M is for Monday and Mistakes

Usually, the first day of this trip is slow. The team is trying to find their place on the worksite. Do I want to paint, build, clean up, play with kids? Where do I fit in? And for a new member, it can be pretty overwhelming. There's also the matter of supplies. We need to make sure that the group has what they need to get working. So it's typically not until after lunch Monday that we can really get rolling. As the guy with the keys to the bus, most of the progress hinges on when I get back with said supplies. So when I returned after lunch, I was expecting a lot of people bored and waiting around. But to my surprise, there was a lot that got done. Raoul does a great job of giving us work that allows for a variety of skills. This week we are working on finishing Mr. Leo's bathroom, fixing a small section of roof and painting Miss Vilma's house across the street, and of course playing with the kids. We were moving pretty good, almost too good. Sometimes in our rush to get 'er done and finish the job, we overlook the little things and make mistakes. But it's in those mistakes that we are reminded that the physical impact that we make can be great, but it's not all that this trip is about. Yeah, we will need to redo the roof at Miss Vilma's, some of the scraping was subpar, and I forgot about a key component in building the roof of the bathroom. It's going to set us back in our attempt to complete them all by Friday, which is certainly frustrating. But in the midst of those frustrations, you could hear the laughter, the conversations, the prayers. These bonds being created between ourselves and the people in the village, that's what matters on this trip. Jesus wants us to build relationships with each other. Which are more important than the relationship we have with hammers and saws.