Plastering and Doorframes

Years ago I recruited two brickies (one was just starting out as a brickie) to build the perimeter wall at the Living Word School. I remember telling them that if they did a good job that they would never be without work again in Maues.

Since then they’ve never been without work in Maues.....the only thing is...brickies are becoming like hens teeth! Few and far between!

It is great to have both Lucio and Mapara back with us to do the plastering of the Rescue Project.

Mapara is just coming back (sounds like he’s a football player) after a hernia repair. During the time he wasn’t able to work the Barnabus Project at the Living Word Church delivered several hampers to him and his family to help them out.

Looking good

Lucio.... applying the cement!

Carao, hearty workhorse......mixing cement in the heat and humidity of the Amazon

 

OOOOps

Good news and bad news.......

First the good news, all the tiles are up on the rescue project! It looks awesome and even though the wooden rafters are harder to work with (compared to a metal substructure) Antonio has done an outstanding job.

Bad news.....he put the tiles on with one overlap to many on the corrugation an error which has cost us another 12 tiles. In a situation where every pence, dollar, centavo counts.....not great.

The alternative would be try to and take the aluminium roof tiles off but that could end up being more costly.

The Rescue Project

Roof tiling on, showing supporting arm

The Kitchen will have living quarters built on top!

Boomerang BREAD

Years ago Tinho was praying/talking to God about what he was preaching. We were teaching about winning souls for the Kingdom and Tinho felt a little bit like a prisoner restricted behind his till machine in the Chemist and Hardware store. Tinho asked God to send people to him, if he couldn’t go to them.

The phone went.....Christmas Eve in Brazil.....(a little bit like our Christmas Day).....can you come and see my brother?

Tinho and myself left our families and went to Jose Antonio’s (Ze) house, he had a nickname the rat, because he was always in the gutter. Literally he drank himself into a comatose state regularly and lay where he fell. Children used to pick weeds and grass and stuff it into his mouth. And now he was seeing things, terrified and showing the injuries from falling over and a night in the gutter he really resembled the shell of a man, a walking dead.

That night we prayed for Jose Antonio and he received Jesus into his life, apart from that he was delivered from the vice of alcoholism. His testimony impacted not only his immediate friends and family but the city in general.............everybody knew or had seen the ‘rat’.

Now Antonio, Jose Antonio’s son-in-law’s brother is doing the rafters and the roof tiling of the Rescue Project. Antonio came to the Lord because of Ze’s testimony. Bread that has been cast has returned.

Antonio is a bit of a perfectionist and it has taken him a while to the rafters in place. Each rafter is hand built in situ (in place) and bolted together. It isn’t like back home where you can go to a builder’s yard and buy rafters or get them pre-made to a specification.

Antonio and his handmade rafters!

Got a SUMMONS here....

YOU'VE GOT TO BE KIDDING

Martin:                 What?

Tinho:   You’ve been summoned by Sedema! (The Secretary of Defense for the Environment)

Martin:                 I know what that is, I’ve been denounced......

Tinho:   don’t jump to conclusions.

Martin: I’ll go with photos, how can I be denounced, we didn’t cut anything down.

Tinho:   You’re too far ahead of yourself....

Martin:                 no, better being prepared.

Tinho:   Just go and see

I remember thinking, “that’s all I need another thing to resolve”. It is ironic that the borough council make you get written permission for every tree that you are going to cut down or prune and you are even asked to replace the tree with saplings given into the local office, whilst large swathes of ‘rainforest’ are cut down by the ‘legalised’ saw mills before like locust harvesting on ripe crops move onto the next area when the land is bare. In saying that the Amazon State is the most conserved of the States which make up the Amazon Basin.

I grabbed my laptop and headed to see what the ‘summons’ was about, knowing fine rightly that I had been denounced for cutting down the ‘rainforest’ without the correct permission. Class a ‘gringo’ cutting down the rainforest!

On arrival I was ushered into the ‘Head mans office’ and yes I had been denounced for cutting down the rainforest. I had already thought through my reply.

I hadn’t sought permission as I hadn’t cut down any trees, just cleared land which had already been cultivated. If I was guilty of cutting down anything it was one tucuma palm tree! The only support I had for my words were photos...but I had plenty.

After the environmental engineer saw the photos he was satisfied....

I was free to cut back overgrowth for another day!

GUILTY AS CHARGED!!!! YES.......I DID CUT DOWN ONE PALM TREE

TAIL of the Tale, MIRACLES behold.

I returned to the Electricity Company to see Mr Joseph.

I wasn’t getting anywhere with the Borough Council.....plenty of promises for clearing the road, but unfortunately ‘talk is cheap’ and doesn’t get much done. I had explained to them that the electrical company would put in telegraph poles bringing electricity to the Rescue Project but that they had asked that the Borough Council clear the ‘track’ first, allowing their machines to do their job.

I explained to Mr Joseph that I had asked the ‘works’ department to ‘level’ the track but that nothing had been done nor possibly would be. It just so happened that the guy responsible for the team who was in the city putting in telegraph poles had just dropped in to the Electricity Company’s Office.

Mr Joseph spoke briefly with him and they decided to go and have a look at the service..... after another brief discussion it was decided that the ground was hard enough to support their lorry/crane and that the only time the team had free was the next day! I couldn’t believe it, I had asked for a basic two cable format taking electricity to the Rescue Project, Mr Joseph said there was no point in doing the job by half measures, best the full works, 4 cables!

The next day the team that had come to replace telegraph poles around the city were digging, placing and installing five new telegraph poles and all the necessary cables and fixtures to take electricity to the front door of the Rescue Project, on THEIR DAY OFF.

GOD is good, ALWAYS. 

First Telegraph Pole

Along the 'track' to the RESCUE PROJECT

FIVE telegraph poles later, electricity to the Rescue Project