Bolivia 2018- The Work Begins (Monday and Tuesday)

The view from the balcony at the House of Hope
Great conversation while cleaning and
measuring bricks.
            Today marked our first day of work. Our task throughout the week is to build up the brick walls of the new church that’s under construction. We arrived at the job site around 9am, and immediately went to work. Some people measured, filed, and dusted off the bricks, while others laid them. Due to the size of our team, we completed a lot for one day’s worth of work. My task was to lay bricks, and after I finished the job with Ripley and Tyler, I moved on to painting the foundation with tar. Tar is very sticky, which made it difficult to apply a thin layer. Elizabeth and Harper got tar all over them and found out quickly that the only way to remove the tar from their skin was with gasoline. 
            Our hard work definitely paid off because we could actually see our hard work displayed in the progress we made. God gave us the strength to get through the 8 hour work day, and blessed us with patience and no injuries throughout the day.

Katie Ghiz



The second day of work was absolutely astonishing. All the work we achieved was
Melena, the Architect
insane. I’ve never actually done manual labor considering how tiny I am. I mostly worked on cleaning bricks which was very repetitive. I also got the opportunity to lay on bricks. It was very annoying because Becca and I were doing something wrong at the beginning and we couldn’t figure it out. Malena this girl taught me so much Spanish, also I definitely spelled her name wrong. I can truly say that she is the kindest person I have ever met.
Building the wall at the Church (where the bricks go)
At the end of the day I came home to a semi-warm shower and clean clothes. The House of Hope family is so kind. The food was incredible and so was the dessert. I can’t wait for tomorrow and see how far we can come. God is truly giving us the strength to finish this church.

Harper Haney

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