changes were increasing the cost of the project.
But one of the encounters that had a lasting impact
was an elderly lady about 70 to 75 years old who
I saw at Ancahuasi. I saw her from a distance so I
couldn’t make out what she was dragging, but as
she approached the church, I noticed that she had
a string and she was dragging two tree trunks. She
stopped at the church building and started untying
the string from the tree trunks.
I went over to help when she started putting the
tree trunks through the church fence. When we
were done, she hugged me and started talking to
me in Quechua. She continued to tell me so many
things and she wouldn’t let go of me. I felt the Holy
Spirit and I just continued thanking her.
I don’t know if she understood me, but she was so
excited and I was so moved by her.
One of the workers said, “I don’t think we are going
to be able to use those tree trunks,” but I said, “I will
use them.” If this sister dragged these tree trunks
all the way from who knows where, we were going
to use them. She went through great effort to put a
grain of salt into God’s kingdom, and we had to find
use for her efforts.
With deadlines looming, we made changes so
construction could move faster and split the team
to be more efficient and accomplish more in less
time. Keep in mind that all construction in both
churches were manual—they had little to no power
tools. This was a 20-day project that could have
been done in less time, but we didn’t take into
consideration the tools that they use in Peru. We
ended up renting power tools and used a grinder
that Brother Yoo had brought for the tile work.
But these changes in methods caused the foremen
in both places to say, “But this is not how we do
it here in Peru.” I had said that I was going to
respect the Peruvian way of construction and try
to accommodate them in every way that I could.
But after I learned their ways, I had to explain
that our changes would be more effective and the
final product would be better. They questioned
everything we did, but in the end, they realized
that our way was better, stronger, and more time
effective.
My two best memories are of digging a trench to
run a water supply and pouring cement for roof
columns. Both times we were all working together,
each person doing a job that contributed to the
overall progress of the construction. We had so
much talent and a hard w