The Project

Clint and Lori Hendershot felt the call to help the people of Mexico for several years. Together, they have made many trips to this area.  Most of their work here was building churches - the physical church. In some occasions the church is located behind the pastor's own home. Clint was diagnosed with lung cancer about seven years ago and was given six months to live. He lasted six years and six months! He continued to participate in building projects even up to a few months before his death. Clint passed away last September. Before he passed, he committed to building the church in Mezcala. Lori has given Clint's memorial money toward this project and the church is dedicated in his memory. At first Lori was not sure she was going to be able to pull together a team to complete this project. Now she not only has a team, she has two teams! The Kansas team is here for two weeks. The day we leave for home a team from Virginia arrives for one week. God has put everything in place to make this project happen.

The church is located in the front of the Pastor's property. His family has owned the property and in this town the only way to own property is to have it passed on through the family. Currently  the lower level of the church (which will be the activity room eventually) is mostly finished. It has walls, roof, and is painted. There are two bathrooms, a kitchen, and a storage room that all have tiled floors. The main room is what we are completing with tiles.

Walking into the church Sunday morning.

The doors to the left are the bathrooms and the
doors to the right are the kitchen and storage.

The piles of sand, dirt, and bricks that will be moved.

We began the walls to create classrooms to one side of the church on Monday. There are three local men actually laying the bricks and our job is to help them so that all they do is lay the bricks(ladrillo). We help make the mud, hand them bricks, clean up, anything that makes their job go faster(rapido). Since the guys only speak Spanish their helpers are learning many terms in Spanish.

By Friday we have the walls mostly up and began pouring the concrete posts. The team also unloaded 10,000 bricks on to the current roof which will begin the work on the second level. That level will be the main sanctuary. That level will also have a nursery and more bathrooms. Since the building is built on a hill, the second level is actually at street level.

Laying the floor tile began on Tuesday. They ended up taking up the first tiles they laid as the floor was not level enough. They have mixed some concrete to level the floor before the tiles go down and as of Friday there was about a quarter of the floor laid.

It will be wonderful to see how much of the project we are able to complete by the time we leave.