International Visitors

Today we hosted a work team from an international Christian school here in Lima. The kids were great fun and very hard workers. They helped us by sanding all the walls and ceilings in the 5th house and then painting primer on the walls. They also did some landscaping behind house 3 getting ready to put grass there. Another group of them helped us by digging a couple really big holes so that we can transplant some trees onto the property.

We had hosted a team from this school a few years ago at the care center in Manchay where they did some painting for us as well. These kids were so respectful and really enjoyed themselves during their time with us.

Thank you to all of the students and teachers who joined us in Pachacamac to help us further our building project there. Hope to see you next year.

The Chickens Have Arrived

As mentioned a couple posts ago we now have a new, really cool chicken coop. The coop was built because we had a couple donors that wanted to buy us some chickens. We had also received some money from our missions gift catalogue. Well I hooked up with our good friend Jeff Morgan and we went for a tour of the chicken operations at the agricultural university and we brought home 10 beautiful HyLine Brown hens. They are a breed that are excellent egg layers and in their first 2 days with us they have given us 17 eggs.

The chicken coop is a huge hit with the hens although they haven't quite gotten the hang of using the nesting boxes yet. We have found eggs on the floor, under the ladder, half way up the ladder and right beside the feed tray. The hens seem very happy in their new home and the kids at the children's home are very happy to have their new friends. So the next time you come on a work team, who knows, you may be eating farm fresh eggs right from our very own chickens.

The Beauty Within

As many of you who have been here to Peru this year will know, we have a pretty major project underway in our waste water treatment system. It is a system that receives all of the waster water from the houses on the property. This water enters the system at a two chambered holding tank where the liquids are seperated from the solids, the solids are then broken down by bacteria and the liquids pass on to the next stage. That next stage is a partical filter that uses plants on the surface to use nutrients found in the water. Then the water passes into a pond where aquatic plants and fish and other life clean the water further. The water can then be used to water the grass and gardens. This system takes a long time to get up to full functionality especially the filter and all of its plants.

Yesterday we were working on the fence around the system and I got the idea for this blog entry. While the system has a certain odor that is not always enjoyable, I thought that the plants and insects that are found in its filter deserve to be seen and enjoyed. I don't know all the names of all the plants that I have growing in here but this one always catches my eye and yesterday it caught the attention of this little bee that was visiting our filter. In fact we have a lot of bees coming to visit the flowers and also taking advantage of a water source.

These lovely flowers are Canna Lillies that a friend of mine, Jeff Morgan, introduced to the filter and they just love it in there. They are thriving and have numerous new flowers each day. Jeff has been a great help with this project and has been experimenting to find out which plants do well in the filter and which do not. He has found some grasses that grow amazingly well that we can cut and feed to rabbits and guinea pigs when we get them. He even found a way for tomatoes to grow, and they are not a plant that usually likes much water. He has a tree growing in there that he tells me is a great source of food for the animals as well, and he even had me plant a banana tree in there last week that seems to be growing like crazy. Other plants include water hyacinth, butternut squash and onions. All of these vegetables and grasses can be used to feed animals.

This is an elephant ear plant that I found growing in the river that flows near our property. I brought back 4 of them and planted them in the filter. They seem to be doing well so I think I will return to the river one of these days and get some more. The whole idea of this filter is to have as many plants in there as you can have, so they use as many nutrients as they can. The grasses and vegetables are also great because they can be cut down or picked which removes the nutrients and uses them for other things.

This is a little spider that I found crawling on one of the trees in the filter. His body was very shiny silver colour. I don't think it really showed up in the picture. I just marvel at God's creation. So to sum things up, this project has been both frustrating and fun. It has been a long time maturing to the point where it will actually filter the water but it has been fun experimenting with the different plants and fish. The odour has also been less than desirable but the beauty of the plants has been very enjoyable.

October Update

The month of October began with an announcement that the Lima Childrens home had finally gotten approval to move to their new home in Pachacamac in February 2010. That was very exciting news but it also meant that we at Kids Alive Peru construction had a lot of work on our plates to get the new home ready. Through planning meetings it was determined that in order for the move to go smoothly we would need to have houses 1 through 4 completely finished and house 5 usable as a central kitchen. Well at the beginning of this month house 5 got underway in construction, we bought and started laying tiles in house 3 and we started planning for a team from Forward Baptist in Cambridge.

We are now at the end of October and the shell of house 5 is completed. Eduardo, Roy and myself have just about completed the tiles. We have had windows installed in house 3 and the Forward Baptist team has come and gone. During their time here the team painted house number 4, installed all interior doors on houses 3 and 4, completed all baseboards in house 3 and grouted all the tiles. They roofed a covered work area preparing for next years teams, installed many toilets, showers, laundry sinks and a water tank. They also did lots of gardening in the area of our septic system. The team had finished all the work that I had planned for them with one day remaining. During their time here we had received a couple inquiries into whether or not we could accomodate some chickens on our property. With just a day left I proposed to the team that we build a chicken coop and get our egg production underway. With a master homebuilder and a former farmgirl leading the way, the team came up with plans for the chicken coop that you see below. Not bad for one days work.

So the chickens are happy in their new home, but we still need to get the children into theirs. Eduardo and I will be very busy over the next two months. Our plan is to get windows installed on house number 4, install tiles in house number 4, probably finish the bathrooms in house 4 and find a good source for exterior doors for the next 3 houses. We are still a ways off from being able to realize our goal. In the new year we need a steady stream of teams to help us reach that goal of a February move-in so if you are feeling like you would like to help us, either financially or as a part of a work team, contact the Kids Alive office and we would be glad to talk to you.

Marieta's House

For many of you who have been here to Peru in the past you will remember Marieta or at least he two very energetic children Jose Maria and Fatima. You may also know that at least once a year we like to chose a local family and help them in some way or another by fixing something at their house or making their house bigger if need be. This year we decided to help Marieta and her kids by building an addition onto their already existing house. The addition was actually the same size as what she already had so we would be doubling her living space.

The only problem with the whole plan was that Marieta was already living on the only flat piece of land that she owned. All the rest of her property was hill. Well that wasn't going to stop a determined group of guys from People Church in Wyoming. That's right Walt and his band of youngsters took on the challenge and excavated a piece of land 3 metres by 4 metres and almost 2 metres deep. Then with a team of young people from Bethel Church we built the house and were able to buy a bed and 2 new mattresses for Marieta and her kids. Something for you teams for 2010 to think about is the fact that Marieta does not have a bathroom and making one because of the type of terrain that she has would be a several day project for a willing group.

Catch-up update

Well as you can see by the date of the previous post it has been a while since I have updated the blog. Sorry to all of you who follow it faithfully. I guess with a streak of teams keeping me busy I have just gotten away from it.
In Manchay at the Oasis Care Center we have laid grass in our new park area. We have poured concrete on another nearly 20 meters of driveway. We have removed the mountain of rubble from outside at the street. We have finished the new office complex and everyone is enjoying their new surroundings. Our new moms clothing business has moved into their new workshop and are turning out lots of clothing. We added another section of fencing to our volleyball court which is helping to coral the balls better. We cut out the midsection of the staircase leading upstairs of the workshop and put in a landing which is used to get to the second floor of the office building. As you can see there has been a lot accomplished in the past couple weeks. Thank you to all the work teams who made all of this possible.
Work in Pachacamac has been kind of slow for the last little while. That is not to say that it hasn't advanced at all but we can only be in one place at a time. Construction is just beginning on the 5th house which we are very excited about. The kitchen and bathroom counters have been built in the 3rd house and the 4th house has been painted with primer. A team from Bethel Church which was comprised of mainly young people did a huge cleanup on the property and then laid gravel on the driveway and some sidewalks. Lately we have started our garden project with which we will start growing food for our rabbit project. We have also gotten fed up with our water treatment system not running at optimum potential, so we consulted the engineer another time and he has us filling the filter with more plants. This week we will work more on the garden project to get some seeds in the ground and buy tiles for the third house.
Also in the last couple months I made a trip to Andahuaylas. There I visited a childrens home which has recently come under Kids Alive. I checked out the construction of their new homes and visited many hardware stores to see what materials are available. The trip was very exciting and the construction was very impressive.

First CRC Service Team

This week we had a team here from First Christian Reformed Church in Illinois. The team made us about 8 park benches for our 3 ministry sites as well as grouting the floor in our new moms workshop. They also helped install the lighting and electrical outlet system seen above, which is going to let us have 8 sewing machines in our workshop, each having its own light and plug.

The team also did some maintenance in pulling out a section of brick pavers that had some serious damage and replacing them with new bricks. Keeping on with the destruction theme we got the team to cut off and break up a section of concrete that we needed removed as a change of plans was made.

One of our goals for this year as we wrap up construction at the Manchay Oasis care center, is to add more green to the property. This team helped out the cause by digging 3 new gardens and planting a big tree that one day will offer us lots of shade and about 25 other plants to brighten up our new park. Seen in the picture above are some of the park benches they made. Also not to forget the many painting jobs this team managed to do. Thank you First CRC team for all of your hard work. You guys got a mountain of work done and also helped raise money that will be used to put new window security on our new office building as well as buy tiles for our third house in Pachacamac. We here at Kids Alive Peru hope to see you again next year.

Peoples Bible Church Service Team

We recently had a team here from Peoples Bible Church in Goshen, Indiana. The team was smaller thins year but still managed to get lots done. The first day we ran some electrical wires and poured the concrete floor in our new moms business workshop. The team also helped with the painting in our new offices.

After the new floor was dried the team laid all the tiles in the moms workshop and also helped with the little bit of grouting we still had to do in the new offices. This team also helped raise funds that were used to put windows in the moms workshop. Thank you George and team for all of your hard work. We look forward to seeing you again next year.

June Update

First of all I would like to start this June 2009 update with an apology. I had to go into the hospital for emergency surgery and got out of the routine of updating my blog. I am much better now and so am sorry for not keeping you all up to date but hopefully after this I can be more diligent. June saw the graduation of our first year moms program and we here at Kids Alive Peru construction would like to take this oportunity to congratulate each one of the moms from the program and wish all of you the best of luck in the future.

June also saw the finishing and installation of all the custom closets and kitchen cupboards in house 1 at Pachacamac. The workshop that we used to make them told us that this was the biggest job they had ever done, thus taking so long, but the cupboards sure are beautiful. Our watewater treatment system was having trouble during this month but we now think we have figured out the problem and are working to get it back online.

Construction of house number 4 was also finished just the other day. Our goal now for the rest of the year is to finish the insides of houses 3 and 4 having them ready for early 2010.

Pachacamac April Update

The past month has seen the waste water treatment system near completion and today we are finishing installing a fence around the whole project and next week we can try it out.

This past week the footings for house 4 were poured, all the conduit for plumbing and elctrical were installed and the floor was poured. This week the coulmns will be formed and poured and the house will begin to take shape.

Finally our kitchen cupboards and bedroom closets arrived this week for house 1. The work took way longer than we expected but it is very beautiful. We contracted the work out to a home for deaf children here in Lima. They have a woodworking shop where the kids learn skills and they have a side business making doors, cupboards or anything made of wood. Windows and screens have been completed on house 2 and some lovely granite countertops were installed in the kitchen.

It has been a while since we have taken a photo of the Kids Alive Peru Construction team so this week Brenda came out to the worksite to surprise us with a request. Although we don't have on our Sunday best as far as clothes, here is an updated photo of Eduardo and I.

We want to send out a special thanks to all of the service teams that come down to Peru to work with us. Without you and your help, the work here would not advance at the rate it does and we would not be able to provide the lovely homes that we have for our family here.

Calvary Baptist/LAM Team 2

The past 2 weeks we have had the second team of the year here from Calvary Baptist Church Oshawa and Latin American Missions. This team is very skilled and very experienced and they go on several missions trips each year. The team completely wired and installed the electrical pannel in house 3 as well as completely painting the house.

The team also installed 12 doors and door jams in house 2. At times it was a little hectic with a guy there working on window screens and 2 other guys installing countertops.

Amongst all of this teams knowledge is a great understanding of water systems and how they can be optimised to make them more efficient. Here is a tank that was previously installed but the team need to raise to make their system work. With this sytem all 6 of our houses will be able to run off of 1 automatic level switch. Near the end of week the electricians were running out of work so I went looking for something for them to do. They agreed to go to Manchay to our "Oasis" site to wire and hook up electrical in our new office building.

Thanks very much to all of the people who came on the 2 Calvary/LAM teams and did all of the great work and were so fun to work with. Also a very special thanks to everyone who supported Calvary Baptist Church Oshawa in their CD sales fundraiser.

Pachacamac Update

Things are progressing at a good pace in Pachacamac. Construction is finished on houses 1 and 2 and finish work on house 1 is 95% done with only the kitchen cupboards and closets to go. Finish work on house 2 is about 60% with doors, cupboards, windows and tiles to finish. Construction on house 3 is 95% done with only the floor to pour and the next work team is set to paint, install electrical and lay tiles. House number 4 is getting started as you can see below.

Above is the footing for house 4 with some of the rebar for the columns in place.

Above is our internal waste water treatment project. This system takes all of the waste water from the property and seperates the liquids from the solids. It then treats the liquids in a sealed tank from where they pass into a water garden. In the water garden they filter down through 4 different stages of particulate and also feed aquatic plants with their nutrients. After being filtered through the garden the water passes into the above pictured pool where we are able to raise a fish called Talapia which our families can eat. The excess water from the fish pond gets pumped out into our irrigation system for our gardens. This system will be finished and functional within the next 2 weeks.

Calvary Baptist/LAM Team

This past week we had a team here from Oshawa, Ontario. This team had a good mixture of men and women and of Spanish speakers and non Spanish speakers as well. The team mainly worked in Pachacamac completely painting house number 2, installing electricity in house 2 as well as installing an electrical panel at the street and running conduit and lines for future buildings, they installed a water tank on house 2 and did a lot of clean up and prep work on house 3. Besides all this they managed to pour 2 more sections of driveway in Manchay and in the photo above you can see a special side project that they did. This is a retaining wall at a womans house in Manchay. Last year when the municipality came by to put sewers in they knocked down her old wall. They never came back to fix it so with some money that had been donated this team went and built her a nice, new wall. Thank you very much Calvary Team for all your hard work and we look forward to your next visit to Peru.

Clearing the land in Pachacamac

This week we have a team here from London, Ontario from a company called Forest City Fire Protection. The team has done some painting, grouted the floors in the second house, built a fence and cut and burned all of the vegetation on the proprty getting ready to plant our garden. Above is a before picture of the weeds and brush that we had to clear.

This is the after picture. We managed to get dirtier doing this job than any other job I have ever done with a team. Even though these guys are from a fire protection company, it turns out they are pretty good at starting fires as well because we got the brush burned up just as fast as we could cut it.

This is the start of our new waste water treatment project that we are putting in. This facility will allow us to treat the waste water from all of the buildings on our property, use it to raise fish and reuse it to water our gardens and grass. We are very excited about this project and cannot wait to see it completed and up and running.

Mitchell Swaback Foundation Service Team #4

This week we have the Swaback Foundation with us for their fourth year. This group of guys are very skilled and can always be counted on to get lots of quality work done in a short period of time. The team is working in Pachacamac, putting in shelving under sinks and in hall closets as well as tiling the second house.

In Manchay they are tiling our new office and studding and drywalling the office partitions. They are also building some custom desks for the offices and hanging all of the doors. Thank you very much guys for you ongoing support of the ministry here and for your hard work each day.

A Saturday Trip to Pachacamac

Today Brenda and the girls and I along with Eduardo made a trip to the worksite. Even though it is Saturday we had to get the showers put in so that the tile workers could keep advancing.

Here is a glimpse of what they have started in one of the bedrooms. They had all 4 bedrooms in house 1 to this stage.

Even Luz the sheep came in to inspect things. She must have liked what she saw because she didn't stick around to tell us what needed to be changed.

While we were inside working, the girls were outside finding something fun to do amongst all the construction materials. After a while, the girls came inside and helped by sweeping the floors for the tile workers.

For those of you who are wondering if things are on hold in Manchay at the Oasis, it is quite the opposite. Things are really moving along there as well. Eduardo and two others are working there everyday doing bricklaying and getting the floors ready for tile. I have been busy doing the layout for the new office and boardroom. I will take some pictures on Monday and post them.

Kings Collegiate Service Team

This past week we have been priviledged to have a service team here from Kings Collegiate School in Oakville, Ontario. Their school sends many missions teams all over the world and this year for the first time they chose to come to Peru with Kids Alive. They were a very fun group of young people who managed to have a lot of laughs and still got lots of hard work done. With them we painted the inside of both houses and took out some trees. We levelled the backyards of both houses and laid down some sod.

This is a picture of the sheep that we have running around on the property. The kids some how managed to name her Louse and trained her to eat mint cookies, corn chips and cheesies and to drink Gatorade. Louse loved the fact that we planted grass because in the days prior she had been seen chewing on cement bags and plastic coated wire. Louse was a very dedicated friend to one girl on the team named Steph Collins and I know Louse along with everyone else here in Peru is going to miss the Kings crew very much Thank you guys.

Decorating the first house

This week has been very busy with trying to get the first house into move in condition. We started with the windows. In the above picture you can see the sliding glass door that will lead out to a patio. All of the windows will be able to slide open and will be fitted with screens to stop mosquitoes from entering.

The next installation was the electrical panel and all of the lights and switches and outlets. While we still fail to have electricity from the municipality as of yet, we will have the house ready for when we can get approval.

Next many hours were spent in the tile stores trying to match paint samples to tiles. But with much perserverance, Leo and myself decided on some nuetral, earthy tones that will be very durable and easy to wash while still looking very nice in the house. Today I was out at the jobsite, and the contactor came to begin laying the tiles. Once they are down the house will really take on a finished look.

Our next item for having the house be ready was to take down some scrubby trees on the property and to lay some sod. We had a service team here from Canada who worked very hard in the January sun to get this job done.

Also today we had two men come from a local school for deaf students, who are going to be making all of our armoirs, kitchen cupboards and doors for the house. They took all the measurements that they needed and were going to buy their materials.

As you can see the house is really coming together but still has a ways to go. Now that I am back and at the jobsite everyday, I will keep you posted on the progress.

It's Good to be Home Again

As many of you know, or could tell by my lack of blog posts, my family and I spent the last 4 months in Canada. Our time was very much enjoyed and we did many fun activities with friends and family. Now we are back in Peru and the work has begun. When I was here in September our contractor started construction on the first two houses in Pachacamac. Well now construction on them is done and the finish work is being done in order for our older boys to be able to move in. While we finish the inside of these houses, construction on the next two is advancing.
We very much missed all of our friends here in Peru and it is great to be back here with them.