Sweat Equity

Domigo called Jimmy the other day to tell him that all the Kekchi pastors in Petén were getting together to pour the roof of the new pastors' building in Sayaxche. Sayaxché is the headquarters for the Kekchi Baptist pastors association. 

The association has at least one meeting a month where everyone gets together.  Many of the pastors come a pretty long distance, so they will spend the night. They have been using the Baptist church there, but decided they wanted to have a building just for the association and their supplies. The bottom floor (which is what this roof was going on) is for bunk rooms. The men will sleep there on bunk beds when they come in for meetings. The second floor will be for offices and a large meeting room. 

Domingo and Jimmy are really good friends since they have spent so much time together in ministry and I believe Domingo truly knows Jimmy's heart. He has taught Jimmy a lot about Kekchi people. He tells Jimmy what is expected and what matters most in this culture. I think of him kind of like Jimmy's self appointed PR person. He is our cultural translator! Domingo told Jimmy to "find the time" to be at this roof pouring, so Jimmy made it a priority to go. 

It was really neat the way God gave Jimmy several specific opportunities to help that day beyond just the physical labor part:

Something happened to the Kekchi guys that still happens to us unexpectedly on a regular basis... Guatemala has a holiday you weren't prepared for. Some holidays are nation-wide and some are just city-wide. We try to keep track, but some still catch us off guard. What little infrastructure there is on a good day, completely shuts down on a holiday. This particular day was Labor Day, so all the banks were closed. The guys needed cash to buy more bags of cement to finish the job, but no hardware store would take their check. Jimmy just happened to have cash on him that day, so he cashed their check!  

{Mixing concrete}

We have had so many problems with our own water pump, that Jimmy knew enough now to be able to fix the problem they were having with theirs. Still they ended up not having enough water in their well to mix all the concrete, but Jimmy happened to know someone with a water truck in Sayaxché. This was the very resourceful cistern they prepared for the water:

{Water truck}

Domingo was right. This day was very important. Jimmy has a lot of respect for these pastors. It can be tricky sometimes building rapport across cultural lines especially since he can't spend as much time with all of them as he does with Domingo. Beyond the extra opportunities God gave Jimmy to help, I still think working along side them went the farthest. He was covered in concrete like the rest of them! (BTW: Vinegar works wonders in removing concrete from clothes.)

{Jimmy did not appreciate me taking this picture!}

And the next day when Jimmy went back for the monthly meeting, all of his muscles were hurting in the same places theirs were!