When it comes to construction on the World Race, I tend to have mixed feelings about all of it. On one hand, when you get a lot of extra hands into your ministry, it is a huge boost in man power and getting things done. In Haiti, our whole month was construction. Every day was mixing/pouring concrete and moving dirt and stone. Stuff that had to get done, but it was hard to get psyched up to do that day after day.
Ben drilling some holes for the tire swing.
For the final two weeks of our time in South Africa, the men on the 3 teams located in Cape Town did construction/fixer-upper projects while all of the women worked with the youth at the school. This particular school focused on serving youth born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. We had a whole check list of things to accomplish in our two weeks from building to painting to digging and so on. Part of me was happy to do this sort of work and part of me wanted to be able to focus on just the kids. I can’t honestly say that I would choose painting walls or cargo containers that were used as classrooms over working with the youth. Its probably a good thing that I didn’t have a choice in it. Don’t get me wrong. I really enjoyed working at the school. There was a lot of satisfaction seeing that list get smaller each day. It wasn’t until our second to last day however when God opened my eyes to the necessity of the work we were doing.
Getting a little extra help with all of the digging.
During out last week, we were asked to build a playground outside of the crèche (preschool) building and landscape the area. Our materials to use for the playground? Wooden poles typically used as telephone poles, though the circumference was a bit smaller than normal, and some tractor tires. I may have been slightly skeptical about the outcome of this project.
I really need to do a better job of putting aside the skepticism. By the time we were finished we had a frame for a slide completed, a frame for 2 swings with one swing already up, a balance beam, the tires 1/3 of the way buried so they could be crawled through, and a large sandbox. Plus there was plenty of room for more things to be done in the future.
Yea for tires!
It wasn’t the amount of things that we got done that struck me about the importance of the work we did. It was the crowd of 20 or so kids that we drew at the end of the day. It was the joy on their faces as they ran around from obstacle to obstacle, as they sang songs of praise they learned in school, as they screamed for joy when it was their turn on the swing. You see, in this particular community, they don’t really have anything like this. They’re lucky to get more than one meal a day much less have a community playground to go and play on. Some of the children there are abused on a daily basis as we unfortunately learned. It is not the most joyous of areas, but for an afternoon and evening at least, there was plenty of joy to go around.
Relaxing at the end of a long work day.
