A Huge Task

The congregation of the Jacquet church had a big job on their hands in April--the pouring of a roof on their new church building!  Pouring the roof is one of the last tasks of the Jacquet construction as the columns, beams and infill blocks had already been finished.  In order to complete this huge task, several important steps had to be taken: First, 4' x 8' sheets of plywood had to be set in place on top of metal jacks to hold the massive weight of the cement roof slab.  After that, several tons of rebar needed to be cut, dressed and tied into the rebar from the columns and beams.  Later this reinforcing rebar would be submerged within the poured concrete slab.  This is a difficult task as the blazing tropical sun quickly warms the rebar to a temperature that can burn exposed hands immediately.  Next, a massive amount of gravel and sand had to be delivered to the construction site.  At one point, the dump-trucks were queuing up in the quiet Jacquet neighborhood one after the other.  Finally, you need a massive team of willing and able laborers to operate the two cement mixers, carry water, gravel and sand to mix concrete, pass buckets of liquid concrete up a ladder to the roof and all the way to the back of the building where the concrete was being poured.  After that, a huge team of cooks assembled to make food for the nearly one hundred volunteers and other laborers.  Finally, a team of masons was on the roof raking the new poured concrete to make sure it was setting correctly.  The Jacquet church began at five a.m. and finished at 2 p.m., tired but happy to have achieved so much.

Restoration in a Circle

Working as a team in this world is very challenging indeed.  We are all very different people with different sets of values, ways of perceiving the world, and ideas on how to change it.  As Christians, we are convinced that what unifies us, despite our cultural and social differences, is bigger than what divides us.  What unifies us is our common confession of Christ as Lord and master of our lives!  For this reason, Paul writes that "in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female."  It is not that such distinctions don’t matter—of course they do!  God has created this world with great diversity.  But what matters the most is our unity in Christ.  For this reason, we hosted two visitors from FaithCARE, a Canadian organization that helps communities of faith resolve differences and grow together.  FaithCARE utilizes a small group approach where everyone sits in circle and has a chance to share their observations and feelings about important subjects.  Permission to share is given by use of a “talking piece,” which is a symbolic object that is passed to each group member when they speak.  The other group members listen during that time (until they receive the “talking piece”).  The goal is to develop a sense of community in the group that restores relationships between team members.  Also, the goal of this method is to  encourage team members who often talk too much to listen and team members who talk too little to share.  All of our partner organizations participated with us in this two-and-a-half day training event.  The responses were very positive and people really enjoyed the experience.  It is our prayer that we can develop a deeper sense of community and surmount the obstacles of intercultural teamwork and leverage the advantage of our God-given diversity.