We Are Pumped

Engineering Mission Trips 2006

Today was another wonderful day. From a project perspective we made great progress. We completed almost half of the walkway across the bridge. We are actually able to walk out to near the center of the bridge over the river now. Before you get too worried, anyone working out there has on a complete safety harness and a safety strap which protects them from falling off the bridge. It is really neat to see a team of one husky LU engineering graduate (Kris) and a robust current LU student (Caleb) forming a team with a LU sophomore (Rebecca) to complete the installation of walkway panels on the bridge. Rachel also worked on a team made up of Caleb, Kirk and herself. James was back in action today with a critical responsibility for placing the panels on the bridge and appears to be rid of his stomach bug. Aaron is one more working machine. He has set a great example for all of us with his hard work. He and Jon Hester have been going above and beyond by helping the Guatemalans pour a huge slab of concrete under the bridge tower to better stablize it. This is really hard work. They have poured about nine or ten yards of concrete with a portable gasoline-powere mixer that produces a small wheelbarrow for each batch. For each batch, sand, gravel, cement and water are added to the mixer. When the mixer is finished the wet concrete is poured into the wheelbarrow. The concrete is then dumped into the slab forms a bucket full at a time. They have processed the equivalent of a concrete truck load of concrete this way. This is really hard work and Aaron and Jon have gone at it tenaciously.

We should easily complete the walkway so that test walks all the way across the river can be made tomorrow (Saturday). This has been a real production line with the cutting of steel, drilling of holes (200) into the steel, assembling the panels, welding the pieces together, carrying the panels to the bridge sight, mounting them on the walkway rails and secruing them. Oh, I forgot the painting step - a big one.

Becasue we had not seen the bridge site before we got here and because of some miscommunications concerning the bridge platforms that were built before we came, no one was absolutely certain that we could pull this off. This lack of certainty has tunred out to be one of our greatest blessings. Although we have had some great on-the-spot creative adaptations (mostly from the students) and a tremendous amount of hard work, we are all convinced that we could never have done this on our own. The power of God to give us innovative solutions to problems and the energy to carry them out has been evident to us all. And we all know that the prayers that you have lifted up have turned God's face toward us and that His glory will shine in this community for years to come. In our devo tonight, Iris said that she was sure that everyday for the rest of her life she will be pausing to thank God for the villagers here who will be crossing the bridge on that day.

We are all so pumped spiritullay that we can hardly hold it inside -- what am I talking about, we have no way of containing it. The joy that we are experiencing is beyond measure. we are worn out and we get up more fatigued everyday but we are energized by the Spirit in phenomenal ways.


Keep praying for us we really feel it.

One the old geezers on the trip,

Kerry