Construction Team: The Sky is Falling!

I left before Tech got to work this morning and bee-bopped over to visit the Construction Team to see what they were up to and how things went the night before. Aside from just enjoying seeing everyone and getting caught up on how they did with their first night of sleeping in tents in a remote village, Dan Blacketor walked me through the village and told me what they would be “up against” as they sought to work on some of the houses in the community. Here’s what I found out:

Most of the houses in the village (about 20-30 families) are in terrible shape. See, this community is comprised of very low cast people whose primary jobs are to hunt rats and snakes that plague villages. In return, they are allowed to sell the skins and do whatever they like with the carcasses (Barbeque, anyone?), and the government recently relocated many of these people to this little village (about 3 years ago). The government promised to build houses for each family, but the contractor to whom the government gave the money only used 1/3 of the necessary cement to build the homes. Result? The houses are less than 5 years old and already look like the pictures here. Because of their poverty, the families can’t fix their homes, so that’s where Pastor Sam and his trained planters are stepping in.
Currently, there is only one Christ-follower in the village (a radiant, delightful lady named Lilly), and as GCC teams engage building and renovating as many of the houses in the village as they can, they are showing the community that the God that we serve cares just as much about their “here and now” as He does about their “then and there”.

Update Note: Last night, one of the men from the village specifically came out to our little gathering and asked if he might speak with us. He said, “you know, my whole life I have never followed a god. I have never thought that they could help me. I have wanted my whole life to have a home. When I got this home and it fell in, it just confirmed to me that there must not be a god who cares for me. But now I see that you are here, and you are telling me about this Jesus. If this is what the people who follow Him do, then I will decide to serve Him. Thank you for helping me… I was start following Jesus today.”