Tuesday

January 19th

Today it was back to work all day at the church grounds. We arrived from our separate houses at 9:00 a.m. for breakfast. Then we work all morning, eat “almuerzo” at 2pm, and work until our final meal at 8pm.



There are several projects that we are working on. Tomo and the youth finished staining one side of the building and are now painting the back. Some of us are busy with welding steel and cutting wood to make more bleachers.



Some of have been digging holes and a trench, framing it with wood, and filling it with wheelbarrel after wheelbarrel of cement. The end goal of this project is an electric gate at the front of the church.



And still others are busy painting steel, drilling holes, cutting wood, and of course, playing with the Chilean kids.




Tuesday, January 20th

Work, work, work. We’re starting to see that some of our projects are getting closer to the end today. The youth are almost done painting the outside. All the wood stairs have been cut. The cement for the front gate is almost cured. The brand new steel gate is currently being welded into a traditional Mapuche symbol and the guys have started working on putting up posts for a fence that will eventually go around the church’s entire perimeter.