What is happening?

It has almost been a year now, since we had to pause the construction due to a lack of funding. Although our faith has been challenged we have kept the inner conviction that this is foremost God's work. It is a Godly plan rather than a good plan.

We know God will provide and we know this building will be finished and be a blessing for many missionary kids to come. Stand with us as we keep expecting God to move.

The construction company asked us whether we wanted to have some text on the billboard that they were going to place at the site.

For those who can't read it from the photo:

"A gift from God to Wec International:

a house for missionary children"

Now, everyone who passes by and reads this, knows Who is in control.

From the front.

The roof is typical Thai style and designed to keep the house cool.

That is of course relative; when it is 40 degrees celcius outside it will be hot inside as well.

But it does help a little bit.

A look from the side.

The green rooftiles were Marielle her idea and it looks great!

The small building next to the house will be a carport and several storage areas.

It is amazing how much 'stuff' of family of 12 needs to store.

This does not look like s study room (yet) but that is just a matter of time.
Experience has taught us that computers and studying don't go together very well.
So, in the new Hostel we will have computers downstairs and a room for the more serious students upstairs.

Grandpa Don (together with his wife Pat) they serve Wec Thailand as short term missionaries. They are over 70 years old and still active! Respect.
Here they are checking out the building.

Amazing how they eventually get the wall so straight.

Becasue they don't want to get hit by a falling roof tile, the other workers stayed downstairs and started plastering the walls.

In stacks of four tiles at a time the works walk them up the roof.
On their flipflops (open slippers) over the bamboo scaffolding.

Forest green for the roof. We liked that better than hard blue or bright red

To show the workers we appreciate their hard work, we went over to the building site and we asked the Hostel kids to hand out drinks to the workers. The workers saw they are valued and for whom they are actualy making this building and the kids realized that miracles most of the time don't grow overnight.

Building the walls on ground floor

while others still work on the roof they started to build the walls on the ground floor. Here you see them working on the senior unit.

On the left you see that ladies do perfectly fine in the construction world. They are half the size of me, but work very hard.

safety?!

Safety is very subjective. Those guys walk over the roof on slippers and it looks like their walking through the mall. Not my kind of job.

reaching the highest point

From the front and the side you see how they weld the roof structure

tough girls

Don't tell Ava she is too small to go up the ladder.

1st floor done!

First floor is done. Pillars for the roof structure are up and Ava is trying our her imaginery bath tub.

lunch time

This lady comes every day with her truck full of bags with food. Everybody stops working and goes out to buy his of her food.

It goes so quick; here the panels for the 1st floor go on

The Office

The foreman and building supervisor have their own office, but now they are complaining over the view.

first floor

After the pillars were done, they continued with building a supportive structure for the 1st floor.

overview

we are often making overview pictures from the same spot, so over time you will get a good impression how things have developed.

The girls are checking the work

Marielle, Suvi and Ava are checking whether things are going all right. Ava is covering her ears because of all the noice.

pillars for first floor

Now the ground floor is done, they started making the pillars for the first floor.

It is getting more shape now. You can actually see someting on the pictures. ;-)

finishing ground floor

after pouring a layer of cement on top of the floor panels, the floor is ready (for now)

putting them into place

floor comes 'flying' in

5 floor plates at a time. The more experienced workers that had experience kept looking up, ready to jump away when one of them would fall. And it happened; one cable came lose and one floor plate dropped.

wet floor

where all the blue pipes are sticking out will come the bathrooms

balancing

I felt sort of sorry for this guy. He had a hard time staying on top of the beams because of the amounts of cement that came blasting throuh this big hose.

pouring the beams for ground floor

Steel work

Putting the steel work in place for the first floor

lay out of the foundation

This is how it roughly is going to look like.
Funny how on paper a building always looks bigger than in real life.

checking the plans

Sami Westerholm (fieldleader Wec Thailand) are checking the blue print. The guy in blue is the foreman. As you see we are all smiling: it is going well!

Our two kids, Simcha and Ava, often go with us to the construction site. What a fun it is, to play on a big pile of dirt.

The guy on the left is holding the 'electricity' for the man in the hole, while our building supervisor checks the quality of what is done.

Looking at the buildings those people can build with so little equipment make me respect them.

this is all the electricity there is on the site

the whole concept of working effectively has a different meaning here

Protection against the sun