The Concrete Boat

By way of introduction, one of the things that we want to do as we church plant amongst the Agta is find ways to improve their standard of living. Currently, many of them spend the entirety of each day in the pursuit of food and water for that day. Because of this, it is difficult for them to take time to attend a Bible study, not to mention the possibility of being trained to go tell others the Good News at some point in the future. So obviously, some livelihood training projects are a necessity as we work with the Agta if we are going to truly equip them to plant churches.

Steve had heard that it was possible to make boats out of concrete - a special mix of concrete and very fine sand called ferro cement. After doing some research (much of it in Tim See's tech tips book - thanks, Tim!), Steve decided to give it a try as a livelihood project in the village of Ipil (located on a small lake). It was cool that his dad was here to help with it.

I am going to try to give you a running account of the process as they did. However, since I was not there for much of it and am not as familiar with the inner workings, don't try to do this yourself off what I say here please! :) (Steve would be glad to walk you through it if you have a need for something like this.)

Before they showed up the 1st day, Steve hired a guy to get the sand. To do this, he had to take his boat out into the lake and dive down to the bottom, bringing up buckets of it at a time. Like I said before, the sand for the cement had to extremely fine. So then whatever he brought up had to be sifted down to the only the finest particles. Here they are sifting it with window screen.

It was very important that the sand be extremely clean so they spent a lot of time cleaning it. You may be wondering who these guys are who are helping. They are not being paid - they were just so excited about the idea that they asked to help so they could learn how. There was usually a dozen guys helping at any given time. Their enthusiasm was amazing. This project has the potential to change their lives drastically. The supply of trees large enough to make wooden boats has dwindled to make them no longer affordable. If they had a boat, their opportunities for work (either fishing in the lake or working on the other side in town) would be endless. So they are pretty excited. After they sifted it and cleaned it, they had to remove the excess water. They did this by piling it up and letting the water run off down the slope.
After they prepared the sand, they began to prepare the other boat they would use as a form for the new one. The chieftain's son volunteered his 30 foot boat to be used as a form. First they covered it with plastic then chicken wire.
Then they started spreading the concrete on. This pic is great because you can see them mixing the concrete off to the left, spreading it on, and you can also see the material they will put over the top to keep the concrete damp so it can cure properly. This gives you a closer-up shot of the layers and the spreading process. It started raining when they were ready to do the 2nd coat of concrete. They wanted to keep the concrete damp, but it couldn't be drenched so they rigged these tarps to keep it dry enough to keep working.
At this point, Steve and his dad took off for the week. After a few days to allow it to harden slightly, the guys in the village submerged the boat to allow it to cure underwater. A few days later, it was time to retrieve the form - the other boat (he understandably was a little anxious to get his boat back!)
They located it underwater and worked to bring it to the surface and bail it out.
Then they worked to separate the 2 boats (if they couldn't, this guy now had a concrete-reinforced wooden boat!) Once they were able to get a crack between the 2, they were able to pour water in between to separate them. Finally the concrete boat separated and sank right to the bottom - which is exactly what you would expect of concrete of course. To be honest, we all spent some anxious moments wondering if this idea would really fly - or in this case float - or not. Steve warned them repeatedly that he had never tried this before, only read about it, so he wasn't sure how it would work. However, with how excited they all were and how much work they had put in, we couldn't bear the thought of it not working.
After they separated the 2 boats, the men raised the concrete one up again and began bailing it out (for no reason other than to see if it floats). Check out their excitement - particularly the 3 guys to the left of Steve - when they saw it floating.

Here are the proud men and their new concrete boat!
Just a little excited...
It is not quite finished (still needs to cure underwater a few more weeks, the sides need to be finished & reinforced, and it lists slightly to 1 side so that needs to be fixed with some more concrete), but the bulk of the work is done now. I am hoping to get a pic of John and Sandi IN the boat before they leave, and I will add that when I get it.


Ok, all you skeptics out there - do you believe us now that we made a boat out of concrete? :)

Projects

Some of you have asked about the projects that Steve's parents have been helping with while they are here so I thought I would share a few pics. They have helped with some basic house maintenance like fixing the roof (my kitchen doesn't flood under 2 inches of water when it rains anymore - now it only forms a small puddle! I guess that is a work in progress...) and doing the mending (THANKS, Mom!). In addition, they have helped with several projects. The first one was a gate to keep the bikes and helmets in (the dogs kept chewing everything up!). They used the readily-available bamboo to build it.

And here is the finished product! Looks great and - better yet - our bikes handle grips, pedals, and helmets will be dogbite-free from now on!
After finishing the gate, Grandpa set into building a promised tree fort for the kids in the back yard. They have been more than a little excited about this for a long time now. :) Best of all, they got to work with Grandpa to make it!

Setting the base...
Playing up in the tree...
(or maybe attaching the supports? you be the judge)
Hard at work...
Almost done!
See Zach hammering next to his Grandpa? Sweet moments...
A group effort...
Even the dogs got in on the action!
And it's done! Check out the cool trapdoor and ladder...

A favorite feature is the opening on one side to climb out onto the branch - and hang upside down like little monkeys. :)

Thanks, Grandpa and Grandma for all your help with these projects!

Actually, the biggest project they have been working on is not included here. I am going to wait til it is done to get a few more pics, but here's a teaser - it is a boat made out of cement! No joke. You will have to check back to see the pics next week.

Training Follow up - and fun times!

On Sept 21, we had a follow up session for the church planting training we did a few weeks back (scroll down to see that post), and we had a good-sized group that turned out for the day. They had a great time discussing how they are applying what they learned as well as hashing through some potential solutions for the difficulties they have faced. It was a sweet time in the Word, and we were encouraged by what God is doing in and through these dear people.

We have also been having a wonderful time with Steve's parents. Here are some pics from our time at the hot springs. It is an awesome place at the foot of a volcano with a cold mountain stream running right next to several warm pools.

We also got to attend a traveling dolphin show in a nearby town with them and our friends the Allens who live a few hours away. We discovered one advantage to standing out in a crowd of Filipinos - our kids got selected as volunteers several times! Mikayla was thrilled, but Ben chickened out before getting "kissed" by the dolphin, and there was no way that Zach was going to get in a boat and be pulled around by dolphins. So Kayla got to do it all! She had an absolute ball with it.

Wake Boarding Fun

We always take Mondays off to spend time as a family after a busy weekend of ministry opps. Today we went up to that cable wake boarding place that we have previously told you about. Here are a few pics of our time together there:

Ben didn't actually wake board in the water, but he sure looked cute standing on it in his new swim trunks from Grandma.

All 3 of the kids had a blast in the pool with Grandpa.
Ben loved the "standing on water" trick.

Mikayla looked too cute with her new wake board. She was SOOOO excited to try it out, and she did GREAT! I am trying to upload some video of her in action - let me know how it works!

Zach also got brave today and tried knee boarding on his own. Here is a video of him going double with his daddy. He had a blast too, and he wants to try wake boarding next time we go.

Hope you enjoyed these pics of our fun day together. Let me know if you were able to watch the videos or not - I may do this a little more with other things too if it works well.

They're Here!

If you are looking for the pics of our Church Planter Training or of the Virtual Journey to visit some Agta villages, you will just need to scrol down past the last few posts to get to them.

Steve's parents, John and Sandi, just arrived for a visit! They will be here for 2 months, with a short interlude in the middle to visit Thailand and Malaysia. We are all very excited to have them here in our home. It had been 1 year and 10 months since we had seen them!

While they arrived safely and so did all their luggage, John had a little mishap at the airport in St. Louis and sprained his ankle! While it was painful to travel with, it did help them get preferential treatment including wheelchair service, free porters, and bulk head seats the whole way! They did see a doctor in Manila during their layover there, and it is just a sprain so he should be up and around soon. While they spent the day in Manila, we spent the day trying to track down some crutches (not easy out here in rural Philippines), and we FINALLY found some. Here is a pic of the kids with their grandparents. I know that Sandi will hate this pic, but it was the only one them and the kids that turned out, and there will be lots more pics to make up for this one. I think she was making that face in reaction to the funny face I made to get the kids to smile. Wasn't watching her expression - just the kids'. Guess my funny face scared her a little. :) Anyway, you can see how happy everyone is to be together.

They brought 4 bags full of goodies from friends and family in the States - thanks to everyone who sent something!!! What an encouragement. We actually haven't opened all of it yet - it will be better to spread it out over a couple days, and we are just enjoying being with them right now. But we did open up a few things...

We have a wakeboarding place near us, but they don't have kids' wake boards for rent, and Mikayla has been dying to try it out. Here is her face when she realized what it was - pretty excited! Papa and Grandma Jackson sent some little cars the boys absolutely love and haven't put down since they opened them up.
Mikayla got a set of Boxcar Children books that she was thrilled with - she is an avid reader, and that series is one of her favs.
Since the books were fun but not really something she could play with while the boys played with their new cars, Grandma also pulled out some Polly Pocket things from Larry and G. Mikayla laid them all out first, then she and Grandma headed up to play with them in the Polly sized doll house Mikayla has. Fun stuff! :)
We are so excited to have Steve's parents here with us for a while. We plan to put them to work while they are here - at leaset after John's leg heals up!

Just before they came, Green Valley Baptist Church sent a package for the kids from their VBS kids this summer. Here is a pic of the kids with their fun new books, water torpedoes, underwear (the boys think they will be run REAL fast with the Superman ones), bike helmets, and computer game. Thanks for being such a blessing to us and our kids!!!