First Day of Work for Team 2!

Team 2 started our first work day together bright and early before the sun was up, had a nice breakfast of eggs and toast, gathered our things and hopped in the van en route to the site. The first day of really hard work like this with a new team has the potential to be quite challenging, but I think we all adjusted well and worked well together. And boy did we work! We moved approximately 4000 bricks today by hand, measured out the exterior walls with folks learning new skills about what goes into the building process, and started putting down the beginnings of the exterior walls, among many other things. We are quite lucky to have several members who have experience in construction, masonry, and design.

We, however, were not alone in our work today. There were some hired Kenyans assisting with the digging on the second building and preparing it for concrete. There was Ruth, the mother of the orphanage we are building for, who was helping us with the bricks, teaching us songs in Swahili and overall making our brick moving so much more fun! She has a smile and a soul that sings and is infectious. We learned over the course of the day that many of the other helpers were neighbors or friends of hers, the man who gave the sermon the day before when we visited the orphanage, and a young man who came from the next town over simply to help out, named Alfred. He shared a beautiful poem during service on Sunday when we went to visit the children and he has both a strong and gentle heart. There were many more that we worked side by side with, many without shoes, and we were moved by the sense of community, love, and selfless giving that they exemplified.

The site is surrounded by cornfields, which is beautiful and leaves one with a sense of peace. We also have several "pets" around the site: the sheep that belong to the neighbors and are quite funny when they are vocal, a small dog, a cow and we can't forget the chickens which entertained us by jumping in and out of the trenchs that had been dug for the second building. We had rain in the afternoon which was both a blessing and a curse: blessing in that we had a break but curse when we all tried to get up and start moving again :). Needless to say, we have a very sore Team 2 after day one! Overall, a great first day out. I found this prayer and it stuck with me, particularly being here in Kenya, and I'll leave this as the closing thought for Day 1.

"As often as you can, take a trip out to the fields to pray . . . All the grasses will join you. They will enter your prayers and give you strength to sing praises to God."

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov