This is what my crunch of the van looks like

We headed out to the job site Thursday morning.This is a new job, which is at the base of the dump in Danli. The project is a house for a pastor. This is a VERY poor area. While heading up the mountain, we saw homes made from pepsi crates, and steps made of tires. One of the girls in the van yelled that she saw a tropical bird in a tree. Then, shortly later, she says, Never mind, it's a chicken." We have gotten a lot of mileage out of that one. It has been raining so the smell of the area wasn't the best, but the group got a lot of work done that day.  

Friday proved to be a very challenging day getting WAAAAAAAAAYYYYY up the mountain to an area called El Parasito. It had rained ALL night previous to our leaving, so we were concerned about the mountain roads being muddy and slippery.  We were right to be concerned.  They were.  Our vans would not make the trip, so we had two men from the church we were going to work on come and get us in their pickup trucks, along with our black pickup.  Bob drove the black pickup while Tom and I rode with the others in the back.  This time it was a two hour trip standing up in the back of the pickup.  The rest of the group rode in the backs of the other two pickups.  The "road" was horrible. VERY muddy. I watched one of the trucks take a hairpin curve on 3 wheels.  It didn't give any of us a warm and fuzzy feeling. Of course, it started to rain while we were going up. There was one section of very steep mud that we had to come down. The first truck to go down slid into a VERY LARGE rut and slammed into it really hard. One of the guys riding in the back of the truck injured his ribs.  The rest of us who watched it happened still had to go down the same road. We did though and were VERY happy to have it over.

No good picture to show the deep ruts, but this one would show the narrow road.

one of the concrete floors in the house in El Paraiso

The job was to pour a concrete floor for the pastor's house. This team had paid to have the house built and had come to put on the finishing touch. We were greeted by the pastor and many of his congregation excited to have us and ready to go to work. We worked all morning with them mixing the cement and pouring a floor for the new house. We had made arrangements for the women of the Parasito church to cook our lunch and we would reimburse them the expense. We had a typical lunch, chicken and rice with tortillas. It was delicious. When we tried to pay the ladies they refused any money. They said it was their way of showing appreciation for what we were doing. That may not sound like a big deal to you at home, but trust me that was a sacrifice of food they needed for their own families. We had no choice but to be gracious and accept their gift so as not to offend them.



After working all day on the mountain, we were ready to leave.  The heavens opened up and I mean opened up. It poured.  All of us were thinking the same thing.  How in the world were we going to get off that mountain. One of the trucks that brought us up, broke a spring when it hit the large rut (and injured the guy), so a different man brought his truck to take us down.  We loaded in all three trucks. While we were in these 3 trucks, we were all thinking the same thing. How are we possibly going to do this? One of the guys in our truck said, "I think we need to pray about our trip down."  We all agreed, so our truck started praying out loud. After he was finished, we felt better (NOT great, but better).  Then we were told we were going down a different way.  OK, that sounds great to us; but wait a minute. That means we don't know what is ahead….. Is this good or bad??  Anyway, we started down. The rains slowed down and we looked over a cliff and there was a complete rainbow.  It was beautiful.  Someone said, "God heard our prayer.  It is going to be alright."  We all started to relax and enjoy the ride.  The rain had stopped, but the road was a muddy mess. A little bit later, we started passing through mud slides.  Now that isn't good. Would we be able to get through?  About that time, we see a grater.  Yes, you heard me.  A VERY LARGE GRATER, the kind you see at a large construction site.  The grater was grating the tiny muddy road in front of us! How in the world did that thing get up there and at that precise moment in time???? We all knew the answer to that question.  It stopped at a point in the road where we could get past it (Not a small feat on these paths) without any trouble. By this time, there were only two trucks.  We couldn't see the last one.  It was the one with the teens in it. We went the rest of the way to the river we needed to cross.  The rain started up heavy again. The river was swollen and running quickly.  We are told to get out of the truck; that we would be walking across a foot bridge to the other side.  The trucks would leave us at that point.  Now Bob and Evelyn are in the black pickup.  Paul (leader of the team fro the states) tells Bob that Bob would drive the pickup adjacent to the river and cross at a bridge "down there."  It was the same bridge that we used to get across in the morning. Thing was, Bob had no idea where he was.  Paul said, just follow the river and you'll get to it.  We were concerned that if there was a problem, we would be separated and couldn't help Bob.  Paul said, "no problem, he has a cell phone." Hmmmmm, again not the warm and fuzzy feeling.  I pictured them floating down river somewhere, with his cell phone in his hand….. 
 
We crossed the foot bridge and got to the other side. This was a suspended bridge out of an Indiana Jones movie. Wire and rope strung across the river with wood pieces placed in between to walk on. The waist high wire to hold onto as you went across was barbed wire. Are you kidding me!!! Barbed wire to grab if you fall. Large empty areas between the slats also were a joy to see.  We walked to our vans that we had parked and Paul told me to load up my van and go on back to the hotel.  He said there was no point in all of us saying for Bob and the other truck.  We told him we had no idea where the other truck was with the teens in it.  Just about that time, we see them literally drive by us!  They did not see us along the side of the road.  It was hilarious.  I pointed out the van and said to Tom, "there go the kids!" Tom started towards the street and yelled at them.  The driver heard him and turned around.  I went on ahead and by the time Tom got his van loaded, Bob and Evelyn had showed up.  All was well that ends well.

Saturday we went back up to the house we worked on by the dump and finished pouring a temporary cement floor for the parishioners to use outside the pastor;s home.  The congregation took down the old roof and supports at the old location and moved it to the new location. The group also worked on the electric for the pastor's home.  Some of the teens showed the children in the area how to play baseball.  They used a thin board and a tennis ball.  It was cute to watch.  Saturday night we went to a church service where this team had worked on the roof of the church last year. It was a good service with lots and lots of music. 

Concrete slab for church

Sunday we started back to Tegucigalpa.  On the way home we went off the beaten path and went up to see a pastor and his family.  They were so happy to see us.  This group had helped build his church as well back in 2009. This pastor has an adult daughter who works in the fields of a farm with a machete.  She has bad veins in her legs and about a week ago, one of those veins exploded and she almost died from the blood loss. The gaping hole by her ankle is grotesque and she is far from being ok. She must take injections due to all the blood loss. Just watching how she is living would tear your heart out. she has no shoes, other than flip flops, so she does not have any support at all. One of the women in  the group took off her own shoes and gave them to the woman.

The woman in the black shirt and white pants is the one with the vein problem.

So many things we can be truly thankful for that we take for granted everyday.