Our group gathered at the Harbor front terminal on Thursday morning at 0715. Everyone was clearly excited and ready to work. As I looked at our group, I thought God has put a team of unlikely characters to truly reflect His Glory.
Oct/Nov is usually the monsoon season and for the weeks before our Batam trip, it has been raining everyday. We were advised by the Habitat coordinator that if it rains too heavily then we may not be able to work. That Thursday morning was cloudy but we could see the sun was struggling to come out. As our ferry started to slow down on our approach to Batam, we could see a light drizzle. Our team checked in at Harris and before I went up to our room, I asked the Habitat coordinators to pray for good weather. Before we stepped into our bus, I also prayed to our Lord to give us 3 days of “work” weather so we may fulfill His purpose in Batam. While we were on our way to our work-site, the rain was still upon us. But as soon as we arrived at our location, the rain stopped completely. The rest of the day was cloudy but had no rain insight.
Our home-partner was a couple with a 2 years-old son. The 12 of us spent the day moving bricks, digging a 1.5meter deep hole for the septic tank and laying bricks. I was really impressed with one of the member, she demonstrated amazing strength and was specifically requested to return the next day to continue with the digging.
We all had a good night rest and were prepared for another day of hard labor. Friday morning came and the sun was shinning gloriously. Our group was split into 2 as half of us went to a new site to build. This home-partner is constructing his new home on the site of his old home. He and his wife have 6 children with the youngest two being twin girls. The eldest daughter studies in the city so she does not live with them.
Friday proved to be a trying day for all. Early in the morning, we gathered around to tie rings around iron rods to make pillars for the house. Then the truck came with a small mountain of dirt and our task was to move the dirt into the house to level the floor. Unfortunately, the truck decided to make our lives a little more difficult by dumping the heaps of dirt quite some way from the house. For the rest of the day, we had to loosen the dirt, shovel them into the wheel-barrels and move them into the house. Since some of the dirt was actually big pieces of rocks, so a couple of our team members had to use a hammer to knock them into smaller pieces. Here is where my utmost admiration goes to Stephania. I will never under-estimate a woman with a lethal weapon in her hand. For the rest of the day, she together with another member knocked many pieces of rocks into manageable size. And if anyone is in doubt, take a look at her bruised legs!
By the end of the day, we were all exhausted and most of us couldn’t wait to get back to the hotel to take a nice long shower and get a good strong massage!
Saturday was another sunny day but the cloud occasionally hid the sun to give us a much needed breather. Since this was our last day, both teams wanted to complete as much work as possible. The 1st team managed to dig the hole to a depth of 1.3meter. This is no small task as we were told by the local Habitat coordinator that it would take a team of men 2 days to dig the same depth and we are all women!
Our team went back to the same home-partner and today we had the chance to do plastering. The task was a lot of fun especially we got to see the transformation of 4 bare walls into 4 walls smothered with cement! It was a little like putting icing on a cake!
At the end of our trip, I think we all managed to take something back with us. We all learned a bit about each other, learned a bit about ourselves and most importantly learned a lot about what each of us can do for those that are in need.
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