The first morning in Mexico City found us sitting around the breakfast table talking about the day ahead. We were all excited to be here, staying in a beautiful place, and ready to do our part at Centro Renovar. With that excitement did come nerves and some anxiety over what we were going to be doing exactly. Either way, 8:30 found us piling into the van and heading to the work site.
We toured the grounds, learned more about the project and the future of Centro Renovar before jumping into our day. We all stumbled around a bit, trying to find the best place for us to be, figuring out through the language barrier what tasks needed to be completed, and finally settling into a groove. What did we find ourselves doing? There was shoveling and mixing of dirt, removing dirt from a space that was going to become a staircase, and cement mixed by hand (well, shovel). Numerous buckets of dirt were carried and dumped, but nothing compares to the number of wheelbarrow trips full of dirt up an uneven hill and across a narrow makeshift bridge. As simple as the tasks themselves were, they were labor-intensive and the sun was high in the sky giving us a nice red tint to our skin, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time.
Brenna’s goal for the day was to make a good dent in her mountain of dirt with intermittent hunts for lizards. Rachel had the mixing of dirt and also cement down to a science before we even made it to lunch. Jake, Brock, George, and Stephen were the rockstars of the wheelbarrows and will probably try to avoid them tomorrow. And we all tried to work on our Spanish which really just ended up in confused faces and laughter.
A full day spent on the site today could have gone in many different directions, but God knew what he was doing when he put this team together. Each person brings something different to the table in how they work, the type of work they can do, and their personalities. The best part is how all those different pieces fit together creating an environment for fun, conversation, and laughter even while shoveling and pushing wheelbarrows all day in the heat. The fun, conversation, and laughter continued as we sat around the table for a delicious dinner prepared by our wonderful hosts and followed us out to the patio where we played word games and relaxed after our first full day in Mexico City.
We toured the grounds, learned more about the project and the future of Centro Renovar before jumping into our day. We all stumbled around a bit, trying to find the best place for us to be, figuring out through the language barrier what tasks needed to be completed, and finally settling into a groove. What did we find ourselves doing? There was shoveling and mixing of dirt, removing dirt from a space that was going to become a staircase, and cement mixed by hand (well, shovel). Numerous buckets of dirt were carried and dumped, but nothing compares to the number of wheelbarrow trips full of dirt up an uneven hill and across a narrow makeshift bridge. As simple as the tasks themselves were, they were labor-intensive and the sun was high in the sky giving us a nice red tint to our skin, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time.
Brenna’s goal for the day was to make a good dent in her mountain of dirt with intermittent hunts for lizards. Rachel had the mixing of dirt and also cement down to a science before we even made it to lunch. Jake, Brock, George, and Stephen were the rockstars of the wheelbarrows and will probably try to avoid them tomorrow. And we all tried to work on our Spanish which really just ended up in confused faces and laughter.
A full day spent on the site today could have gone in many different directions, but God knew what he was doing when he put this team together. Each person brings something different to the table in how they work, the type of work they can do, and their personalities. The best part is how all those different pieces fit together creating an environment for fun, conversation, and laughter even while shoveling and pushing wheelbarrows all day in the heat. The fun, conversation, and laughter continued as we sat around the table for a delicious dinner prepared by our wonderful hosts and followed us out to the patio where we played word games and relaxed after our first full day in Mexico City.