A Wonderful Group From Wichita, Kansas!

We had a great group from Wichita, Kansas here this past week and had enough people to do two work projects!  There were 4 big families, praise God!  The Rohr's who have 6 children, The Alvarez's who have 7 Children, and the Habashy's who have 6 children.  We were also blessed to have a priest, Father Jerry, as well.  The singles that came were: Britto, Ken, Rashel, and Janice  To top it all off the Keihl's(6 kids) came back for the week to see the Alvarez's and to help out with the group.  It was soo good to see them!

One of the work projects was an room for a family that is being kicked out of their house.  Apparently the house they are living in now is on a piece of land that belongs to the local government. The government wants to use it so they are pushing the family out.  She had a piece of land already with one cinder block room on it, but it isn't enough room for them.  We are adding on another room out of adobe.  

 In preparation for the group I had the guys dig the footings and pour them. 

The group was big help in getting many of the Adobe laid.

Adobe is pretty easy to cut to size if needed!

A couple people had the opportunity to mix adobe mud with straw using their feet the old fashioned way!

In one day we were able to get about half done!

The other project we did was a new roof and concrete floor for a family.  They were living with 6 people in one room.  That included the kitchen and all.  They had started building walls at some point but lacked the funds to finish.

 First we installed the tablitas on to top of the rafters for the roof deck. 

The tablitas are actually just pallet wood that has been disassembled.  All the nails had to be cleaned from about 100 boards.  

Later we put plastic and dirt on top with a thin layer of concrete.

After the tablitas were nailed down, we mixed concrete for the floor.  The recipe was 17 wheelbarrows of gravel and sand, 6 bags of cement, a lot of water, and even more backache! 

The entry into the room was too narrow for a wheel barrow, so it had to be brought in with buckets. 

Gonzalo would screed it off. 

And I smoothed it out.

I want to say thank you to the group for coming!  It is a big help having you here.  If anyone else wants to come to Mexico for a week and be a part of this amazing work go ahead and sign up!  You won't regret it and God will reward you immensely!  

Bonus photo:  when we visited the Ejidos we were able to see how they make these brushes from a certain cactus.  They have this machine that strips all the vegetation away and leaves the fibrous core which is perfect material for the brushes they make.  Most of the ejidos make these as a form of extra income.