God made dirt…

My once gray shoes are now a dull shade of brown, their soles are peeling back from the toes to the heel.

My shorts have the same dusty look and feel.

My favorite UT hat has lost its orange luster.

My face is a mix of burned red/brown, and my legs hurt like they’ve never hurt before.

But it’s the best kind of dirty/hot/sore/tired kind of feeling possible.

Today was our last day of work on the field, and it was by far the hottest. Wiping sweat and sunscreen from our weary eyes, we trudged to grade a bit more. It was all I could do to swing the pickaxe for a few hours to break up that dry, packed dirt. And I’m pretty sure that the dirt that we wheelbarrowed out weighed more today than yesterday. That’s possible, right?

The girls got manicures/pedicures this morning…but not so that they could sit around and be pampered. One of the families that’s a part of The Abraham Project does nails on the side, and our girls’ business today was a big blessing for her. It gave her family a little boost in income for the day/week.

The orphans

This afternoon, we had a chance to play with the children one last time. While playing soccer, I got the ball kicked right where it counts…but afterwards, I wowed them with my lame, amateurish magic trick. Had them thinking I was pulling a rubber ball out of their ear. Got ’em every time.

It’s hard to believe that anyone would want to leave their child behind and cease to take care of him/her. These orphans are the sweetest children you’ll ever meet.

Leaving them to get on the bus was much more difficult than anyone on our team anticipated.

On to our last day here.

¡hasta luega

the field we worked on all week

All of the guys that we worked with.

me and my buddy, Victor, the 2nd man in charge on site