Sensational Saturday

 

Our favorite day of the trip is always the last work day.  Not only because it is the last work day but because we celebrate with the local workers we labored side by side with throughout the week.  Since it was Saturday, there was a large group (about 60) children attending bible school on campus.  A couple of the guys brought two back packs full of candy, pencils, kids books, etc.  We handed them out and spent some time with the kids.  It was very rewarding.

We are headed off to Benin this morning (Sunday) for a couple days and will not be able to post so this is most likely our final entry.  Thank you all for following our journey and posting comments.  The entire team here is very thankful for all of your prayers and support.

Fantastic Freaky Friday

We are all finding it a bit more difficult to answer the 5am wake-up call each morning, except for Scott G, he pops up fresh as a daisy every morning.

Work today started off slow.  We lost our cement mixer (they scheduled another job) and we have been on the hunt for a jack hammer to break apart two very large blocks of concrete and a concrete foundation that was in the way of three holes we dug.

The rain cleared out and the heat and sun returned.  We began milling around the building looking for small projects to do that needed to be done but weren't necessarily part of our immediate task of pouring concrete footings.  Some of us climbed on top of walls and knocked layers of brick down to the new building height, others worked with local workers to clear the many mounds of dirt, sand and ruble in and around the building.

We had to stop work at 10am to take a short bus ride to the Benin Embassy to sign a book in order to enter the country on Sunday for a one day trip.

We returned at 11 and the jack hammer had just arrived.  As for the cement mixer, it didn't show up until almost 4pm, an hour before our normal quitting time, but heck, nothing has been normal around here.  Concrete was busted up and removed from the final 3 holes and rebar was installed.  We were cleared to pour the final 4 holes to wrap up our week.  In order to accomplish this we needed to fill 2 holes today and 2 Saturday morning.  We ran the mixer from 4-6pm and met our goal for today.

We wrapped up the day by going out to dinner.  We went to an outdoor restaurant that specialized in pizza and pasta.  We were joined by several of the missionaries and had a fun time.

Thankful Thursday

We woke up to heavy rain showers this morning.  It felt cooler outside than it did inside the air conditioned dorms.  It was a welcomed relief from the heat we have been experiencing.  

As far as work today, we did more of the same - digging holes, breaking old concrete and pouring new concrete.  It seemed to be much easier as the rain drizzled most of the morning.  After lunch it warmed up a bit but not as bad as the previous three days.

Here are some videos and a few more photos around the area.

Wonderful Wednesday

Today was a great day on the construction site. We completed excavation and installation of rebar on all 14 holes around the perimeter of the building. There are an additional 7 down the center of the interior where sledge hammering and digging are still taking place.

The arrival yesterday of 24 yards of sand and rock as well as 200 sacks of concrete (weighing 110 lbs each) along with a cement mixer meant today was the start of mixing, transporting and pouring (all by hand) nearly 40 yards of concrete. We started mixing around 9am when the heat and humidity was just ramping up and by lunch time we filled 6 massive trenches with 4 yards of concrete each. The heat again took a toll on one of our team members and he was not able to return later during the day or join us for dinner. He is resting comfortably, please pray for him.

The late afternoon sun tends not to be as intense as the middle of the day. We were able to fill 4 more holes for a total of 10 for the day. This may not sound like much but some quick math may put this into perspective:

190 bags of cement for a total weight of 20,900 lbs all lifted by hand one bag at a time into the hopper.
1,560 3 gallon buckets of rock all shoveled, lifted and placed in the hopper by hand.
960 3 gallon buckets of sand, each shoveled, lifted and placed into the hopper one at a time, by hand.

All in all we moved 160,000 lbs of material today, and we are only half way finished The fact that we are still awake and able to type legibly for tonight’s blog entry is a minor miracle.

We ended the day with a nice dinner at the home of another missionary couple who are based in Togo and live on campus. We haven’t had time to explore Lome or Togo yet due to our intense work schedule. We are planning time off campus Saturday and Sunday so hope to share some photos from that.

We would greatly appreciate any comments or questions you may have for us or any of the other team members. Thank you for following our blog. We hope you are enjoying it. Here are some photos from today.

Terrific Tuesday

A detail we forgot to touch on, we are on a Bible College campus called WAAST , West Africa Advanced School of Theology. It has 600 students that mostly attend remote campuses in 20 countries in west and central Africa. Students come to the main campus here in Lome for their final semester of studies for Bachelors, Masters and Doctorate degrees. Dr. Mary Ballanger, the president, joined us for dinner Monday evening. She is originally from Kalispell, Montana. She has been doing the Lord’s work here in Africa for 40 years. Her first 20 years was spent in the country of Senegal and she has been at WAAST since 1995. After dinner Dr. Ballanger spoke to us for more than an hour. She is extremely charismatic, has a great sense of humor, and is very humble. We were riveted by her many stories of God’s miracles she has witnessed in Africa.

We made good progress today. Heat and humidity was similar to Monday, one team member had to retire for a few hours in the middle of the day to heat exhaustion. Work was concentrated on digging the 21 holes for the concrete footings that will support the 3 new floors for the building. We had many obstacles to overcome as a majority of the holes are surrounded by multiple live electrical wires, water and sewage pipes. Also, very large blocks of concrete that need broken out with sledge hammers, diamond saws or by any means. The last one we pulled out at the end of the day weighed approx. 350lbs. Ditch Obstacles:

Sweaty Greg Digging Hole for Concrete Footing:

That's a Big Hole:

Mango Tree at Job-Site:

The highlight of the day came around 5:30 in the evening we were told to immediately drop our tools and walk to the chapel nearby. All twelve of us walked in filthy dirty (after working in 90 degree heat and humidity for 10 hours). We were greeted with a room of 100 graduating students, the president, head pastor and other missionaries all dressed in their Sunday best. We felt like fish out of water. We were directed to sit in the front row and the pastor spoke in French and was interpreted in English (which is the norm for this bilingual school) by our host missionary and began telling the congregation our team story, where we came from and that we spent our own vacation time and money to come all the way to Africa to work at their school. A rounding applause commenced. The pastor asked Ron Bickford to come up and introduce each one of us. We were then asked to stand in front of the congregation and be recognized. This was followed by the most amazing prayer. The entire congregation came forward, laid hands on us and prayed simultaneously, out loud in English, French and various tribal languages. It was truly amazing and a blessing for the entire team. 10 minutes later we were back working and pulled out the 350lb block of cement with only 10 swings of the sledge hammer. We had been working on that block of cement for 4 hours!

High Mercury Monday

Started work at 6:00am or 10:00pm California time. Half of the crew started demolition of the roof and the other half dug trenches for footing to support columns supporting a 4 story building. One thing I can't stand...spiders and heights, and there we were up on top of the roof with sledgehammers and pry bars tearing up the roof and having all the debris fall 12 feet down to the ground. All was going great for the first 5 hours until heat and humidity started taking it's toll on everybody, a few guys got so overwhelmed that they started vomiting. We all took a 15 minute break to hydrate and bring our core body temps down a few degrees. All went well the rest of the day and accomplished more than we thought we would considering the extreme temperature. Enjoy a photo diary of our days events, Scott. :) Roof before we cut it down:

Roof After:

Scott Taking a Heat Break:

Calvin, Grant Alex digging one of 16 holes 4 feet by 7 feet by 3 1/2 feet deep, including 2 feet under the existing foundation:

Rick and Barry cutting remaining roof line:

Calvin and Alex a.k.a Dirt Dudes:

Hot & Humid Day in Lome

Walking off the tarmac at Lome.

2 hours Sac to Salt lake, 9 1/2 hours Salt Lake to Paris, 6 hours Paris to Togo. We left at 1:40pm Friday and arrived in Togo at 11:30 Saturday morning California time, 7:30 pm Saturday in Togo. We had very little sleep while flying so we arrived very tired. Weather is hot and humid. We spent two hours in immigration getting our visas and luggage. We heard it may be difficult getting our bags through and may have to bribe the guards. All 12 of us went through at once, we overloaded the one guard scanning bags and went through faster than he could check us so no bribes were needed. We met our host outside baggage claim and loaded up two vans and headed to the campus where we are staying, about a 30 minute drive. It was dark so we couldn't see much. We divided the group into two dorms. The cook prepared a light meal of lentil soup and beef stew. It was the best meal we ever had (after traveling nearly 24 hours). Waiting for visas.

Our rooms are a bit warm but we do have small a/c units. It isn't much but were are grateful for them. The rooms are clean and comfortable but there is a bar right outside the campus walls that played very loud techno music until 3:30 in the morning. How do we know it was 3:30am ... because we were awake! Ear plugs were a necessity. Sunday morning we went to church at 8, here on campus. It was a beautiful 3 hour service. They sure know how to praise the Lord!

We all enjoyed mingling with the 1000 strong congregation. Lots of colorful photos were taken.

After church we took a short walk out of the security of our walled campus to explore the immediate area. The streets of Lome are bustling with cars and motorcycles. Motorcycles have a 30:1 advantage. Our host missionaries, Mark and Vicky held a nice lunch for us at their campus based home complete with homemade lasagna and garlic bread. So far we have eaten very well , almost too well. This is very atypical for us. After lunch we had a few hours on our own. Four of us decided to head out to find the Ghana border which appeared to be only a few hundred yards away. After a 10 minute walk through busy streets and roadside markets, we crossed the main highway, walked down a dirt path and stumbled upon 4 armed guards holding automatic rifles and drinking beer. They were blocking the path with two logs on the ground, it was the border entry for Ghana. They were slightly unfriendly but allowed us to walk up a berm and peer into Ghana. The view was jungle and didn't look much different than Togo. Ghana crossing:

We also caught a cab to the coast, about 3 miles away. We had a nice evening social time with 6 missionary couples who are based here. It was a nice way to end the day. We explored the job-site. There has been some confusion and difficulty getting the engineering plans solidified.we are supposed to start breaking up concrete and digging footings for columns that will support three additional floors but we don't have specs or locations for them. We are starting work at 6am to get some time in under cooler weather and before breakfast. We will have an update tomorrow and how the job is progressing.

Here Today, Gone Togo

After a 2 year hiatus the Destiny MAPS building team is headed back to Africa but not to our usual country of Tanzania. This year we are off to Lome, Togo located on the west coast of the continent, sandwiched (pun intended) between Ghana and Benin, just west of Nigeria.

We will be staying, and working, at a Bible college in Lome. There are 12 of us this year. Most of us are from Destiny church in Rocklin. Others are from Calvary Auburn and Yuba City. The team will share 2 guest houses on campus that appear to be very comfortable. The weather forecast is for lows near 79 and highs just above 90. Humidity is in the 70 - 90% range.

Project: We will be working on an existing multi-purpose building that will undergo a major retrofit. It is currently a single story cement block structure with wooden trusses and sheet metal roof. When retrofit is complete, this will be a 3-story building. We are the first team to work on this so our portion of the project will be the demo phase. This includes removing (and preserving) all existing electrical and plumbing fixtures. Removing the A/C system including ducting and tearing off the roof sheeting and trusses. We will then begin digging foundations and formaing for the structural columns that will support the additional floors.

This is quite a departure from building projects we have been involved with on previous trips. Check out our Tanzania 2011 blog on details from that trip. We are very excited to explore a new country and meet new missionary friends who are working very hard in preparation of our arrival this weekend. We are told there is some level of internet access. We don't know how reliable it will be so we can't promise regular updates. Our intention is to make daily entries so keep your fingers crossed. Thank you for reading and following us. we look forward to sharing this exciting adventure with our family and friends back home in the US. God Bless, Scott & Greg.