Frijoles, fried bananas, eggs and coffee for breakfast and off to the job site. The people are very excited about their new community center. They come and go throughout the day ready to help in any way they can. I feel so fortunate to be a part of this. This is the first help from outside that these people have received in a long time.

A number of years ago some organization came in and built scores of brick outhouses in this community. Everywhere we go we see them. They are a visual lesson on the foolishness of projecting your needs on someone else. They were designed so that the waste could be removed and used to fertilize the fields. None of the locals were asked if they wanted the outhouses or needed the fertilizer. The outhouses were just built ... one for every family in La Labor. Not one has been used as a outhouse. No one here would ever consider fertilizing their fields with human waste.

All the outhouses we saw were being used as storage sheds. There is a very real danger in walking into a community with an answer to a need that was never expressed. On our last trip to El Salvador I asked the country director, Ricardo, what was the number one project on his dream list. He said it was the community center in La Labor. We are here not because WE think they need a community center. We are here because THEY think they need a community center. We are not going to build storage sheds disguised as outhouses. We are building a community center that God will use to shout from the mountain tops that he loves them and has not forgotten them.

The work continued to dig away at the slope and work on the footings. We have put a lot of time and money into this because the land is not flat. Our team hiked through the jungle to the rock mine where some of our helpers were digging up rock from an unclaimed plot of land. I was wondering how we were going to carry the rocks back across the creek beds and slippery paths we had hiked through. We finally came upon them and discovered a road in front of the place they were working. The rocks were being loaded on a truck and hauled back to the job site.

We hitched a ride back to the job site. The women and children were waiting for the rocks to arrive. As soon as the rocks were unloaded Kevin, Jonathan and I began to help them put the rocks on their heads. I cannot remember the last time I did so many squats. Again, the women were competing for the largest rocks. They would tap me on the shoulder and point to this giant boulder with their toe. I wanted to say, "can't you choose a smaller one?" 

 I am really growing to love these people. Over the course of this week we have developed a bond. My mind is already racing with other ways we can help these people. I have begun exploring how to provide a micro-credit loan to some of the women who need sewing machines so they can sign a contract with the government to make school uniforms for the children at the local elementary school. There are 324 boys and 322 girls at this school.

We have devoted this week to asking questions, to getting to know how they spell HOPE. They spell it quite a bit different than we do. If we really want to be agents of hope, we must learn to spell it like they do.