Stuffing envelopes… and laying cement

Wow, already Thursday, ooops… I mean Friday! Thankfully things have been very good so far. I’ve been super busy, and that’s made time fly. However, being busy in a way, has actually allowed me to become comfortable as well. Generally your body might be knocked a little out of wack in a new environment. How you sleep, how much you eat, etc etc can change and make it more difficult to cope with all the new experiences. However, since I’ve been working hard, it’s been easy to sleep, and you’re always going to eat at meals. :-) Here’s a basic overview of what’s happened over the last few days.

Wednesday, we ripped off the wood framing for a cement foundation, and then filled it with gravel and soil. After compressing it all, we realized that we wouldn’t be able to finish laying cement that day. The area is approximately half the size of the cement slab we lay when building one of the houses during the summer. So we’ve put that off until today.

Yesterday, I went up to the States in the morning and while others went to their respective work stations, I helped clean the storage room, vacuum, dust, empty trashes, clean the bathroom etc etc. It went well, but I realized I should bring a project to work on if I go to the office and there’s a possibility that there will be down time. --- In the early afternoon we had a staff meeting, where we prayed, and talked about current issues, projects, what’s happening recently at the orphanage, and what we could improve on. My favorite part, was “ask John”. Basically, John is a staff member who grew up in Mexico and has a very good understanding of the culture, the language and so on. The rest of us, (all of us still learning at our respective levels), can ask him questions pertaining to anything we’ve seen, noticed or wondered about. It’s super helpful. However, something that I may struggle with is gestures. Pointing, with a finger or anything is very rude in Mexican culture. Even if you were pointing out something to someone, “we need help over there” *point*, with your pointer finger, or anything like that, is very rude. However, what really surprised me is that a thumbs up, what we may use as an “ok”, or “good job” is actually very similar to using your middle finger. I along with a number of other staff members were really surprised, and quickly felt guilty that we had done that a number of times already. Now I have to go against instinct, and remember not to do that. --- The office project for the day, was stuffing envelops for Project Mexico’s new fundraising campaign the “iCan give 20.4.24”. Basically, we’re asking people if they can donate $20 a month for two years. Really it’s a starbucks a week, or a lunch out a week, less than $.75 a day. More info on the fundraising in a few days… --- Finally we loaded up the vehicles going back down to Mexico, with supplies (milk, water bottles, juice and rice) from the warehouse.

Today then, Geoff, Maddie, Alex and I laid the cement slab for the generator. It took about 2 hours to lay the slab, which actually was very quick considering the area filled. Now, after I cleaned up, I’m back to working on my español.

Pray for me and my Spanish learning…

Joel

PS – I’m just writing things off the top of my head, if there’s ever anything, you would like to know, or hear more about, comment on the post, or email me. Thanks!