. Ahh. Wow.

Then we found out that Nathan had gotten the van stuck - several of our guys trekked up the hill to help only to come back and recruit the rest of the guys THEN back again to recruit EVERYONE. WOW. Imagine a 15 passenger van hanging on the side of a little hill - stuck on a cliff. It's hard to describe but definitely a crazy site to top the hill and see the van pointing down off the side of the cliff. Sooo all the girls were asked to hop inside and the guys pushed us back into a safe zone.



So we get the van unstuck and we're back to work - I'm not sure which job was more physically grueling: wheel barrowing or shoveling/pick axing but I know we were all equally exhausted tonight. I am certain that my body will remind me in the morning that I am not 22 years old like my team mates :)

So a few fun sayings we started:
TINA = This Is Not America. Basically we said this anytime we passed something you wouldn't see in the U.S. A lot of things like this: (Those are LIVE chickens in the back of that truck. LIVE - as in living.)
Seriously tonight I had a nose full of dirt. Literally. Black. Maybe that's too much information, but really. wayy too much dirt.

These 2 pictures sums up the way all of us had to deal with the dirt at the end of the day - the first one, Eric dumping dirt from his shoe and the second is Mitchell after receiving literally a shovel-full of dirt to the face...fierce!

I know my strength throughout the rest of the week will be those visual images of those kids running around chasing the bubbles we were blowing and those helicopters we were flying - imagine those kinds running throughout the property where the Refuge will be built. While we just see dirt roads and woods, one day very soon there will be houses and life and so much activity.