Tuesday Pictures

I thought I would show you what we accomplished today. We finished putting the top plate up all the way around. I am not sure if you can tell from the pictures that these are probably somewhere in the neighborhood of true 6x3 made of incredibly heavy wood. Each of them we cut to length and then put up on top of the posts. This is made even more interesting because of what we use as a ladders. One is a ladder that is actually two thin poles with 1x2 boards nailed to it. I don;t think those are rated for a guy my size so Ron gets to use that ladder. We also use a barrel and a metal ladder that reminds me more of a metal lattice to grow vines one. It really actually works quite well. Once we get the boards in place, we drill through the posts that we notched and put a 1/2 inch bolt through the post and top plate. Suprisingly enough, our building is incredibly close to being perfectly square - only 1 cm off a 20 m building. (sorry for using the metric measurements - it actually is kind of handy now that I am getting used to it - I can't believe I am saying that!) Anyway it is quite a process and we were glad to finish that up before lunch (or dinner for those of you in Altona).


After lunch we started working on building the rafters. Kevin and Dale made a pattern that we started to copy. It was a lot of hard work to build these rafters. We are again using the 3x6 inch boards to make our rafters , and we have to notch out each piece that intersects so that they actually rest on the other board rather than trust our hardware. I think Kevin is tired of hearing from me that we could do something different if I had my garage full of tools and the hardware available at the Galesburg Lowes. It has been a good experience trying to build with minimal tools and hardware. It really does make you think things through. Here is a picture of one of the joints. Hopefully you can see the notch that we made to join the support of the rafters. All of our notching is done with a circular saw, hand saws, chisels and my favorite - a hammer. We also notch out for the area sitting on the wall which is not really an exact science since the wall is not straight because of how crooked these beams are. It really has been a fun experience - challenging.

Tonight we attended our second Bible Study in the home of a family of new believers. It is interesting to hear their take on our being here in Ecuador helping their church. One lady said tonight that she is with people quite often that do not understand her, but with us she knew we could understand her and she could understand us because of our bond in Christ. Obvioulsy she was speaking of spiritual things. In spite of our lack of ability to understand the language, they can see that we are communicating the love of Christ by our being their to help them. It is exciting to see them "get it." That was one of our goals in being here. That we would be able to demonstrate the love of Christ to the nationals here in Ecuador. I do think we are accomplishing that goal, and it is because of the hard work of the Ron, Dave and Andrew and their good attitude no matter how tired they are. It really has been great to be with these guys and all the Mayfields.

Thanks to all who have read, commented and are praying for our team. We need your prayers and we appreciate the support. Pray for another great day of weather tomorrow. Today it sprinkled a bit while we were heading home. It actually really felt good on our sunburned necks. Today we had 11 people in a small Chevy pickup on the way home from the work site. That is one full cab (6 people) and bed (5 people). Thanks again for praying for us.