First Official Day of Work

Today marked our first whole day of work on Juanitto's house.  We have been there before, but only spent a few hours there moving dirt.  It was Tyler, Ryley, Matt, and also my job to move dirt from a dirt pile to an area in the house to raise the floor up.  I am not kidding you when I say that we hauled over 125 wheel barrels of dirt today.  The wheel barrels here are not in the best shape and kind of hard to run.  It is only 8:35 here right now and we are all thinking about heading to bed soon. 

The house is moving along great.  Juanitto is a man who works at the school we are staying at and has two girls he has raised all by himself.  He is a great person who deserves what we are building for him.  Some people on the team laid brick while others made re-rods and got them ready.  I bent rods some of the day as well.  It was extremely hot here today and there are a few members of the team who are sick.  Hopefully they will all be good to go by tomorrow.

Last night we had a game night with all of us.  The main game we played was Catch Phrase.  It was boys vs. girls and it got really heated.  We were down by a lot in the last game and came back to win and we were all going nuts.   Then we played 3 games of Spoons and I would just like to thank my DeBerg side of the family for all the games of Spoons we used to play.  I ended up winning two out of the three games. 

Overall today was a great day.  I am exhausted and ready for bed, but it was definitely worth it.  I am gaining more and more appreciation for my life each and every day.  I love it here and am planning on coming back each year for as long as I am able.

One thing I did want to share before I head to bed.  We are working on building a house, and the older lady who lives right next to him in a pretty beat up house.  She came up to each of us and shook our hands and said how grateful she was that we were doing this for her neighbor.  She also said that we could come into her house any time to get out of the sun.

That got me thinking about things back home.  If someone builds a house next to anyone back home, most of the time the neighbor is jealous or mad at them because they have a new house and have something better.  I think that is the main thing I will take back from this trip.  I need to appreciate what I have instead of being envious of what others have that I don't.  I am blessed with good health and a great family and that is all that really matters.

Until next time...