Working Together

Today I had the privilege of helping people from church build a store at the church. A “store” is a small building used for storage. The church has not had a place to put extra books and resources that they have, so they decided to build a small building to help keep things more secure and organized.

While I was helping today, I was amazed (as always) by the resourcefulness of the people here. Almost everything that they used to make the store was natural and, therefore, free. A couple of weeks ago, they made bricks out of mud. They allowed these bricks to harden in the sun for a while so they would be sturdy enough for building with. Today, they used string and sticks to map out straight lines. They then arranged the bricks on top of each other and cemented them together with wet dirt from the place where they dug in the ground to place the bricks.

Will was working on farming preparations today, so I went to help by myself. I had never helped with anything like this yet, so I was unaware of the protocols. However, I quickly learned that the actual “building” process is typically the job of men and the women fetch water for the men and cook so that the men have food to eat when they are finished. Well, I got there before ALL of the women and before I learned this handy fact. So, I did the work of a man today! I used the machete (with the green handle pictured on the right) and chiseled off the old mud from the used bricks to make them even and able to be used again. It was tedious, but very manageable work and it allowed me to listen to the Moru and Arabic that was spoken around me and try to decipher words that I recognized. While we were working, our pastor said, “I have never seen a Kawaja (white person) work with us here before!” He was really excited about that. I explained that I hope he will see that a lot more as we continue to do things like this with the church.

There is something freeing about working alongside people. Here in Mundri, people usually do not allow us to do much. They area always putting us in a place of honor and therefore, do not like to see us get our hands dirty and work hard like they do. I really enjoyed being allowed to work with them today. It was exciting to be included in the community in this way and get to know people casually as we worked together. I am grateful to have had this opportunity today and am looking forward to many more days of working together with our new church community.