Though construction began seven years earlier, the church is not yet finished. With very few resources, they have never been able to install a proper floor in the church. The ground was left bare inside. Over time, the earth became hard packed. Unfortunately, this hard-packed earth becomes a slippery, muddy mess during the rainy season. Church elders had prayed on their knees for seven years for someone to help them complete their temple. When they heard that a team from Mission Presbytery would be coming as an answer to their prayer after so much time waiting, they wept openly. We are told that they stood in a circle and prayed for the safety of each and every one of us, and asked a blessing on our families. It is quite humbling to receive such a generous gift of grace for simply helping with a project that is seems so small to us in terms of effort and finances needed.

Our work for the four days would be to help install the floor. Through a $2000 gift from First Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, the folks at Elim were able to purchase all of the materials needed for the job, and provided employment to a local stone mason who could teach us how to lay the tile "Guatemalan-style."

For the next three days, we mixed cement with shovels and sore backs, wet tiles with water from the river, and squatted at floor level to place each tile. The work was slow and painstaking. We watched as the women of the village awoke at 4am to feed their families before coming to tend to us, cooking our meals over an open fire. They washed dishes, chopped wood, carried supplies up and down the mountain, and took great pride in working until sundown each day. The men were always hard at work when we arrived, and continued their labor until long after we left the site each day. Given the incredible energy and strength of the Guatemalans, many of us felt inferior, unable to keep up with their pace as we tried to work alongside them.