Today has been a long day. It has been a great day but it has been long. The church rented a second cement mixer and the men of the group decided to get an early start at the worksite. They got to the worksite and first started the process of securing the rebar supports for the columns to each other so each hole would be ready for cement. While they were working on securing the rebar, the cement mixers were already running and mixing mortar for the brick laying on the walls. The mixers were cleaned and the new cement mixture was put in for the column holes to be filled.
The day was filled with brick laying with the mortar and cement mixing. Rich and Jon helped cut bricks and secure rebar into the support columns so the women could lay more brick and the men worked either mixing cement, loading sand, rocks or cement, moving rocks, sand and cement as more was delivered or pouring the finished cement into the holes. As I mentioned yesterday, each hole needed a total of 35 centimeters more to be completed and some of that had to be piled up around the large support rebar. It is difficult to describe but the pictures show the finished product of today’s work.
We had a large number of our Bolivian brothers here to help us today which made the work move much more quickly. We had plenty to fill the day and before we knew it, it was time to end the work day and head back to the hotel. We have accomplished nearly every task we had planned to do and with the work day tomorrow, we should finish everything on the planned list of jobs for our group this week. Praise the Lord.
Our work day ended at 4:00 today as we had to race back to the hotel to wash off all the cement and head out to grab dinner before the Holy Spirit service this evening. We were all pretty exhausted but a good meal helped revive us enough to make it to the service tonight. Pastor Gil and Jim had prepared extensively for this service and Pastor Ruben had worked with fifteen of his congregation who had already been baptized with the Holy Spirit and who could help facilitate others who wanted to do the same. The worship service was extended an extra fifteen minutes for tonight’s service. Instead of a 45 minute worship set, a one hour worship set was planned for this evening.
We got to sit back and watch and pray our support of the Bolivian congregation in this service. The language barrier made it difficult for us to help facilitate the prayer time in this special service. We were able to pray over the congregation and the vast majority of the congregation came forward to receive their prayer language or to have a refilling of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The prayer time went on for a very long time and person after person received their prayer language tonight. We heard several testimonies and it was such a sweet and special time we were able to experience with the Bolivian church. One of our own team members received their prayer language tonight as well for the first time. God is good!
Tomorrow Pastor Gil makes the trip back home two days early to get ready for some more travel on Sunday. We will miss him but we are so grateful for his presence here with us on this trip. He is a joy to get to spend time with and we are so blessed to call him Pastor and friend. Tomorrow the rest of us will return to the church for one last work day. It will be the last time the ladies will prepare lunch for us and our last day visiting with Pastor Ruben and Isabel as well. All the workers at the church have become so dear to us over this last week. We will be so sad tomorrow to say goodbye to them all. They have asked if we will stop work early to have a time of fellowship with them over Bolivian pastries in the afternoon and we gladly accepted. We want to soak up as much time with these precious people as we can before we have to pack up to leave.
It’s hard to believe that the work time is almost over. It is amazing to look and and see all that has been accomplished. This group really is remarkable with so many tireless and devoted workers. I have to give a huge shout out to the men of this trip. They are all little energizer bunnies. I’m so grateful for each one who kept working without complaining and with the heart of a servant. What a joy to work with each and every one of them. God knew what He was doing when he hand picked this team. We truly are blessed. As always, we are thankful for you all and we can’t wait to share all the details of our trip with you when we return. Love to you!