Hurts so good

I have never been so happy to be so tired and sore.

Today, Ted, Rick and I mixed and poured concrete at Casa de Fe in Shell, Ecuador, for their education building. We were working on the first floor, mixing and pouring concrete for the flooring. Knowing the building is going to be used to educate orphans made every lift of the wheel barrow worth it.

Here in Shell they mix and pour concrete the old fashion way. Ted loaded three two-men buckets of gravel and dumped it in a cement mixer. Rick filled four buckets of sand and stones and dumped it in the mixer. I manned the "truck," better known as a wheel barrow, and wheeled it into the building and dumped it. We did that all day. We weren't sure we were going to make it, but we did. We did pray for God to give us strength, and He did. I prayed that prayer a number of times throughout the day. :-)

It has been a great privledge serving beside Ted and Rick this week. They are both true servants. No matter how tough the work has been, they have kept smiling and serving with great joy.

We have mixed and poured concrete, dug through dirt and sand pulling out wood and nails. We have pulled nails out of boards, built cabinets, modified a bed and repaired a bicycle. The whole time we have thanked God for this opportunity. Why? Because this is the heart of God. He tells us in James 1:27, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress."

This has been and awesome experience and we still have four days left. And, it won't be Love In Action's last trip to Ecuador. This is only the beginning.