Topsoil being removed at main building site
The saying goes “Patience is a virtue”. I am convinced that over the past several weeks one of God’s agendas for me was to work on the area of patience in my life. Unless you are very different than me, being “worked on” is never fun.
The whole matter at hand for weeks now has been getting equipment to the farm site in order to clear the topsoil from the building site, and then bringing in truckloads of fill to form a solid base for construction. It certainly did not arrive on Monday, February 18th as I had optimistically put in the last blog posting. In fact, the past weeks and months have been a waiting game filled with multiple promises with little performance – clouds with no rain. It was not that Javier and I did not have other work to do on the farm. However, we can not advance in building until we are able to get the groundwork done. This has placed us under considerable pressure to get the site prepared.
Finally after weeks of delays we were given the promise that on Monday, the 25th of
The building site cleared for bringing in the fill
February the backhoe would definitely be on the jobsite. I showed up early and sat waiting throughout the morning. Finally around noon I was able to contact the owner and was told that there were still some problems, but “seguro” (for sure) mañana the work would begin.
I showed up on Tuesday somewhat more skeptical and not quite as full of naive hope, but sure enough, somewhere around midmorning the backhoe came driving onto the site.
The first order of business was to prepare a ramp going down into the holding “pond” that we had dug back in mid January. As you will recall, we found water in one corner of the hole – not much, but enough to give us hope that God would provide enough for a good, clean well. Javier and I had spent many fruitless hours trying to find someone who would hammer and pick his way down through the laja (rock layer hardpan) that we had hit. We found that no one did this anymore, and that it was a dying trade. We finally found that there was still an option – use a backhoe with attached hydraulic hammer to break our way through the rock. Apparently there was one available in town and it was available for rent. The problem though was that the pit was too deep for the arm to reach down to work. So, we would need a ramp for it to get down into the hole. This was accomplished on the first day that the backhoe arrived.
Topsoil is dumped at second building site
Wednesday, February 27th began with full force. We had a dump truck on the site as well as the backhoe. Load after load of black dirt was scraped off of the building site and hauled onto another area of the property where it could be used to build up the land around a second building site. It was precious, rich soil, and there was no way that we were simply going to get rid of it. In total 23 loads of topsoil were scraped from the building site and hauled off. What an exciting day – it was actually beginning to happen!
Then Thursday came, and then Friday. Patience again! Sergio, our backhoe driver had gotten a piece of dirt blown into his eye on Wednesday and it had damaged it enough that he could not work. There was nothing to do but wait, and keep going on with the cleaning of the sugarcane field with machetes. The field desperately needed weeding. We had begun the previous week. Javier strapped on a backpack pump sprayer and went for the broad-leafed weeds with herbicide while I took machete in hand and went up and down each row of sugarcane and chopped out the invasive grasses. The problem with grasses is that the herbicides that kill them will also kill the young sugarcane. Even if one attempts to spot spray only on the grass, it is almost impossible not to also “nuke” the cane. Because of this, we chose to go the bent-back, sharp machete, and gancho way. So, as I have already said, we were not without work, but it was not the work that I wanted and needed to get done as quickly as possible on the actual building site.
Saturday, the 2nd of March dawned to a day with both pieces of machinery back on the site, and both working. Praise God! My patience-meter had been spiking into the red zone.
In the morning we went and checked out the “choy” bank. Choy, as you will recall from
Truck being loaded with choy to be used as fill on building site
my last blog is a material that is fairly plentiful in certain areas of the Cd. Valles region and is used locally as a good fill base. I have as yet been unable to identify exactly what it is geologically. This time even “Googling” it doesn’t bring results. I have tried every way possible that I can think of to find out what the geological history of this area is, and hence, what caused the formation of choy. It looks like it is clay of some sort that has been deposited (probably as ocean bottom), but it has some really weird characteristics. When you first dig it out it is like rock – kind of blue, browny-grey in color. It breaks apart in concentric circles, making it rather unique as well. But the really strange thing is that as soon as it gets any amount of weathering at all – specifically water – it crumbles into a pebbly gravel type of consistency. So, here is the challenge to all of you wannabe geologists – what is it?
By Saturday evening we had eight dump truck loads of fill on the building site. We were revving up – Wahoo!
Filling begins at building site
Monday morning we began in earnest – twelve loads of fill. Tuesday – fifteen loads. Wednesday – seventeen loads. Thursday – sixteen. Wow, sixty eight dump truck loads of fill deposited and mounded up on the building site, ready to be leveled so that construction can begin.
Today, Friday, I am sitting in the van at the landsite with my laptop counting truckloads (among doing other things). Incidentally, what in the world did we do before the age of computers and laptops? How did we get anything done? Or, is it actually the other way around? Maybe we are simply slaves to the very machines that we think are bringing us such leisure. At any rate, today we are beginning to bring fill into a second area where staff housing will be developed. We decided that since we have the equipment here it would simply make more sense to take care of all of the hauling and leveling work that needed to be done in one fell swoop rather than trying to go through the agony of acquiring the machinery another time later. By the end of today, or at the latest tomorrow we hope to have the hauling of all the choy finished. At that point we will just need the backhoe to level out the area, as well as the second backhoe with hydraulic hammer to punch through for water. Then we will be ready to build. Praise God for answered prayer!
Of course, this also brings into focus again the little issue of finances. We are continuing to
Lunch time for the workers
move forward believing that God will provide the funds to complete this preliminary foundation work, and then to begin building. Miraculously, we have always had enough for the need immediately at hand, but never an excess. Now we will wait and see if, and how, God will provide for the next step. In the natural, outside of a complete miracle, there is no way that we can do any more after we pay for the site work that we are having done currently.
So, what does any of this all mean anyway? It means that we are one step closer to having a missionary Training Center ready. A place where men and women who have a mission call on their lives can live, train, and be prepared to go back to their own people with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
But what’s the big deal anyway? So, another missions building project. Whoopee, so what! Surely missions building projects are about a dime a dozen, and many of them are not worth even that. So what?
Filled and ready for leveling
Well, maybe a clue is in the name. We have named the farm “La Finca Casa del Obrero” (Farm – House of the Laborer). This name is appropriate because the name of the nonprofit that covers the work is “Obreros Unidos para Cosechar” (Laborers United to Harvest). This, of course, can refer to the physical harvesting on the farm, but more significantly to the spiritual harvesting that is the whole purpose of the ministry. The word “obrero(s)” that we have used in the names is the same word that Jesus used in Matthew 9:37 and in other places where he said “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”.
It is my desire and passion that this farm become a Training Center where men and women can be trained in a very practical and non-religious, hands-on way in the Word, in ministry and ministering, in serving and servanthood, in physical work and trades skills, and in every aspect of life which will bring their walk closer with the Lord. The vision is that it will become a place where men and women can live in community, work and study, be discipled and trained in the Word, learn ministry on a hands-on basis, and be able to grow in their walk in the Lord 24/7.
Because the new Training Center is located in an area close to four major tribal groups its
Days end - time to go home after a long and hard day
focus will probably be directed to, but not limited to indigenous, national men and women who have God’s call on their lives for ministry back into their own villages. Whereas the more academic-based Bible Institute and mobile Project LAMBS schools are mainly reaching those from the city, the purpose of the farm-based Casa del Obrero will be to train and equip national missionaries. We also envision this Training Center being able to accommodate those who do not have a strong academic background, and may not even be able to read or write. We are aware that God’s call on lives is not limited to academia or classroom knowledge
I know that I may be treading on sacred toes, and that what I am about to say is paramount to blasphemy. However, I get so tired of a religion that talks and doesn’t walk. Surely the world has enough good quality, academic Bible training schools without one more, if indeed that is all that we are trying to do. But, what I see the need for so strongly is not simply another Bible School, as good as that may be, but rather for a place where lives can be molded and transformed into laborers in God’s Kingdom – a place where men and women can learn to understand what it means to roll up their sleeves, pick up a basin and towel and wash feet. I believe that God is looking for men and women who are not looking for “ministry”, who are not looking for a “church” where they can become the pastor, who are not looking for “recognition” and “fame”, even in a spiritual sense, but simply men and women with a desire and passion for him. It is my conviction that the way upward in the upside-down Kingdom of God is by going downward in an earthly sense. When supposed men and women of God preen and strut like peacocks in full plumage my heart is saddened (as I suppose God’s is as well).
How is this upside-down Kingdom of God, this life of humility, to be taught? The way that Jesus did it and how it can only be done – by example. By the humble walk and living example of men such as Javier Santos and others who are modeling the walk of Jesus.
La Finca Casa del Obrero is to be a place not where heads (only) are filled with knowledge about God and his Kingdom, but rather where laborers can learn what is nearest and dearest to God’s heart through learning to walk the life of servanthood and humility. If this is what we can accomplish on the farm Casa del Obrero then this is not just one more missions building project, but a labor that will change the lives of missionaries across the Huasteca and throughout Mexico and beyond.
Thank you for your love, support and prayers.
Steven and Theresa
