I know I know the gaps between blogs just keep getting
longer and longer haha. I’m going to start back three weeks ago:
The Week of June 24th: 6 of the 7 interns were in
Acuna, leading teams. My team was from
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Monday that we
poured the slab set an Acuna record with a high temperature of 118. I took 3 people to
the hospital that day, two from heat exhaustion and one from heat stroke. The heat stroke occurred right in the middle
of the most crucial point of the foundation process. I’d never seen a heat stoke before but it
scared me to death. Despite a few more
trips to the hospital we
completed the house, a double, on Thursday.
After the dedication I went to Jess’s site, a single, to help speed
things up. Her site was ridiculous;
you’ll understand when you see the pictures.
Anyway I put in a few windows and did the wiring and we finished all but
the final touches that night. Since my
team had left, I spent the night with David Quinones. He’s the Casas rep that is Mexican and lives
in Acuna. He had been helping at Jess’s
sight as well. His wife made us some
incredible chicken tacos when we got back to his house at 11 p.m. She is an incredible cook. The next morning David took me to a local
breakfast kitchen where I was given a nice full plate of menudo, the Mexican
version of chitlins. I choked it
down. From there we went to Jess’s
dedication and then headed back home to The Pass.
The week of July 1st: We interns built a single in Juarez this
week. We built for an elderly couple
both of whom had some disabilities. Our
site was super tight. When the house was
finished there were cement walls within 2 feet of each of the 4 walls of the
house. This build was my 10th
house of the summer. We watched El
Paso’s fireworks from a high vantage point in Juarez. I turned 21 in the first church Rolling Hills
ever stayed in, El Salvador Devino, translated Devine Savior.
The week of July 8th: I’ve been in the office this week doing all
sorts of stuff. One day I’m patching
leaks in the office roof, the next day I’m taking passports to team members in
Juarez who forgot them. Pretty much just
doing odd jobs and keeping the radio on in case teams in Juarez need us. My nights are free so that means a lot of
mountain biking and rock climbing.
I am really looking forward to the Rolling Hills build at
the end of the month. I’ve heard that y’all
are collecting items for the family and Gideon.
Believe me, these things will be greatly appreciated.
I hope all is well and can’t wait to see you guys
Love,
David
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| The double I led in Acuna. This was the Wisconsin team. |
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| The family and pastor in front of the Acuna double. |
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| This pastor has been the sponsor of all the builds I have led in Acuna. We have become great friends. He makes incredible descada for every dedication. |
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| This was Jess's crazy tight sight. If you look you can see the 6 inch gap between the house and concrete walls on both sides!! We had to get very innovative with our stuccoing techniques haha. |
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| Myself, Andrew, and Jess prepare for the pump truck on our intern single. This was also a tight sight but nothing compared to Jess's previous one. |
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| This is how you fix bowed roof plates in Mexico haha. |
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| This is the crazy storm we were trying to beat when finishing our roof. When things got ugly we pulled everybody up there. The whole roof only took about 25 min to tar paper and shingle. |
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| Jess and I trouble shoot electrical. |
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| There were a ton of kids around all week. It's always fun when we get to interact with the community. |
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| This is the family we built the intern single for. |
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| An awesome traditional Mexican meal from Josues. Un hamburguesa y un gordita con papas fritas. This place isn't far from the church we are staying at in a few weeks so we could definitely work in a trip here if you guys would like. |
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| This is from the beginning of the summer but I just had to share it, too funny. Thats Dave Kruh, our 6'6 intern haha. |
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| This is Pastor Gideon. Every Sunday morning he takes an ancient school bus and picks up the kids of Juanita Luna and brings them back to his church from breakfast. |
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| Mountain biking El Paso's Franklin Mountains |
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Rock climbing at Hueco Tanks just out side of El Paso.
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