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.