This week begins the "Family Olympics" at Las Palmas. This is a special event held each year just before spring break. Each of the six homes competes in various challenges and there is a special dinner to celebrate their work. This year´s theme is the book of Joshua and they organized a prayer walk as a reflection of the march around Jericho, but with a goal to bless the community, not to make it fall down! We are here to join in everything we can, so we all agreed to get up early for the 7:00 a.m. walk. We made a circuit around the neighborhood in front of Las Palmas, playing recorded music from a loudspeaker on a truck, singing, and praying a blessing on the neighborhood at several stopping points. Kids handed out notes of encouragement and Christian literature, and we greeted anyone who ventured out of their houses.
After we returned, we had breakfast and got ready for our first day of work. We worked a couple hours in the morning, scraping inside walls to prep for painting. Our lunch was delivered an hour later than we expected, so my students had an extra long break. It was probably a good thing, as the combination of heat and doing work they are not accustomed to had everyone wiped out.
Moralens, a young man who I knew from our past visits, lives in the house we will be painting, along with another young man. Moralens helped with some scraping and I invited him to come eat lunch with us. While he was here, he told the story of how he came to live at Las Palmas at age 6 or 7, together with his younger sister. Their parents had been killed and a grandmother cared for them briefly, until they were brought to Las Palmas. Moralens graduated from university at the beginning of the pandemic, but because his family immigrated from Haiti, he needs to work out paperwork to be able to progress in a career here.
Once remodeled, the house we are working on will be used to house children sent by the government for short-term placement. It needs a lot of work! We are prepping for painting today and tomorrow and hope to paint from Tuesday through Friday at noon. Can we get the interior and exterior painted in that time? Stay tuned!
After we returned, we had breakfast and got ready for our first day of work. We worked a couple hours in the morning, scraping inside walls to prep for painting. Our lunch was delivered an hour later than we expected, so my students had an extra long break. It was probably a good thing, as the combination of heat and doing work they are not accustomed to had everyone wiped out.
Moralens, a young man who I knew from our past visits, lives in the house we will be painting, along with another young man. Moralens helped with some scraping and I invited him to come eat lunch with us. While he was here, he told the story of how he came to live at Las Palmas at age 6 or 7, together with his younger sister. Their parents had been killed and a grandmother cared for them briefly, until they were brought to Las Palmas. Moralens graduated from university at the beginning of the pandemic, but because his family immigrated from Haiti, he needs to work out paperwork to be able to progress in a career here.
Once remodeled, the house we are working on will be used to house children sent by the government for short-term placement. It needs a lot of work! We are prepping for painting today and tomorrow and hope to paint from Tuesday through Friday at noon. Can we get the interior and exterior painted in that time? Stay tuned!