Too Plenty!

It seems since I (Kyle) haven't had a chance to check the email in a week or so (not so bad mind you) I was given the chance to blog for Monday. For the past week I have been supervising the concrete work for a second floor roof addition for the Waines home in Monrovia. To put it gently - things are not built here like they are in the States. Concrete forms are not made out of steel and well cut wood. They are made out of wahwah and bush poles....which work well! In addition to materials - how workers "think" about their work is different as well. Its not about how well things are constructed - but how little work can I do to get paid - wait..maybe its not all that different....

I spent a better part of the week trying to "encourage" them to revisit how they mix their concrete. Little did I know that a small blip in my life when I designed/mixed/inspected concrete would be so handy! For our project we needed "rich" concrete and instructed them what we needed for the mix. When the materials exceeded the usual amounts used to make Liberian concrete out came screams of TOO PLENTY! TOO PLENTY! (translated: TOO MUCH MAN!) When I insisted on a different way to mix the concrete - out came TOO PLENTY! TOO PLENTY! When I stated how much concrete we needed to mix you guessed it TOO PLENTY! TOO PLENTY! God in His Grace allowed my pea brain to calcuate the right amounts that it wasnt too plenty - but just enough. By the end of the week - they were mixing the amounts of materials without prodding - they mixed it in the proper manner (that required more work), and they started to see that quality work is just as important as getting paid - or so I hope.

Thank you Lord for a week to work with Liberians - and may this week lead to a change in their hearts that changes their character as professing men of God, and a change in their culture, country, and this continent. May Your Grace never be TOO Plenty.