While at Iris ministries, one of the things we did was help them out with work projects. I am definitely most comfortable with physical labor projects because I feel like I can figure out what I am doing, see something tangible get accomplish and feel like I have actually done some work. (Not that teaching or building relationships isn’t work…I just have a harder time seeing the results.)
Iris had two different work projects they wanted us to focus on. The first one was to knock down the old latrines. At first this meant taking a little hammer and chisel and trying to take the concrete walls apart brick by brick. They wanted to try to save as many bricks as possible, but we soon 
learned that they weren’t really worth saving any way and so we were wasting time. Then we got a larger mallet and just started whacking the walls down as fast as possible. That was kind of fun! And a great stress reliever! We also had to shovel dirt out of the stalls and dig up what was left of the concrete floor. It took awhile, but we worked at it at our own pace, taking breaks to play with kids or just relax when necessary.
The second work project was helping prepare ground for a new basketball court. This included hoeing up grass and raking up leaves and debris. We then started digging up dirt from the higher points and moving it to the lower points to even the ground out. We were not able to finish this project, but they had a couple of hard-working Mozambique guys who were helping us and I think they’ll have it finished in no time!
Finally, while I did not personally help with this project, Nate and Natalie helped to organize and clean the orphanage library. Supposedly the boys don’t quite understand how to take care of books and it doesn’t take long before the place is a mess. Natalie was supposed to teach the children how to treat the books and the library in general, but because a translator wasn’t available at the time it did not get done. Someone else will be left with that task, I ‘m sure.
I don’t know how much we really accomplished overall in the grand scheme of things…but the Iris missionaries were thankful for our efforts and my body feels great for all the working out!
