Shiny and Smooth Mud Floor

Yesterday morning I ventured off a few miles toward the roadside on my little blue bicycle to spend some time with the sweet ladies from the congregation Jason and I work the closest with, Kampande. The Kampande church is such a wonderful and faithful group of believers. They recently put a new roof on their church building with iron sheets. Their old one was made of grass which was not completely leak proof during the rainy season. They are so excited about their new roof and have much reason to be considering they saved up their money to buy the sheets themselves. Iron sheets are very expensive around $13 a sheet and it took over 30 to cover the roof. Now that their roof is almost complete (just lacking the roof capping sheets) the women have started on re-doing the dirt floor. It is quite a long and tedious process but they have it down to a science. First they use a hoe to level the floor, then they wet it down with water and beat it with wooden planks to make the dirt stay hard and in place. Lastly they make a mix out of a clay like soil and cover the dirt floor in it which makes it nice and smooth. When they are completely finished I will post a picture of what it looks like. When Euttice told me at church on Sunday that they would be starting the floor on Wednesday I offered to help. Which brings us back to me riding my bicycle by myself up hill both ways to the church building. When I arrive only Euttice and Rwiness were there working. I arrived at 9:45am to see they had already been working for a while because the back half of the church building floor had already been worked on. I asked Euttice what time they started and she said "oh around 10." That is the trouble with telling time by the sun...it's hard to get it exact. My part in helping was when it came to hauling water from the pump near by. The ladies handed me the smallest container (holds about 2 1/2 gallons) and they took the HUGE bucket and trough. Both of them filled their containers up and carried them on their heads. Wishing I could do the same, but can't, I carried mine by my side. It must have been a pretty funny sight considering how small the container was that I was carrying compared to theirs. To help you better understand I drew a stick figure diagram below. On the second trip to get water Euttice informed me I was too tired to carry my container so she would carry two. I laughed and told her I wanted to have strong muscles. Luckily, I brought my phone along to take a snap of the ladies hard at work to share.

Rwiness is on the left and Euttice is on the right

I am not sure exactly of their ages, these are just my estimates.

I had so much fun just spreading water onto a dirt floor with Euttice and Rwiness yesterday and was  humbled by their hard work and servant hearts. How blessed Jason and I are to have the opportunity to experience such neat things!