Getting a concrete pad on the ground is an amazing feat, but it is just the start. When I asked Bob Hall, an Australian contractor with experience building in the Philippines if he could help me design the covered play area, I asked him to make it as typhoon proof as possible. He did and this translated into tons of iron. Iron in the concrete bolted to iron posts. Bolted to iron trusses.
20 foot long pieces of re-bar don’t fit in the helicopter very well, so the workers in town had a clever way of using a barrel to roll the re-bar into coils.
Of course, the concrete workers didn't want to use rolled pieces of re bar, so I had to pay 4 guys to hammer it straight again. Rolling re-bar and straightening it out again turns out to be a good way to create jobs.
The helicopter tried flying posts into the village last January and decided it wasn't a good idea so the rest of the materials were loaded on a truck and sent to a town downstream from our village. This happened after we were already in the village.
The boat guys unloaded the cargo at the bottom of the hill near the school. All the posts were there and most of the trusses.
On our last full day in the village, a crew of men carried the rest of the iron to the top of the hill. Either the guys have a lot of faith in the wooden bridge planks or they didn't think about how much weight they were putting in one place.
The team worked all morning.
By noon, everything was stacked neatly on the work site and
by late afternoon, all the concrete work was finished. Heidi and I
arrived home on Saturday afternoon and on Monday I heard that the last pieces of
the structure had been sent upstream. I talked to Bob Hall this morning
and he is planning to come and construct the building this spring. What
an answer to prayer it is to be able to tell him, “Come any time, the concrete
is down and all the materials are on site.”
Thank you for your prayers!
Thank God for his provision!!
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