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.