Frankies house built with love

My wireless keyboard is acting up again today.  All of the shift keys arent working correctly so, grammar police, please forgive me!

Today is Monday and it is the last house I have to build with donations.  This house was built in memory of Frankie Caratini, a young man and father of two.  He lost his life tragically at the hands of another several months ago.  His mother, friends and family mourn his loss to this day.

It was a blessing to be able to bring a small ray of sunshine to this horrible incident.

The morning started out rainy, so I was wondering if it would be another *pigpen* build.  You know like the other one where we were wallering in the mud.  It actually cleared up and it was a great day to build.

This was the beginning of the hike, but the picture doesnt do it justice!

We were told that this family was referred to us by our busdriver and the night before it was announced that it would be my last house.   In total, our team will have built 14 houses in all!

This is the mom and two of her children.  The parents said they had two more children, but we didnt know where they were.  This little girl had a dirty plastic baby doll with matted hair, but I didnt get a picture of her with it.

When you go on a build you are always wondering a few things, 1.  Will the lumber be at the site?

2.  How far will you have to hike to get to the site? and 3.  How steep will the hike be?

The suitcase is filled with our housewarming presents.  It had sheets, towels, Spanish Bible, a few toys,  linens, a pot, and other household items. 

Usually the bus can only go so far on these dirt, steep, rutted roads.  He let us out and I asked where the site was and he pointed up to what looked like a cell phone tower.  Needless to say, I was glad I had my hiking boots.  Everyone said this was the steepest site they had ever seen.  We were basically right below the cell phone tower.  We could look across the valley to the mountains on the other side and we lookee even with the Jesus statue!!!  We were lucky enough to have tire steps most of the way, even though they went straight up!!!

These hikes always make you feel out of shape, but I feel some comfort in knowing that the higher altitudes makes it harder.  Even though we had the tire steeps, there was one spot, where there was only rock and dirt and you had to find your footing just like you were rock climbing.  I always take a posthole digger to help me.  We didnt lose anyone and the built went extremely well.  We were done before 3 and and then we headed back down.  Im not ashamed to say, that on the part without the tires, I went down on my bottom.

A Honduran man saw us and came over and asked us to pray for his girlfriend.  There had been some dispute over land and a man lashed out and cut her on the back with a machete.  I didnt see it, but they said she probably had 60-70 stitches.  

This is the family and you can see whats left of there house that was torn down.

On a side note, I had two Clarksville teens on my build, Meghan Judd and Garrett Roberts.  Meghan had been with me on another build, but it was so great to see what wonderful young people they have grown up to be.  I know their parents are proud!

If possible, we try to give the family a housewarming gift.  We put household items and other things for the family.  We dont usually know what the family consists of, but Im so glad Jo Dawn put this stuffed cat in our box!!  This is one happy little girl!!  

We had a small team that went to Didasko orphanage to paint the playground and bunkbeds.  The other team broke down medicine for a medical clinic and they went on a Gatoraid blitz.  They basically went around town looking for street workers.  They give them a Gatoraid and tell them, In the name of Jesus or something similar.  Weve been told that the workers now look for us!