Proof we really have been working!

Today we nearly completed our main work project here at El Sembrador. While it will only take a few seconds to scroll through the pictures, we can all testify that it was three labor intensive days!

The courtyard that turns into a pond during rainy season. It becomes very slick when wet and even had some mold problems.

Our first task was to remove the 2 inch thick brick tiles without breaking any others around them. Mark ran the angle grinder for hours!

The dust made it hard to breathe and made a real mess, but the bandanna's were fun for pictures!

Then came removing the tiles. After this picture, we found that a mini sledge hammer and a chisel were the best way to go.

When I took this picture about half way through day one, I thought we had done the hard part. Little did we know that there was about 1.5 inches of mortar to cut through and about 4 inches of cement under that to cut and pound and chisel through and that was before using a pick to dig through rocks and clay. The majority of that process was on Tuesday, and it was so dusty that we didn't bring our cameras out much.

Heidi and Adrianne spent much of Monday and Tuesday making the replacement tiles. They had to fill the forms with concrete and tint the top 1/8 inch to match the current tiles as much as possible. The forms and dye were made by Thad Gouge, the missionary who is our project manager.

We did have some help from some Honduran friends. Mark was always able to make them smile.

Jumping ahead to this morning, we made sure the slope was perfect which required more digging, but it was fun to finally get the pipe in the ground.

While the color on the bricks does look a little different now, the color was matched to an original piece of brick, so with a little weathering, they should match great!

We still have a few tiles to put mortar around, but we are otherwise finished! It even rained tonight so we were able to get a real life test. The drain passed with flying colors!

Tomorrow we will be painting part of the front of the building. Thanks for continuing to follow us in your prayers!

Nathan for the team