More Santa Fe News

So....what the heck is this? Well, in a cloud forest you need to do things a bit differently than we do them here. In the US where the water needs to cross the road we put in a pipe or culvert. In the areas where we are working in Honduras the culverts would just get plugged up and wash out because of the torrential rains. So what we do is where the natural drainage crosses the roads we put in a concrete pad and just let the water cross the road. The concrete prevents the water from washing out the road and is an inexpensive way to prevent major road repairs.

We negotiated with the coffee coop that buys coffee beans from the farmers in the area of Santa Fe to help us with the road repairs. They brought their equipment in and graded and graveled and filled lots of potholes in the road, and we agreed to do the crossings. The villagers are doing the work with the advice of some of the experienced people from Project Global Village.


Like a lot of things in the villages we work in, it turns into a community affair. Everyone from the very old to the very young pitch in and help because they can see how improving the road is going to make it possible to get the material into the village to build the latrines and homes and pilas etc. etc.

Oh yeah! I almost forgot about the water system. We now have some of the materials up there. Remember last week they were digging some of the trenches. Next week they will be putting pipe in the trenches. There is still a lot of work to do on the system but they are on their way!!

Until next week!!

--Tom

FREAKS!!

At the 16th induction ceremony for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2001, U2's Bono looked out at the crowd and said, "The whole world is full of freaks...Look at yourselves! God makes music out of his mistakes. I know--I'm one of them."

I know exactly what Bono was saying. We who claim to be followers of Jesus, I mean real action oriented followers of Jesus, are indeed FREAKS. We are the minority, aberrations if you will.

An early Celtic teacher once said, "I do not wish you to suppose that righteousness consists simply in not doing evil, since not to do good is also evil." You see, it's not enough that we are not the cause of the poverty in Honduras and elsewhere in the world, but to do nothing about it makes us evil. Take a look at Matthew 25 and see what the results of doing nothing are. You won't like it.

The good news is we are not doing nothing. We are doing a ton!! For instance, in Santa Fe, the village where the teens will be going in June, the villagers are hard at work digging the trenches for the water system. Take a look at the backhoes and the terrain they are working in.









We are partnering with them. They are doing the hand labor, we are supplying 70% of the cost of the water system. They will be organizing an association to levy a fee on each home that will be using the water. They will then repay the 30% that is their share of the construction cost, mostly materials, over time of course. They will own the system. Since they will own the system, they will maintain it out of the revenues of the levied fee.

...A HAND UP AND NOT A HAND OUT!!...

It is you FREAKS that are making this possible. Keep on being FREEKY YOU FREEKIN FREEKS...we are just likely to change the world. We are changing the world in Santa Fe...and Agua Amarilla...and San Antonio...and Vallecito. You just keep watchin!!

San Antonio!

First of all, I need to confess that I was a bad boy last week. I did not post anything to the blog. With Chet and Lizzeth here and all of the other stuff I had going on I didn't get around to it. I have a million excuses I could use and they will all work, but the truth is I just didn't do it.

Now the good news! Massive things are happening in San Antonio. The water system is underway as you can see to the left. The villagers are in the process of building a new reservoir to hold the water. From here it will enter the piping system and go to the storage tanks, where it will then enter the distribution system.

There will be two tanks built because they way the village is situated. There are some homes scattered among the hills and valleys and it will just work better to have two smaller tanks than one large one.

Daniel says they are moving at light speed to get this done as soon as possible. Remember, this is the village that has the source of water below the level of the homes and water doesn't run
up hill in Honduras, so we will be installing a pump as well. It will be an electric pump because we have access to electricity (a miracle story) and it will be more reliable than a mechanical type of pumping system.

The villagers are working on the water system while at the same time they are building latrines, pilas (sinks), dry wells, concrete floors, and improved stoves as well! Whew!! Oh yeah! And they are also working at their jobs. These guys in San Antonio are not normal!! They really want to make things better for themselves and it ROCKS!!


To the left you can see the backhoes at work preparing the site for the first tank. This is going to be so cool to see this when it is done. All they had before was a 1/2" tube and a 50 gallon barrel to supply more than 20 homes with water...this will be life changing!!
Until next week fellow FREAKS!! (Yeah, I'll explain it in next week's post!!)