closing the chapter...

Well... my work with eMi has come to a close (for full time work anyway). God is leading our family on to other things stateside. I'm sure I will still go on eMi project trips here and there and who knows what the future holds. For now this site will serve as a journal of sorts for the work I was able to do with eMi in Guatemala.

Future ministry work will probably be written about in a different blog. You can always hear the latest on teamhaddox.blogspot.com and find out where I am writing about our current ministry involvement.

Office work...

I haven't written about work in a while so I thought I would give it an update.

Nothing so exotic has happened with work lately. After the conference I have been in the office working on wrapping up the open projects for the office. Paying office bills and reviewing reports and plans is much less exciting to read about than the snake wrestling, jungle trodding work that have filled my days before. The ministry is just as powerful nonetheless. I may not be in the depths physically but the projects I am working on will be constructed there. True ministry is not found in the exciting but rather in obedience and service. I hope that I have been a helpful hand in the closing of current projects. I am glad to have the opportunity to be a part of so many truly meaningful ministries by working on designs for them.

Tomorrow I will visit Tabacal for the last time to schedule the construction of about 5 block homes for the most needy families there. Hopefully I will get around to posting about their progress.

eMi 25th Ann World Conference

I didn't know many of the people in eMi before the conference. This was my main reason for going to the conference. I was able to meet most everyone from every office around the world. I met all emi staff at the conference as well as everyone else attending the conference except 25 people.

My journey to the conference from Guatemala was a God lesson that can be read about here. The breakout sessions on Disaster Response were the highlight for me (aside from meeting all the wonderful people at the conference). Scott Powell of eMi did a great job of putting that together. We had head representatives from Samaritan's Purse, World Vision, YWAM and Food for the Hungry.

All of the members of the Guatemala eMi office have gone back to the states. I am the only one here as the office transitions to become the Latin America office and moves to Costa Rica. Tom and his family will return at the end of the month and I will help him pack up the office for the move in September. Anyway, it was great to see everyone there at the conference and be able to have a lot of social time with them. It was a grand farewell. Some of them will be moving down to Costa Rice but we will not. Our time in Guatemala is coming to a close as our sights move toward the possibilities of Jordan.

It was an encouraging and exciting time to be together and see all that eMi is doing and has done around the world. eMi is on the cutting edge, showing that everyone can use their skills to further the gospel and for engineers the Lord is actively using them through eMi in "designing a world of hope..."

broken plans = God's provision...

I am writing this post rom my hotel room in LA. My flight was delayed and I missed my connection to Guatemala. Heather is sick at home and I desperately want to be with her, yet I am calm, trusting the hand of God. This is because I just learned from my traveling TO this conference in Jackson Hole WY that I am never out of God's hands. It is only when my plans go wrong that I can really see God's provision.

This webTV application has erased my post 3 times so I will continue this story later. ...more to come...

Adventures in Jordan...

(See post in Team Haddox also here)I was able to join an eMi project team to Jordan to advise Habitat for Humanity (who "displays the love of Jesus through building homes for the poor") how they can streamline their construction process and look at the possibility of moving over there with my family to work in implementing the construction suggestions. This was the first eMi trip of its kind. Construction management is a new and developing department.

I would arrive a couple days before the rest of the team. The flight was long and torturous. I left on the 23rd and arrived on the 25th! and to top it all off, the airline misplaced my bag. When I arrived at the Habitat team home, where we all would be staying, I washed my one set of stinky travel clothes in the tub and set them out on the fence to dry. I later came back to find my shirt missing. I even lost the shirt off my back! I was able to borrow some clothes until my bag finally arrived 5 days later but when I received it, my phone and PDA were stolen out of it. First the laptop stolen at LAX and now my phone and PDA! Thanks be to God that he gave me the patience and detachment enough to not let it bother me and maintain a fun attitude. I know that stuff is only stuff but I find that dispite how I would LIKE to respond in certain circumstances, I rarely can accomplish it but in this case God gave me the grace.

After a day of rest the team arrived and the project began. We evaluated their construction by serving them as a work team in the construction of the roofing system on a current house project. We just followed their direction to see how they do it and note areas for improvement. We had 4 funfilled days of formwork, tieing rebar, mixing concrete, and best of all we poured the entire roof as a bucket brigate up the scaffolding. They were days of great conversations with the locals. The team was constantly joking around like highschool boys. One team member put it best when he said, "guys never mature past the age of 14".

Each lunch we had the privilage of eating at the home of the father of the woman for whome we were building the house. Authentic meals in a local's home really gave all of us a great connection with the land and the people.

By the end of the days of construction, everyone had a pretty good idea of ways to greatly increase the effectiveness of the construction process. We had seen a lot and God had used our expertise to reveal areas of improvement. We had a meeting with the Habitat staff to discuss some of thease measures. My main areas were in site preperation and grading, foundation, and different building technologies with the same building materials that would be safer and cheaper and possibly faster. It all was a lot for them to process. We will now work on a comprehensive report to be slowly implemented this year and the next. Overall I think we were an effective instrument in God's hand to provide excellent insight and advise as to how to improve their system and make them more effective in reaching their goals of displaying Jesus through building affordable housing for the poor.

After the trip we were able to tour a bit. My visit to Mt Nebo where Moses gave his final adress to the Israelites, where God showed him the promised land, and where he died and God secretly buried him. It was a deeply spiritual experience to be there in the actual place where Moses was and read his final exhortation to the people, "these are not just idle words, they are your life!"

Later we visited a crusader castle where Randy Craig and I found a secret escape staircase/cave. We used the LCD screens from our cameras as lights down the steep and slippery path. It was MUCH langer than we had figured but finally we reached the other side and trekked back up the mountain to find the rest of the team looking for us and waiting to leave (OOPS!).

We also visited the ever famous Petra. This place was extrordinary and beyond description. We rode horses into Petra from the hotel. Craig and I had fun riding donkeys up the mountain to the "monestary". Later Steve and Randy joined us for a camel ride that turned into a four way camel race back to the Siq (the 1/4 mi. narrow canyon that is the entrance to Petra).

After the team left I spent a couple more days in Jordan with teammember Brian. We visited another castle and an entire first century Roman city in Jeresh. When I went to the airport I stuffed all my luggage into one carry-on sized bag but the bag was too heavy. I explained to the ticketing agent that m y bag was previously lost and robbed of items. He insisted on it being checked and, of course, my bag was lost again and I still have yet to receive it! (hence no pictures in this post) The flight back was no better than the one going. I probably slept a total of 1 hour through the entire journey. The one motivation was meeting Heather and the kids in LA.

What a spectacular adventure. Whoever said following Christ is boring is just plain hanging out with the wrong crowd!

DENGE strikes again...

Jonathan is in the hospital with Denge fever (a tropical disease contracted from mosquitoes). He has been in the hospital for a few days without them knowing what was wrong. Yesterday the "infectious disease" specialist saw him and dignosed Denge. This is actually a good thing because now they know what they are dealing with and can treat it. The other good thing is that he is not contagious (good because my family visited him in the hospital a couple days ago :)) We will visit him again today on the way to the embassy to pick up Anzo's visa. Jonathan will be heading home in a few days instead of staying until the 23rd. I will be presenting our report to the leaders of Balcones regarding future improvements to the water system

Block home started...

Paul and I started the construction of our new block design home in San Pablo Atitlan for a widow and her two daughters who are Tzutujil Mayan and do not speak Spanish. The local pastor Tono was able to translate for us from Tzutujil into Spanish and she expressed her immense gratitude. She even helped where she could by carrying dirt in for fill using a 1 gallon pale. We carried in the sand and gravel using 1 Gal pales and potato sacks. We mixed the rock, sand and cement on the pad of the building using a couple shovels and hoes. (oh, to have a pumper truck).

With all prototype designs, it started slow. In our three days there we got the reinforcement placed and foundation laid. The Pastor Tono was previously a contractor and I was able to go over the plans and the construction process with him and he will finish the building with some other people from the church. Paul will return tomorrow to check on the process.

Her home will be the 4m x 6m home design. I anticipate that the final cost of the building will be less than $1500 with a water filter and high efficiency wood stove. All the materials are locally produced and/or sold so this will help bolster the economy as well.

Update on San Pablo

Remember the house we built for Jorge in San Pablo?(The Lake Houses Jan 22, 2007) Here it is finished. Jorge finished the door and window and the stucco on the outside and it looks great.

We have created a new design for a home using block. The design takes longer to build but is cheaper. Paul and I will be building the prototype this next week (may 6-8) for a widow and her children. Hopefully the construction will go well and we can build another in San Pablo and 9 more in other locations in July and August.

San Pablo is made primarily of adobe. some of which is not even made from adobe bricks but rather from corn stalks in a grid with mud on them. Many of these homes are barely standing but we still are limiting our construction for those recommended by the local church who have no home at all.

Balcones...

Finally I post on the work in Balcones. Jonathan has been with us since January and we have worked together in the refugee community of Balcones de Palin. His original task was to be the construction manager for the design and construction of a new water tank, a suspension bridge to anothe comunity, and a clinic. This has been shortened down to the design and construction of the tank and evaluation/reparation plans for the water system (welcome to Guatemalan timelines).

I feel like I have had a lot to contribute to this project in particular. Most of the eMi projects revolve around structural systems where I know the least. With this project I was able to really teach Jonathan about Hydraulics in pipes and come up with some creative ways to overcome some very difficult conditions.

We knew things were going to be tough when the people tore down the old tank without telling us and before the tank design was even finished. From the huge rock under the tank area that broke the backhoe and the neighbors slab, that was too big to remove from the site and is still sitting in the road; to the workers being accustomed to certain construction and not listening to Jonathan's advice, to undersized pipes broken all over with holes drilled in them "to let the air out". It has been quite a journey. At virtually every step there was a new obstacle. Solving one problem only seemed to uncover 5 more but God has given us the grace, patience and creativity to meet them head on and, I believe, come up with some great, creative solutions .

Jonathan has been able to grow professionally as well as personally by working and living in such a challenging environment. We have had some great times studying the word in how God relates to men and discussing how to bring these trues into daily life.

The tank is nearing completion and Jonathan will return home May 23. I consider it a privilage that I was able to work with him in the office, have so much fun having him the times he was living in our home, and approach new discoveries on site while living in Balcones.

Guatemalan Sinkhole

At the end of February a large sinkhole opened up in Zone 6 of Guatemala City. I'm sure you have heard of it, but if you haven't go here to read an article I was interviewed for concerning the details of the sinkhole. This post won't be about the details of the sinkhole but rather my involvement.

A couple weeks ago, just after the sinkhole opened, my curiosity brought me to visit the sinkhole site. You must understand that here in Guatemala you are given a lot of respect with a title and engineers are placed in a similar category as doctors. I figured that I could come to the control area and say I am an engineer from the states and I am looking for the engineer in charge of the site and then I would be able to learn what happened and see the hole for myself. There are always very interesting engineering lessons to be learned from these odd types of disasters.

The surrounding police and army quickly welcomed me and sent me from person to person working my way up the ladder of command. I was ushered in past barricades and into makeshift offices and introduced to brass from the army and city and government officials. I even had a meeting set up with the director of public works for Guatemala City to discuss how I may be of assistance.

There is a camera set on a boom stretching out into the crevice which is controlled remotely. I was able to look at the video and move the camera around zooming in on the problem areas at the bottom of the hole. I was utterly amazed at what kind of red carpet was rolled out for me simply because of my title.

The site itself was impressive, the size of the hole, the sounds of the water, the smells of the sewer. Over a week has passed since my initial meeting and yesterday I brought Jonathan to the site to see it and to check on how things were going. I was remembered and welcomed by name. Not much has changed. They still have not been able to do an assessment because there is still water falling into the hole from the storm drain collector pipes.

I just found the situation quite interesting and becomes another one of my stories labeled, "only in Guatemala..." Only in Guatemala can you show up at a disaster site as an unknown person on a motorcycle and be welcomed into the inner workings. Yesterday I was even able to enter passed all the blockades and come within a few meters of the hole to take pictures (the pic was stitched from several pics from being so close)

Chichi church...

Manuel from Tabacal as well as many of the people from Tabacal are originally from a village named Lacama in Chichicastenango. I had been there once before to preach the opening sermon to a newly united church there under the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. This church is now more than 500 Mayan people! they have found land that they are purchasing and are meeting there without any building, just out in the sun. The CMA of Guatemala asked me to work with them in the design and construction of a new building. They anticipate that once the building is there, the attendance may swell to 1000-2000 people in the next year so the structure will remain primarily without walls so that if more people come than can fit in the building, they can still meet.

When I was asked to come and visit the church in Chichi I was unaware of what was going on, I only knew they were having a conference of some sort. I was amazed at the welcome we received. When Marco Antonio (Friend from church and on the board of CMA of Guatemala) and I came there were about 600 people there (the previous day they had about 1200-1500). They welcomed us up and we both said a few words. We then convened for lunch and get to the business of the new church. We ate in a small adobe home in places of honor with the deputy mayor of the department of Chichi.

When we left we had scheduled for me to come back the following week to survey the property. This next visit required bringing the whole family. The people of Lacama and Tabacal have wanted my family to visit Lacama so they can know them.


That next week, on Valentines Day, I returned with my family and Jonathan to help me with the survey. We met Manuel at the school and all the kids came out to greet us. The crowd just kept growing and growing. The principle of the school had prepared for our visit and brought us to each of the classrooms for us to say a word to them. The classes all either made a craft for us or sang songs for us or even made us some ceviche to eat. This all was very humbling that we would be considered like celebrities. we ate lunch at Manuel's home and then Jonathan and I set out to survey while Heather met wth the women and the kids played with the village children.

The survey went very smoothly except the battery, which had been charging in the car, now did ot work. So again I slipped into MacGuyver mode and we constructed a battery out of some extra AAA batteries we had brought for the data recorder. Once the equipment was working we were able to take the survey in less than 1.5 hours. When surveying, the most important thing to do is to have two defined points so that you can always return later, align yourself to the previous survey and then do whatever else you need. We had one defined point and took all the survey points. I decided that we needed to define a second point quickly just in case of something went wrong. We shot a second defined point and the very next point, the equipment stopped working. We had all the information we needed but thank God that we were able to get the second defined point!

see more photos

The Lake Houses...

Lake Atitlán was one of the places hardest hit by Hurricane Stan. We have not been able to help the people there mainly due to the fact that as a policy we will not design or build on land that is not yours and most of the people around the lake now have land that is either unusable, unstable, or confiscated as a cemetary. Fortunately, due to its high profile, the majority of aid for the hurricane victims has been aimed at Lake Atitlán and many have found help.

I was able to aid YWAM in the construction of two homes in San Pablo on the northwest shore of the lake because they were providing the funding and I was merely providing the technology and direction in the construction. San Pablo is primarily a lakeside coffee village. The town is pretty low key and composed of nearly all adobe buildings. Many of the people own small coffee farms or they work picking the coffee. I watched the people bring their 100lb sacks of coffee to the market and receive a little more than a dollar for each sack. I watched one boy about 10 years old carrying his 100lb sack of coffee and his backpack down the street in torn clothes and without shoes.

One of our constuction projects was a block addition to an adobe home and the other was a complete new home. My involvement as primarily with the new home because it was built with electropanel, the strange material we use in our home designs. We couldn't use our design because the size of Jorge's property was smaller than the footprint of our home. His property is about 10'x16'! We customized the home to half its size and builtit there along the new road. Before, both he and his wife were living on the property with 4 sticks holding up a tin roof and corn stalks tied together with some plastic bits. They used another sheet of plastic tied like a tent to the surrounding coffee trees with a small "campfire" as the kitchen. He now has a secure home with a concrete floor that he can lock to keep both his family and his belongings safe.


Go to my Flickr account to see all the photos

Trip to Palin

Randy, Jonathan, Todd and I went to Palin and then on to Balcones de Palin to introduce Todd and Jonathan to the work there and show them what Jonathan will be doing. For lunch in Palin we had the traditional dish particular to this area - Iguana. and we ate under the Ceiba tree in the central park. The base of the tree was about 12'-15' in diameter and the spread of the branches was almost 200'.

Our time in Balcones was productive and I will give a better introduction in January when Jonathan comes back to live and work there. I will be supervising Jonathan and traveling there at least once a week.

See more Palin photos here

Farewell to Randy

Randy, you were and will always be a good friend.

Church plant in Chichi

Manuel of Tabacal was the "pastor" of a group of people in his home village in the department of Chichicastenango. When he left for Tabacal many of the people just stopped meeting. On his visits back to the people he encouraged several small groups to get together and formally start up a church. We were able to be there for the openning service of the new Christian and Missionary Alliance church.

About an hour out a rock road and over some hills we arrived to a welcoming of the whole church. There were a couple hundred people there with banners and flags. I felt like some sort of royalty or something. They lined the path to enter with people on both sides greeting, thanking and hugging us. There was definately a party energy in the air. We made our way around to the central courtyard and soon the festivities started. Manuel asked if I could preach the first sermon. I told him I would be honored. When I asked how much time I had to prepare, I was told, "about 5 minutes." Thank God that He had placed on my heart from my reading in Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes on the trip over that this life is a vapor. The treasures and sufferings of this world are only temporary and our trust should not rest here. Rather let us place our trust and efforts in Christ and his righteousness, preparing us for the life to come. It was a fitting message for these people that wealth has passed by. Merari performed communion with the people and their devotion was inspiring.

After the service was the offering. The people didn't have much money so they offered fruit, corn and chickens. The peopel gave with thanksgiving and pressed their way to the front to give. I was given a white rooster and hen for my, "beautiful white twin girls." I will pick them up from Pastor Merari's house on sunday. Then it was time to feast. The group of us from San Lucas ate near the pulpit. We had typical Mayan soup with the ladies standing nearby to geth whatever we needed with huge smiles on their faces.

When we left, the scene was the same as when we came with all the people out to send us off.
Wealth and happiness are not joined. Visits to places like this remind me of that principle every time. For this reason, I think we all need to spend time with God's people who have little but still have "the joy" so we can equally bless one another.

Widow in Acatenango

A new friend of mine named Paul came to me asking about our house design. He wants to build homes for the poor and wanted to see how we might be able to help. I showed him our prototype home that was constructed in the backyard of the office in the very beginning. We were taking down the prototype and he asked what would be done with it. The timing couldn't have been better. He told me of a widow in Acatenango who needed a home.
He wanted to see both the steel stud design and the electropanel design so he accompanied us on the trip to Iztapa (see previous post) and he and I went to Paraxaj, a village near Acatenango, to reconstruct the prototype home there with some modifications. Paraxaj is in the middle of a coffee farm where most of the villagers work.

When I first arrived and saw where the widow was living with her 4 children I was reminder of the necessity of this project. She was living in a mud home wrapped in barbed wire that was the size of a bathroom. The house we were building would be split and shared among her family. She would live in one half with her children and her other family would live in the other side, like a duplex. Imagine if a shared 320 square feet home (160 sf each family) would work for your family let alone bee seen as luxury. Often I am confrinted with the difference between what I say I need and what I actually need. God has been soo gracious to my family.

Wedding gift for Iztapa

I had heard of wealthy parents providing a house as a wedding present to their children but I had never heard of a young couple who would ask all their guests not to buy them any wedding gifts but rather donate money to build a home for a poor person who lost their home in a hurricane.

I had the distinct pleasure of meeting a newlywed couple just like that, Ben and Elizabeth, ranchers from Wyoming. Their wedding gift was one of compassion for others. We built a home for a family living on the sand under plastic and leaves in Iztapa, right on the western coast of Guatemala where hurricane Stan waters rose and flooded the whole area devistating the lower, poorer areas. I have some friends ministering there, the Braun family. We ave constructed a couple homes with them there already. As far as anyone knows, the Brauns are the only people providing housing aid to the Stan victims in Iztapa.

The construction went fast even though the scorching heat and humidity made us break often. The evenings were rough because sleeping was hard in the heat and with the mosquitos. The interns Matt, Josh and Jonathan joined Ben, Elizabeth, the Brauns and I in the construction.

After the house was ready to be stuccoed (our finishing point) we took a break and went to the old abandoned pier at the ocean for a swim. On our way home we had a couple breaks or should I say breakdowns. The van overheated several times until we could get to a gas station to put more water in the radiator but if the trip went too smooth...it wouldn't be Guatemala!

Church in Tabacal

We had a team from Sierra Bible in Reno Nevada come down to build a church in Tabacal. The church is the first "permanant structure" because it is made of concrete and steel instead of bamboo, cornstalks, wood planks and pieces of corrugated tin.

I especially enjoyed the team because my parents were able to come down with the team. We stayed in Antigua and rented an entire hotel in a perfect location 100 yards from the central park. Half of the team was scheduled to do a VBS in the neighboring town of Zapote (read here) the other half was my construction crew for the church.

First off I told them that the reason for them comming was not to build a church, which got some confused looks. They had come down to love the people of Tabacal and show them that they are equals, not inferiors who need a handout. We needed to show that we didn't provide the money for the church and now not trust the men of Tabacal to build it correctly. We jsut wanted to share their burden and help carry the load. To do this we needed to be sure that we focused on what we are doing. First we are here to glorify God by loving people by serving them by building a church and it would make no sence to violate a primary goal in order to fulfil a secondary goal, meaning, getting impatient if things go slow, being impersonal with the people of Tabacal... Many things. We got a primary example of this which I will explain later.

Oue first day was spent in the most dangerous zone in the city, Zone 18, at the campus of the Nazarene denomination central offices. In their "shop" they build prefab churches, LOTS of them. In their 2 years of running they have built more than 200 churches. We had paid for the materials but not for labor. In order to help the ministry, repay the labor, and be more invested in the actual structure we spent a day cutting rebar, bending webs for trusses and welding. Everyone worked hard and at the end of the day we loaded all the pieces needed for our new church into the trailer and set back across the city for Antigua. The plan was to keep the trailer in the parking overnight and bring it to Tabacal the next morning. Three guys from the factory (Mouricio, Jaime, and Fili) joined us for a couple days to show us exactly how to put it together.

When we reached Antigua we found out that the trailer will not fit between the concrete posts in the street designed to keep the busses off the cobblestone streets of Antigua. It was dark and we needed to get in. By God's grace (and by going the wrong way down a few one way roads) we were able to make it to the parking area. The roads in Antigua are small and narrow. I took the truck (Ford F250) with the trailer down an alley where we rode with two wheels on the curb, inches from the wall on one side and parked cars on the other. There was no backing out of this one! We came to a place we couldn't get through so we knocked on a door to get a lady to move her car so we could pass. Getting the trailer there was just the beginning. Now the trailer would only fit by a couple inches in the gate of the parking and we had to detach it and push it up by hand and then we attached a tow rope to the back of the trailer and also to my van which was parked inside. The van pulled and the guys guided and finally the trailer was in place. Getting it out of the parking as well as out of town was much easier than getting it in.

Tabacal has very steep and rutted roads so we parked below and carried all the pieces up by hand. Americans with the natives together. Once all was in place the construction started. The men of Tabacal had already leveled an area and dug the holes needed for the footings. The structure went up quickly but before we could get the concrete in the footings it rained like it only can in Guatemala. all our holes were filled with water and we spent a good amount of time just getting it out.
We got the footings poured and called it a day.

The second day was a time of putting on the roof. Our three guys from the factory decided to just do it themselves to save time which left the rest of the team standing around. At first I was a bit frustrated thinking to myself, "these guys didn't come down here to just sit, they need to let them work" and before I finished my thought, I was reminded of all the men of Tabacal standing around in their usual place at the bottom of the ladder. The guys from the factory were in charge with the Americans next and finally the grunts were the men of Tabacal. I called the team aside and told them what was going on and that there was a change in plans. Manuel (the chief of Tabacal) would be in charge and he would tell us what to do. The men of Tabacal would help the factory workers while we did grunt work. This got back to the whole point of coming down. I told Manuel that he was in charge of the guys building and asked him what he would like us to do also because he was our boss, we came to serve him. The road was in terrible shape after the rains but he said that was the responsibility of the people of the town but there was more earthwork to be done for the church and the steep bank needed to be filled in so a car could get to the church to park. So...we dug! All these men came down...to dig. It was an AWSOME testimony. It was this simple act of humbling ourselves to do the grunt work of digging while the men of Tabacal were able to do the technical work of the roof and direct the construction that really communicated our message. After then the demeanor of Manuel and the men changed. We were not the oppressors taking a pity trip to "the other side of the tracks" but rather equals who just wanted to share a loving, helping hand.

We finished the digging with the help of 82 year old Jose and 11 year old Julio. When I had mentioned to Craig Foster that we were going to dig he made the joking comment, "I didn't come here to work so hard like an 11 year old boy!" These two both put us to shame. The people of Tabacal were more than capable of doing the construction better and faster than we ever could but that was not our goal and I am so glad that our goal was understood and accomplished.

The comrodery was further established when, at the end of the day I went to turn the truck around and got it stuck in the mud. We pulled, pushed, put down planks and corn stalks... We had called for Heather to come get us and were just getting ready to abandon the truck there when I decided to give it one more college try. Slowly but surely we backed it all the way down the mountain.

Once the church was cleared of all the boulders we had a small first service there with prayer in three languages and blessings to go around. A couple things that Manuel said will stick with me. He mentioned that when they stand before God to account for how they used this church and the ministry done in the building they will call the men from Sierra Bible over to share in the blessing because they will always be remembered and be a part of all the ministry in Tabacal. He also mentioned that he wished he could give something in return but they don't have anything to give. Thank you just is not suffucient.

After some sightseeing I believe the team went home genuinely changed. I pray that their view of life has moved toward loving the poor and looking to see how Christs love can be displayed and understood.

The needs of Tabacal are slowly going down as the community gets on its feet. The footwork has been laid to minister to their spiritual needs. This is where I am starting to hand things off to the local ministries. I am glad that we all were able to serve and answer the call in obedience.

Persecuted church in Ocosingo

I co-led a project team to Ocosingo in Chiapas, Mexico. The project trip was rescheduled over Heather's birthday. We had planned on going to Atitlan together. She was still able to go with a friend (read here)

To save costs, Todd, Matt, Josh and I decided to drive my ratty old van up to Tuxtla to get the team and then on out to Ocosingo Mexico. On this 12 hour drive we only brought cookies to eat although we had a ton of cookies. We ate them until we were sick. There were over 100 speed bumps before we actually got to the airport in Tuxtla. The only way for my van to get over them was to go fast and jump the low spot in my van over the speed bump. I don't have many pictures of the trip because I left my camera at the border :( .

We made really good time considering that we needed to have my brakes done in Huehuetenango and then when we arrived to Tuxtla, to where the airport was supposed to be, we found out that 4 months prior, they had moved to airport to a new location about an hour away. The tickets even still listed the old airport as the destination. So, bunches of more speedbumps later we arrived at the airport to find that the team had taken a cab to the hotel 15 min prior. We returned to where we were to start in Tuxtla. The next day we PACKED the van full of stuff and the team. With tires bulging we slowly climbed the mountains to Ocosingo. Most all of the signs in Mexico have to do with leaving the signs alone. "Obey the signs" "don't destroy the signs" "Don't mistreat the signs" and the like were about 80% of the signs.

We arrived and that first evening I was informed that I would be preaching to about 600 people. God was gracious and the sermon went well. I was able to share about the cost of discipleship as seen in a "tour" of the gospel Luke and encourage them about the value of faithfulness. I felt unqualified to say these things to them because they suffer much more than me but they are always ready to be excited about heaven. whenever I didn't know a word or just got stuck, I would just shout, "amen" and the crowd repeated it back to me very graciously.

We stayed at the church on cots and the next day the team got to work. There were a couple of issues to address. First was the design of the two story children's building. The church has a wonderful ministry to children but has no place to hold them all. They currently have a wood plank structure that has two classrooms that should hold about 15-20 kids but they squeeze about 60 in them. There still are too many kids for this so they also meet in several locations around town like small groups. The building will also house a real kitchen. At times they are cooking for over 1500 people and right now they are doing it in an open plank wood shed. The second task to address was the settling of the sanctuary. One corner was showing signs of significant settling. The third was just to check on the back wall of the property because it looked like it was going to fall.

I was the resident "surveyor" so I started surveying with a 50 meter tape and an eye level. Matt and I spent the day surveying and at the end of the day after having moved from one spot to the other out the wall, down the street and through a field, we came within 3" of matching the elevation of our first shot. I was able to get rough existing utility information to work with. The water for the site comes from a 1/2" drip irrigation pipe and the drainage pipe just runs under the building to the stream. The stream also runs under the corner of the sanctuary. This is where the trouble with settling was. The footing of the building had 2x the weight on it than it was designed to carry.

We decided to look at the failing wall and saw that it was about 20 feet high and about 2 1/2 feet away from the back wall of the church. We walked around the block to see how high the dirt was on the other side. We found the wall only to be about 3 feet high, meaning dirt was filled up almost the entire hight of the wall and this neighbor was parking huge bucket trucks on this dirt right next to the wall. The only reason the wall hadn't fallen was that they had put wood blocks between the top of the wall and the columns of the back wall of the sanctuary which had now caused cracking in the wall of the sanctuary. The legal documents for the property line has no bearings or directions only distances. They roughly matched up with mine but there was an ongoing arguement with the neighbor behind (whose wall was falling) as to the interpretation of this document whether the dimensions are from the center of the road or the edge. If it is the edge of the road then the neighbor needs to fix the wall. If it is the center of the road then the back wall of the church is technically on the neighboring property. YIKES! As far as I understand, the propertyline would come from the center of the road but then why would all the surrounding neighbors including this one construct their wall 3 meters away from the propertyline when land is so valuable? It was a matter that we pressed as important to the church though I really don't think they find it very important.

Once the survey was done I drew it up on AutoCAD and noticed that the sanctuary came out looking like a parallelagram. This couldn't be right so I took interior measurements to find out what the problem was. What I found was that the drawing was correct. The sanctuary is 2 meters out of square!! The building was not built by a contractor. People in the area are poor so instead of being able to offer money to build they offered their time and sweat. It is kinda cool that the congregation itself actually built the church with their own hands but then again you end up with a parallelagram church.
There were lots of engineering difficulties that we were able to address with the pastor so their future construction can take a much better path.
The people of the church were VERY hospitable, offering their very best for us. The meals were incredible with the ladies ofthe church cooking for us each meal in the shed and then we ate with them there in the kitchen.
The last day of our design we presented to the leadership and now we are finishing the details of the design in the office.
We were able to visit a widow of a pastor in a village of exiled Christians and a family who had their home burned for being Christians. I was challenged by the extent of their faith.
Each morning we had our devotions together and most mornings we sang a hymn, A Mighty Fortress Is Our God being the favorite. The pastor and the people of the church often heard us and asked us to sing it in the midweek service. It was great to join with them in worship and prayer.
On the way back we spent a day in San Cristobal de las Casas which is a very clean and touristy town in the mountains. We took the team to the airport and returned home again eating cookies all the way.