Ring Beam is Poured

Vivian and Eva working on lunch

Don cleaning the mixer spark plug....again

Carlos, Sabrina and Gabby carrying rebar

Juan laying the last block

Traffic jam at the concrete mixer

Pouring the ring beam

Ring beam is poured

Break time under the coconut tree

Matthias and Mike (in blue shirts) from Mercy Air after supper.

Another beautiful day in Maputo today. It was sunny, warm and the breeze picked up as the day got hotter. The focus for the morning was laying the final blocks on the north wall. In the afternoon we installed the rebar frames we built last week. These frames sit on top of the foundation blocks and tie into the columns. Once the wooden forms were in place the mixer was fired up and the new piles of gravel and sand and cement where feed into the beast to make concrete. By the end of the afternoon and with the help of the seminary students all the column bases and most of the ring beam was poured. Tomorrow morning should see the end of the ring beam pour.

We saw a helicopter fly low over the campus this morning and then again this afternoon. As it turns out that was a Mercy Air Helicopter making medicine deliveries to remote locations in Mozambique and they intentionally flew low over us to say hello twice . The pilot Matthias and the medic Mike, both from Switzerland landed at the airport and joined us for supper and to stay overnight in the campus apartments along with us tonight. They provide a very necessary mission aviation service. Today they made two medicine air drops in remote areas of Mozambique. They told us in the north of Mozambique there are still people so remote that they have rarely if ever seen white people. Matthias told us that there are still no roads in that area and it takes three days to reach by canoe. But this remote area is only 20 minutes away by helicopter.

People who come to Maputo for missions purposes know they can rent rooms from the seminary if they need a place to stay. With campus just a few miles from the airport it is very convenient for people traveling by plane or helicopter in this case.

Connie and Nancy went into the city with David in the afternoon to buy more groceries and to start to exchange money from Mozambique currency to South African currency for the final part of our journey that begins Friday morning at 5AM.