Olympia Team Shows their Continued Support for Los Charcos

Only a few short days after the departure of the Inglewood team we had the privilege of hosting the team from Olympia, Washington for the 5th time in the community of Los Charcos.  Olympia CRC may not send the biggest teams – ranging from 3 to 7 people – but they have certainly been faithful in their commitment to Los Charcos. 

Over the years the church has kept in contact with the community by exchanging photos, letters and cards.  Undeterred by their limited economic resources Olympia has always committed to some type of construction project per year.  In the past they´ve done everything from pouring cement floors, constructing latrines and building pilas for washing and water storage.  This year the eager Olympians took on a big challenge in pledging to construct an addition on the local Christian Reformed Church to be used as a Sunday School classroom.  Armed with their largest team yet (7 participants) and a lot of prayer and financial support, they were ultimately able to achieve their goal. 
Unfortunately I was unable to join this team when they came last year as I was recovering from my appendectomy.  That was really too bad because they are a great group of people and they even accepted me as one of their own – despite being Canadian!  

Olympia prefers to stay with host families rather than altogether in the church or schoolhouse.  It was amazing to see how close they´ve become to the families that host them every year.  One of the challenges, however, in using host families is of course the language barrier.   We solved that problem by hiring three wonderful ladies from Tegucigalpa, Dilia, Miriam and Karla, to help us as translators.  The three of them and myself ended up rotating through the host families at dinner time so that the team members could chat with the family in the evenings. 

In terms of the work project, every day was different as the addition involved a variety of tasks.  The first day was spent digging the perimeter of the foundation and stacking an endless pile of blocks.  The next day involved hauling rocks and mixing cement to lay the foundation.  We spent another day hauling lumber on our shoulders down from the mountain to the church – a task that was a lot harder than it sounds!  The team also shovelled and carried buckets of dirt from a nearby field to level the floor while others mixed water, sand and cement for the masons as they began to lay the bricks.  It was hot and the work was hard but the team remained in good spirits.  It was very interesting to see the construction from the very beginning but it was also sad to have to leave before it was finished.  But, in the end, we were all proud of the progress we accomplished!