Explore Church in Missoula recently went on a mission trip to Brazil. Follow them on their journey as we post journal entries written by a member of their team. You can find previous entries at www.mtsbc.org.
Day 11
Seriously hot construction work can cause heat stroke, and it almost did in our case. Another huge day of production means an extremely short blog post. I fell asleep while writing a list of our completed work before I forgot it all in sweet slumber.
We were able to complete the fence of protection by noon. The newly created private playground instantly drew the children, as they jumped rope, played tag, and climbed and sat in the shade of the solitary tree. They were impossible to remove from the playground and became permanent fixtures on the campus. Where were their parents? What about school? Nothing dissuaded them from being constantly present.
Nailing pickets in the direct sunlight in 100-degree plus temperatures with your head down below your heart, makes you extremely lightheaded. We finished off the fence with a high archway in the entry to eventually hold a gate. I got to do some chain saw notching and trimming on the archway, which is some of my favorite type of work. Setting the final fence section, scribed over the bedrock that was exposed and protruding in the center of the yard, was extremally satisfying.
We were then able to complete the roof by 4:30 pm. Cutting the steel roof panels and attaching them had the added benefit of creating more shade as we progressed. Even with the expanding shade, we were seriously about to die of heat. We took a break to go soak in the river, which was my favorite part of every day. Dinner was at Bryan and Amanda’s house, and it was a local special, “Teh-da-Dhoh.”
While we were there at their home, Mark the “monkey-whisperer” calmed down the monkey enough to hold and pet him for quite a while. As everyone was taking pictures, I struggled with a little teensy bit of jealousy. I tried my hand at monkey taming and got a crazed monkey jumping off my shoulder into the friendly jaws of the pet German shepherd. But, don’t worry, no one was hurt in the escape and apprehension of the monkey.