Halfway Point

June 29th-July 1st-Day 21-23
    Wednesday I went to build another house in El Peliguin on the backside of El Hatillo which is the mountain the mission house is on.  This house site was up on the side of the mountain but it was more like a swamp than a mountain.  We had to dig drainage ditces to drain some of the water away from the site.  A few of the guys started to square up the house and when I asked them if they thought they could get it square they all just handed me their tapes, they learned quickly.  I had it within a half inch pretty quickly.  The first whole we dug started filling up with water and when we packed it with dirt the post nearly fell over, it was that wet and muddy.  So we had to use bags of cement to hold all of the post in place, even the post in between the corner post.  The build went fairly well.  We didn't have any major issues and the team worked great together.  The only issue we really had was that Pat and I got the team started on the wrong walls first so we had to finish the floor and the 4th wall before we could start the roof so the team was sort of sitting around with nothing to do as the roof was finished.  We then went to the Jesus statue wednesday night and had devo with one of Tim Hines groups. 
    On Thursday I went to Didasko to get my Silas on.  After all the months of planning and weeks doing VBS in 3 different countries, this was the last day of VBS for me.  We had about 80 kids at the orphanage and just had a blast.  The games, snacks, crafts, skits, and everything else was absolutely perfect.  Terry said he thought that this was our best performance of a skit so far.  We found out that the Choluteca house building team will not be going all the way to Choluteca.  The place is actually called San Lorenzo and it's close to Choluteca but not quite there, only like 2 and a half hours away.  It's still supposedly extremely hot and it has been raining for 72 straight hours down there which is causing us to not be able to go on Friday but to wait until Saturday now.  We are still going to try to build as many houses in a day as is humanly possible so it'll still be a tough weekend.  The main group is leaving on Monday so the ppl that are going to build houses will come back to Teguc on Sunday and the interns that are going will stay with Nathan Reeves and his team to work until Monday evening and then we'll come back. 
    Today, Friday, I went to paint Jenn Arnolds house.  A team of 11 of us went out to paint hers and Josue's house and it was a really nice and easy day before the trip to San Lorenzo tomorrow.  We got nearly the entire house finished, outside only, before the rains set in for the night.  We then came back to the mission house and had devo and now I'm in the bed about to fall asleep.  Tomorrow will be a long day because we will leave at 8:30, get to San Lorenzo around 10:30 or 11 and start building houses by noon.  Hopefully the rain will have stopped by the time we get there and if it doesn't I'm not sure what we'll do.  I've heard that they haven't been getting just normal rainshowers but that it's been torrential downpours for days.  So hopefully everything will work out.
    The intern team only has 10 more days down here and it's in the back of all of our minds but we aren't ready to face that fact yet.  In the past few weeks together we've really grown into a family and it's going to be tough to say goodbye to each other in just a few short days.  The past 3 weeks have been incredible and hopefully our last 10 days together will be just as amazing.  I'm absolutely looking forward to the team from home coming down here.  I'm excited to see the rookies and how they react to the things they will see and to have my brother down here for the first time will be great.  My trip is nearly halfway over and it seems like it just started.  It has gone by so quickly, it seems like just yesterday we were landing in San Jose.  But as amazing as the first part of the trip has been, the second part is shaping up to be incredible as well.  The interns will be leaving Teguc on Tuesday for Santa Rosa de Copan for a week.  It'll be my first trip up there and should be great.  I hope everyone back home is doing great.
    One of our interns is a girl I've known for a few years and many of you back home know her as well.  She does the Torch blog every night and a Torch trip just isn't the same without her.  Brandy Barnett received some terrible news when we returned from painting Jenn's house today.  Her father passed away earlier today.  She was scheduled to fly home on Monday but she will now be going home tomorrow, June 2nd.  I ask that you all keep her and her family in your prayers.  He has had some health issues of late but this was still unexpected.  The next few days, weeks and months are going to be tough for her so please keep her in your prayers.
July 2-Day 24
    We left the mission house about 9 this morning and started heading towards San Lorenzo.  Since the main team leaves out Monday morning, those of us staying here in San Lorenzo until monday evening had to say goodbye to all the great people we've met.  I'm a huge fan of the show Survivor.  I always wonder how the people on the show can say they've created life long friends while only being around those people for a couple of weeks.  This year I can honestly say I can understand how they do it now.  There have been some amazing people on this team and I am really going to miss seeing a bunch of them.  Saying goodbye this morning really really sucked.  I wish them the best as they head back home on Monday and hopefully I'll get to see some of them soon once we are back in the States.  We made it to San Lorenzo about 12:30, after we had a time and a half finding the hotel.  Made it to the house sites around 2 after we realized they booked us in the farthest hotel from the site.  Then we quickly realized that the way they wanted the houses built and the way we do them are completely different.  The wood lengths and quantities we gave them were for a 16x16 ft house on the ground.  They have it laid out for a 24x19 ft house 3 1/2 ft off the ground.  So we quickly realized that we wouldn't be doing anything today except figuring out how to make this work.  I understand the plan that we have created to make this work but I just don't see it working too well.  I hope I'm completely wrong but I don't see these houses being here in a year, but we'll see.  We are going to build them on 6 inch diameter circular concrete columns.  I'll try to get a picture up of it but it scares me.  We are back at the hotel now with a few of the guys swimming so it's really been a productive day.  16 of the 20 that made the trip down are going to have to leave at 10 a.m tomorrow to get back to Teguc since they leave for the States Monday morning.  The 4 of us that stay will meet up with a team of 6 to work until Monday afternoon.  So it's been a frustrating and boring day.  Hopefully tomorrow we can get rocking and rolling with these houses.  It is pretty HOT down here too.  It's like South Carolina in the middle of August but with higher humidity, a good 20 degrees warmer than in Teguc.  The houses that the workers live in, the ones we are building new ones for, are terrible.  There are about 70 houses in this little worker village on this farm and most of them are made with sticks about 6 inches apart with mud pushed up between the sticks.  With the flooding they've had, the bottom 2 or 3 ft of the houses are washed out and they have cardboard or vinyl or sacks or garbage bags to enclose the bottom parts of their houses.  Some of them don't even have a wall or two, it reminds me of the kind of little shacks the ppl on Survivor live in for a few weeks.  It's pretty terrible.  This wouldn't be high on my list of places to live.  Today is the halfway point in this trip 24 days down and 24 to go.  A lot of firsts and a lot of surprises made up the first half of the trip and hopefully the next half is just as GREAT!