Compassion and Listening to Bricks

I (Jane Ellis, the team blogger) realized just now that I haven't introduced my team members. They are Pastor Dave Norman, Dave Bennett, Jil and Rhett Breeden, Jane and Kara Ellis, Tom Nealley, Debbie Neff, Doug Schnelzer, Jen Score, Marie Priou Lewis and Drew Stevens.

First, the team would like to start off by telling you about something that touched us all. One of the things that we learned upon arrival at the school was that the pump to the well on the property of HUMBLE was blown out by a huge power surge during a storm. This means no fresh water has been available for the students of HUMBLE for at least one month. It was quite clear that we could not allow the students to continue having to carry heavy water in buckets from a pond some 500 yards each way that was good for bathing but not palatable for drinking. To fix the pump it cost $2,500. We gave the go ahead to fix it so that by Friday of this week the children will once again have fresh water pumped up to the school site and no longer needing to walk and haul water up hill that long distance. If you would like to contribute to this you can simply give a gift online or a check made payable to Crossroads and mark school pump on the memo line.

Now for today. Okay, so we did more brick throwing. Most of us have some sort of brick mishap wound at this point and Tom and Rhett have football injuries. Good thing we have a first-aid kit with us. The wall is coming along in amazing fashion. Several team members, Tom, Pastor Dave, Kara, Drew and Rhett have all helped get approximately 150 pounds of water from the bottom of the steep hill mentioned above on the back of a broken bicycle. They have to fill these plastic containers and then push the bike back up the long rutted hill. (Just fyi, most of the team made the trip down the hill with the children yesterday to see what they had to do to get water and were all stunned by the amount of labor involved).

We have been having a great time (though I dislike bricks intensely now. I'm not supposed to use the word hate). And we have learned to throw bricks compassionately and to pay attention to the moment or we have bricks land on our feet or other body parts (it's all stems from the scripture lessons Jen gives us in the morning).

In the afternoon, we were all able to enjoy time with the children. Some played football, some just talked to the children as they did their chores and practiced their singing. Again, a tiring but worthwhile day for all.