December 9, 2014

This morning at 6:00am sharp, Sister Lasher and I along with six office Elders and the Humanitarian director met to help a Filipino Family build a new home.  Under some very poor conditions, these precious families are given help in home building through the efforts of some wonderful donors who are represented here by Jared Richards.  He has put together a number of houses simply by identifying prospective needy families who can prove they own the property the house will be built on.  There are so many families who cannot prove ownership of the land they live on so the selection process is fairly simple but the needs overall are very great.  Mom and I were privileged to participate in this project today.  The office Elders felt it a wonderful blessing to also participate.  This is their first service project of their missions.  Several of these missionaries who participated today are leaving for home at the end of the month.  This family is very active and serve faithfully in Ward #1.  Here are some great pictures we took today and some additional notes:

The Richards Family with Elder and Sister Lasher

This is the "mixing" trough or the Philippine Manual Cement Mix container

The housing area is about 16' by 20' and can be partially seen behind this mixing trough.  There is not room for a cement truck or even a small cement mixer.  It is cost prohibitive.  The most economical way is to use a mixing trough like this and everything is done manually by shovels, buckets, even hands and feet when the other tools are not available.  This first layer is sand.

The sand pile as part of the cement mix

This pile of sand was dumped off the side of the narrow road near the homeowners property.  It was dug up on one of the local beaches about 30 miles away.  The box with the handles is the means to carry about 1 cubic foot of sand about 50 yards to the mixing trough.  The mix for cement is 5 loads of sand per one 90 pound bag of cement.  Manual labor at its best!  Truman is the 6 year old in this picture.  He has no limits on helping his dad do this work.  He was heavily involved with the missionaries for a period of over 4 hours this morning that began at 6:00am at the work site.

Dumping one of the loads of sand.  Note the Rooster in the foreground!

This is one of ten loads of sand for the mixing process.  After five loads of sand one bag of cement is spread across the sand.  Then five more loads of sand and then one more bag of cement.  All the dry mix must be mixed together thoroughly before water is added.  The rooster in the fore ground is the local Filipino building inspector!

Delivering another load of sand

One 90 pound bag of cement to five buckets of sand - mix thoroughly!

This is the next step for the dry materials to be well  mixed together before water is added.  The process to this point has taken about 30 minutes with ten adults participating.

Truman on the water line

Note how the sand and cement mix is built up so that water can be added to the middle.  We used about 12 gallons of water to made the wet cement mixture.  We had to be very careful not to let the water run over the walls.  The mixing was thorough and the process started at one end of the trough and worked down to the other end.  As the cement became satisfactorily mixed, we took it out and put it in the footings.  Truman is seen here personally lifting two gallons of water and pouring it into the water pond without spilling a drop or missing his mark.  This is one tough young man!  Again, Truman is only 6 years old.

The house footings that will be filled with cement

The house pillars to be filled with the cement.  Forms will be used

The mixing process with water

Water starting to leave the dyke!!  Yikes!!

The process of mixing the dry ingredients with the water took about an hour.  The missionaries worked very hard to help this family.  The total time for building this house start to finish depends on volunteers, families and neighbors.  This was a great service project for the six office Elders in the Laoag Mission home.  This is the first time they had an opportunity to do service.  Their week is typically teaching a minimum of 15 lessons and their goal is two baptisms per month with each companionship.  The Laoag Mission goal for 2014 is 1,000 baptisms.  These missionaries work hard and in the case of this service today, they excelled in service!  What a pleasure it was to be with them and Brother Richards in helping this family build a new home for their family.  The cost of this new home?  About 100,000 pesos or about $2500.  This was the third of about six steps to get the house completed.  After the footings then the walls are built.  After the walls are built the roof goes on.  If the family is fortunate there will be limited electricity put in, but the bathroom will still be outside the new home and interior walls won't be added because of the cost.

"The love of Jesus Christ must be our guide if we are to become aware of the needs of those we can help in some way. The teachings of our Lord, Jesus Christ, show us the way. And that is how our personal ministry begins: discovering needs, then tending to them."

—Hugo E. Martinez, "Our Personal Ministries"