Better than raking leaves

Arriving on Wednesday of the two weeks of craziness was a group from Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Flushing Michigan. Last year for their servant event, they went to a location that had them rake leaves in the forest all week. Seems like an exercise in futility to me, so of course there was some kidding all week about sending them to rake. They were originally going to stay in Anapra with a group from Caro Michigan, but elected to stay stateside instead. We had them do a full build in Horizon and work on the addition to the Wildfire house. I took the team to the Garcia household where we had the full build. The family of 5 was cramped into one room that served as bedroom, living room, and kitchen. They were very excited to be receiving the blessing of this new home and David's (the father) speech as we presented the keys threatened to make many eyes water.

This was a good week, very hot, and it had it's challenges. I messed up laying out the first wall because it was a little shorter than normal, and just did my stud set up like the center was normal, so we had to take part of the wall apart and fix it, then, just as the roof was being finished, hurricane Carolyn (Carolyn was the group leader, and we thought it would be fun to name the storm after her) came through. About an hour of heavy rain, wind, and hail put us at a standstill, and damaged the roll roofing enough that we would have to redo it the next day.

A lot of progress was made at Mayra (Wildfire) house addition as well. For information and photos of that project with Holy Cross, check out Erin's blog, it should be up in the next day or so. We are building another addition for the Garcia family this week, not only because they desperately need the space ,but because God threw us a curve ball this week when we were getting ready to pour our slab for the week in Soccoro and the Planning and Zoning truck drives up and informs us we need permits, etc. for that work. We needed a house build immediately, called them to see their interest, and 90 minutes later, we were making concrete. He may have thrown us a curve ball, but because we believe in flexibility, we were able to knock it out of the park.

Please check out the video at the end of the blog, it will make you smile. I promise.

Framing the first wall

Carrying some siding over

Teaching Corey

Nadia, the youngest

First wall is up

Dora was my excellent helper

Elizabeth, Nadia, and Dora with leaves for Gary to rake

Electric is ran

I had each girl put in one romex staple

Just about ready to roof

Marking for the rafters

Barricading the window opening from Hurricane Carolyn

Hurricane Carolyn

The extent of the Hurricane's damage

Covered it to keep it from leaking until next day of work

Each girl got to sign their name. I also had them sign the new slab in the corners. Photos to come next week.

Dedication

Elizabeth helping to paint

Dora, Elizabeth, and Nadia in the finished room

Maria (mom) made us mole (molay) one day. It is only the second plate of mole I have ever like (The other was made by Elvira's mom)

The girls dancing around and through the frame of their new house (Think they are excited?)