A House for Doris

The old house

Everything that was in the house except for two beds which were put somewhere else during construction

Bottles filled with rainwater, all the water they had

A baby girl and her mommy will sleep warm tonight and have food in their stomachs

Happy kids. They have a new house

The new house

One of my friends in Mississippi sent money for us to build a house in memory of her Aunt Doris. After the last group leaves in August, the needs still continue, but we don't always have the manpower to get things done.

Julie has waited patiently since sending her money.

Today we were able to build that house. We left here at 6:15 this morning. It was cold, windy, and foggy. Praise God it was not raining. We met the lumber truck at 8:00 and he followed us into a village called Diez Y Siete de Septiembe (The 17th of September). It is not a village we would want to be in after dark.

Marc had been there Saturday and looked at the site and told the family we would be back today. As Marc bounded up the hill, I could hear squeals of excitement. The rest of us walked up the hill and saw an awful house. It was so tiny and eight people were living there. One wall was not much more than paper. We were going to have to do a teardown, but we were sure it would not take long as there was not much there and it wasn't very stable.

We also had to move everything out of the house before the teardown could begin. We began to move things out of the house. There were 2 beds on which 8 people sleep every night. There was essentially no food, less than a cup of sugar, less than a cup of rice and some coffee. There were no dishes and a couple of small tables. One was so rickety I was not sure I could not pick it up and move it and it remain intact. The only kind of cooking utensil I saw was a kettle and I think coffee had been fmade in that. There was a hot plate on which to cook, but it had not been used this morning.

There was no running water and we carried out some bottles of water, which we were careful not to spill any. They have to catch rain water from the roof. This becomes their drinking water, washing water, cooking water.

It did not take long to empty this house and pile the stuff in the yard.

The roof was in fairly good shape and it was decided to try to move it intact and reuse some of the tin. Maria, the lady of the house decided she wanted to use it to put over her kitchen. The house came down, the roof saved and moved, and the lot cleared of the debris.

Two of the corner posts were easy and two were rock. We were grateful for the two easy ones. The last house we had to dig through rock to set all four corner posts.

As the house went up, and we had a chance to visit with the family, we found out it never gets warm where they live. They are always cold. Always. How miserable that might be. I pulled my sweatshirt off while we were working, but certainly needed it when things came to a standstill.

The house went up quickly, but we were really tired today when we finished.

A friend of Maria's was present all day. She held Maria's 10 month old baby girl often. She was so happy that the baby would have a warm place to sleep tonight and when we begin to carry food into the house, she was so thankful the baby girl would have food in her tummy tonight as well.

We all went to eat pizza when we finished building the house. As we came out of the Pizza Hut, it was starting to rain. I was so thankful that those eight people would be sleeping dry tonight.

I opened an email from Julie this evening and it said I think Aunt Doris is dancing with the angels tonight. I could not agree more.

Terri