On Friday, the team prepared for the challenges of the day. With two new team members (Shirley and Lucas), Brickthink was ready to work. The team members from the day before, continued working on the jobs from the day before. Being an electrician, Lucas immediately helped with the outdoor lighting. Fortunately, with the help of another electrician Teddy, both were able to accomplish tasks that took two people to complete. Shirley also arrived earlier that day and helped with painting and staining in and around the building. The day ended and late that night, the final members of the team arrived: Andrew, John, Christopher, Francis, and Carolyne.
On Thursday, the Brickthink team to Eddy Farm arrived early afternoon. The team members were George, Ruby, and Glenn with team leaders Kathleen and Tim. From the get go, it was evident that there was a lot to do. Yet, the team worked earnestly together with another group from Brooklyn to get as much done on the first day.
When they arrived, Glenn and Ruby began clearing out the dining room. As others arrived, they joined in and helped as well. After lunch, Tim and George began painting the guest rooms. Kathleen and a member from Antioch Baptist Church worked on housekeeping by preparing the rooms. Glenn and Ruby completed clearing out the dining room and ended their task by waxing the floors.
By the end of the day, the team took an early night in order to be rested for Friday’s chores….
Another great day in the field. Once again our time got split up in two so that we could take part in the Child Cry ministry program by feeding malnourished children and sharing the love of God to them. We, then, proceeded to the house church to finish the roof and redirect the water to the new sink. (By the way, there are so many dishes out here that every day we have been trying a different exotic dish).After lunch, we walked through the town and brought food at the Sanctuary Center, a woman mental institution where most of the patient are abandoned by their families because of their mental disability.
Paired with the local members of the church, we finished the roof and the sink. We also finished working on the new wall of the house that will become one of the feeding house for the children in the community. We also added a new sink and new plumbing for the shower with running water. The help from the local members was really appreciated and it allowed our team to be split up and to work on 2 projects simultaneously.
At the end of the day, we went to feed more children in the street in a different community or block as called by the local. The feeding program is really interesting. it gave us the opportunity not only to bring food for the childrren but to pray with them or their parents and interact with them.
On Day 6, we went out to continue the last project which we started the day before in between all of our feeding program. We are improving the sewage system next to the biggest house church in the area. We took apart the old sewage since it was really small and the street was getting flooded every time it rained and making it difficult for that community or block. Many people from this community first came to watch us work and before you know it, the men jumped in with us and started working with us.(Thanks God for that because there was a lot of digging and concrete breaking by hand with hand made tools). We worked all day long and in between the break, some of the members of our Brick Think team shared the Word and the love of God with those who live by and those who came to ask questions. The kids there are really great, we talked, shared the love of God and interacted with them while working and some of them taught us some word in their language.
The whole week was really a good experience for us especially with the kids in the community giving us hi5, people trying to interact with us even thought some speaks English and some don’t.
We started our day by heading to two different house churches with feeding program through Child Cry ministry. We split into two different teams and served the precious children meals. Then we went to the House church project for kitchen extension and finished the wall block. We built and poured a large concrete counter top for stove top burner and installed a stainless steel sink. The other house project started today was to put hallow block wall up and pouring small concrete floor for new sink area location. The church team member of Pastor Mike has been a blessing to us and very helpful with the projects.
The construction ended and we walked throught many streets to see next project location for the end of Friday and Saturday. We also to took part in the street feeding program as part of child Cry ministry in a location close to the next project.
We then went to take part to a Men’s fellowship Bible study program held at 7:00 pm at the church. We shared the Word of God and different life testimonies about our life.
We thank God for the awesome protection that He is giving us and our Filipino friends. We are all feeling well and no injuries in the midst of some hard terrain. We are also thankful for every one prayer and concern for us. We can sense that God
We started our day earlier since we had to go finish the bathroom from the previous day. we finished up the bathroom walls and installed a new door in the morning. After that project, we proceeded to a new location still in Welfare Ville where the family who lives there feeds children through the Child Cry Ministry. The construction of the project is to provide more space in the kitchen area so that the family would be able to have more space to feed more children in need in the neighbourhood. We removed the whole exterior wooden wall which was filled with many little surprise inside the plywood; large roaches and spiders who were running all over the place since we destroyed their habitat. they did not bother us at all but some of them got squashed. We then proceeded to dig out earth for the footing for the new external concrete wall. We worked for the whole day there and almost completed the full wall with “concreto” (as the Filipino calls it) and hollow Block. Their name for concrete block which we all have fun and laugh together with the way we say our names and other things.
We are having a great experience working side by side with all these families in the Lord. We will be returning to the house to finish two courses of hollow blocks and to build and finish the roof. We could also use prayer for the first project we started to be able to be continued by having inspection by local officials. We enjoyed a great Filipino treat called “Hallo Hallo” after work with our hosts. It was cold and refreshing for the end of a hot day.
Our day started by going to help with the medical ministry for the senior citizen by sharing the word and encouraging them for the first half of the day. The senior citizen really touched our heart by allowing them to share their life with us and talking to them about Jesus and being able to pray for them even at time there was a language barrier between us and some of them who didn’t speak English. The language did not stop us from communicating with them and they were all joyful people regardless of their pain and sufferings. It was really amazing to see God’s hand in the loving care and attention that the doctor and her team presented to the senior citizen patients.
After sharing a meal with our hosts, we went back in the afternoon in the house to finish up the bathroom we started yesterday. At the site, we faced some technicalities with the local government. While waiting for the job to get started, we sung and interacted with the kids and praised the Lord. Finally we decided to get started with a project on a different location. we helped build and finishing up with a bathroom for a family with 5 children who were extremely happy and grateful with our help. We also help build a new roof for another family in the neighbourhood. This particular house was leaking from all over the place in the ceiling and the roof was filled with bucket holding raindrop water. It was a joy for the family to finally have us replaced their old roof to a brand new one. While working, we had to try this new recipe of bananas stick. We were reluctant to eat it at first but when we tried it, we enjoyed it and went for second with the local families and team. We finished up late and went to visit the house for our next project in the dark, guided by our local leader trough Welfare Ville.
We thankGod for making this day possible especially for us ministering to the senior citizen and working on two different projects regardless of the opposition we had on the initial and scheduled project for the day which we will have to finish tomorrow.
We arrived late Sunday night on March 20 2011 after 11:30 pm because of a delay while connecting in Tokyo, Japan. We spent more than the one hour scheduled for our connection and in the midst of what is happening in Japan, we noticed all the people at the airport were calm especially the few Japanese coming back home or going away. That situation made us realized that God is still in control in Japan and all throughout the world.
We started our day in the afternoon on Monday March 21, 2011 because of the late arrival on Sunday and the 12 hour time change. After a quick stop at the church to drop the medical supplies and the children items, we went straight to the first house to start our project. We got introduced to the families living there and there was a joy for them to have us among them and to work together with them. We started working together with the men remodeling the bathroom which was made of decaying wood walls and rotten metal roof.
The first day went fine despite the challenge of the low ceiling structure in the house with us bumping our head at times. At the end of the day, we had the block wall half way up and tomorrow we re looking forward to finish it up by the grace of God.
Another Great day at the canal we completed the walls and roof of the house, also we joined a team from world challenge and helped them paint a house they were working on. It was nice to work along side our brothers from Texas. Also a lot of the team interacted with the children of the canal playing volleyball, jump rope and soccer and sharing the love of God with all the famlies. In the evening we had a time of fellowship and testimonies and off to bed. Next day, day 4. Some of the team headed out to the orphanage the rest of us went to the canal to just spend time with the neighborhood. Some of us helped out in the medical clinic, we drove families back and forth so they can receive medical aid. We could for 250 people and had a big dinner. There were a lot of happy faces and full stomachs! It was a glorious day!
Another great day in Mexico! The brick think team not only worked on the house, we put up the walls and the roof. We also had a team go to the orphanage to help paint and just love on the children as they also loved on us. We also had a couple of the group members help out with the on call team giving out clothes, praying with the patients and just being available to giving a helping hand. In the evening sister Kim cooked us another great meal, after our bellies were full sister Elma from the orphanage came and shared her story of faith, love, devotion and a whole lot of miracles! In bed and ready for another day! Love you all brick think team.
The BrickThink team is doing well. Foundation and walls are in place for the first house. But more importantly there’s been a lot of interaction with families in the neighborhood. We’ve given clothes out to needy children.
Some of the BrickThink team has helped with the OnCall team. And today a small group is also going over to sister Elma’s orphanage to help minister to the children. The last two nights we’ve had some great fellowship with Pastor Rick and Kim Hagans. And Pastor Rick has led us in some great group interaction and worship.
