Thursday Update

We have finished the outdoor trim, installed the windows, and mudded the house. This year we are doing things a little differently on the house. Our foreman, Ricardo, uses a sprayer to apply the second coat of mud. This means almost no sanding was needed. That was always the only tedious part of the construction process for me, and now it's gone!

Last night, we were invited to the church that our family attends. The building wasn't impressive on the outside, but the worship service was incredible. The sang contemporary choruses with lots of energy. There was a band, a good sound system, and they were using powerpoint.

They invited us to speak, with Eleina Espigh of Velocity Church serving as translator. I spoke for a few minutes followed by James Stallings. The church had the entire group come up and they prayed for us as well as "Pastor Kent" and "Pastor James" (congratulate him on his ordination when you see him). They then had the families come forward that we and Velocity are working with this week. We all placed hands on them and prayed for them.

I'll have a few new pictures up in the next few minutes. The picture you are viewing in this post is of the house our family is currently living in.

I will be adding pictures of the Velocity group so that their families can view them.

Today will be our last day on the job site. We will present our family with the key to their house. This will be a big day for us and them. Not only will they have a significantly better house, they will finally have a house with a lock.

It will be a big day for us, because our team has bonded with the family very closely this week. Months before they met us, they and their church have been praying for us.

YUGO is building 71 houses in Ensenada this year. Seven are being built this week. At the start of the year, they had selected 109 families to receive houses based on early church registrations. As of now, 38 families will be waiting at the end of the year. Pray that YUGO will find ways to be able to meet the needs of as many of these families as possible.