Day 8: Final work day

Our day began with a breakfast at 7.  We drove to the work site for some more concrete work, this time in Daniel’s silver van.  It took a while to get going because rebar had to be put in the molds.  Then we began to pour.  The process was very quick because the concrete was being mixed right below where we were pouring it.  The smallest children from the school had prepared some songs for us and they gave each person on the team a decorated bottle.  They sang four songs, each one very loud.  They were Bible songs and melodies about school.  We visited also the grade 9 classroom which had 47 students.  They were very appreciative of our work because they are crowded right now.

Today was our last day of work and I took a turn pouring concrete into the molds for the first time.  By 3 we were finished one more room.  The foreman, Lucas, told us how he appreciated our work.  He is in school for construction engineering and he says after he is finished that he will come to Canada and hopes to see us there.  Hard-working Jose who mixed the concrete also said how he was grateful for our work and how he hoped to send his children to La Esperanza.  Then Victor took us for a walk around the neighbourhood where the school is.  Before 1998 that whole area was a sugarcane plantation.  We saw a few families that send their kids to La Esperanza, the school we were working on.  Victor showed us a clinic from the Luke Society which was getting built slowly over the years.  We said goodbye to Eduardo and the cooks that made our lunches at the site.  There was some cake for us as a treat which we also shared with the Dominican workers upstairs.  Some of our work gloves and shoes are staying here for others to use, and some shirts are ready for the garbage. 

During devotions tonight we experienced again one of the short brown-outs that occur here.  In some ways it’s surprising they don’t happen more often given the quality of the power lines and the way everyone seems to add their own wires to the main lines.  Guido, the manager at the Ministry Centre, quickly turns on the diesel generator each time, but the power comes back on within ten minutes anyways.  Our topic for devotions was truth, specifically when Pilate asks Jesus, “What is truth?”