What a Day....God is our Foreman....

Woke this morning at 5:00am to the sounds of the monkeys in the trees across the street.  Pretty loud fellas to wake us like that....
Breakfast was early today because we had to start working the concrete early.  Chris White gave the devotion and it was based on the scripture from 1 Corinthians 3:5-11.  God is the foreman, we are the laborers.  The scripture for today was appropriate to our task, because He would lead us through and we would have to follow.

Folks, working with concrete here was nothing like I had ever done, or seen done in my life.  We shoveled sand and gravel into 2 cubic foot boxes and poured that into electric mixers (at least we did not have to stir it all by hand), along with a bag of concrete mix.   After that was mixed, it was poured into a back hoe and lifted to the roof.  Once it reached the roof, the crew up there shoveled it from the back hoe, into wheel barrows, and then pushed it across the spanse of the roof and dumped it.  Then it had to be troweled and smoothed by hand.   In the states we would have hired a company to come pour it for us and they'd have had it done in a couple of hours.  Fortunately, we were very blessed by some of the members of the church here, because about 8-10 men and women joined us to help out.  One man came to help after a 12 hour shift at his regular job.  I cry thinking about the dedication and love these people have for their church and their pastor.  Even Pastor Carlos worked all morning with us.  By lunch time we made an executive decision to rest our aching muscles and take off to a local waterfall to cool off.   Since we had completed almost half of the concrete work, we decided we'd reached a good place to stop, and start again tomorrow.  Church services will start at 7:00, so we need time to get ready for dinner and be in church on time.

Surely God is in this place and we have enjoyed watching and feeling his power.  There is so much love here and blessings are being answered.

We loaded up in a few cars and headed out for a little rest.  The waterfall was AMAZING.  We went down a dirt and rock path, parked and walked the rest of the way.  As soon as we crossed the creek, the monkeys started talking to us.  Then we saw the waterfall.  A few of the braver ones swam across and jumped from the cliff.  Photos don't do this place justice friends.

Sleep will come easy tonight.   We're tired, but excited about what's been done.   Wonder how many people will show up to work tomorrow...... we are hoping for an army.  

We have been told that some people are having trouble making comments on the blog.  We're not sure, but you may have to become a follower, or set up an account with blogspot.com.   If anyone can offer any suggestions, that'd be quite a help. 

I failed to mention one thing the other day.  One of our team members, Jim Grenfell, has been coming to Costa Rica, and working on this church, since they broke ground in 2000.  He lives in Florida and attends Matecumbe United Methodist Church in Islamorada, Fl.  A couple of the ladies in his church made a stained glass window to give/dedicate to the church here.  Special thanks go out to Susan Bateman, Carol Wagner and the folks at Matecumbe United Methodist Church in Islamorada, Fl. for that window.  It is beautiful!
Gods blessings to you all... God is good people..... all the time....!!!!