Recap: The Construction Team

So the other half of the team spent time working on the facilities of the compound. Our focus was on the girls' school room, the Smith house, and the Beach House. Given the circumstances (difficulties in communication, construction missionaries being gone, Ethiopian 'handywork'), I think we were as prepared as we could've been. That still didn't keep us from feeling like we could've done more.

Justin, for the most part, spent his time in the Smith house working on all the electrical work. He got their veranda lights working and fixed their washer. The washer's cut off valve had malfunctioned so that Allyson had to manually turn off the water whenever she was doing the laundry. Justin, in his awesomeness, was able to rig it so that she didn't have to constantly monitor it. Allyson was ecstatic about this and just started doing tons of laundy, just because she could. Robert, our painter, along with Pirtle were a great help in geting the girls' school room painted a lovely sky blue with a white epoxy flooring. Meanwhile, Chad and I, and any combination of the other 3, banged our heads on the (uneven) walls of the beach house. Trying to get anything level was near impossible, especially with the house always shifting on the sand base. So trying to get an upright shower installed was quite the frustrating task. We got the job done for the most part, however, minus some missing hardware and a little bit of grouting that we ran out of. Thankfully, I think the Smiths or the other teams coming through will be able to finish it up without much of a problem.

This was all just our planned work on the compound. Looking back, it was often hard for us to see how much of an impact that we made, especially compared to the work of the medical team. But some of the unplanned tasks that we ended up helping with included working on the water pumps (not any small task when they are buried under layers of mud), trying to retrieve a broken key out of the ignition of one of the only land rovers, flipping over broken refrigerators (somehow that fixes them), installing car decks, driving a couple hours to get gas, and helping with famine relief. Plus, a good chunk of this time was spent just hanging out with Shane, which he was incredibly thankful for. So with all that in mind, we were able to do quite a bit. It was just less focused than we expected.

A lot of times I get asked about why we couldn't just hire African workers to do the jobs that we do. Until you get over there and see what it takes to get the job done, you might not understand. But local labor is very unskilled, and the skilled labor from Addis is expensive and hard to get. This way, we were able to come and bless the Smiths in this small way and provide for them in ways we're not totally sure If anything, we made Allyson's life just that much easier.