Extreme Home Makeover - Nicaragua Edition

Here in Nicaragua, we stay busy.  And yesterday was an amazing day.  It was the result of a project weeks in the making.  A poor brother in the hall, Reinaldo Lagos, desperately needed some help with his house situation.  People vandalized, graffiti-ed, and trashed his yard, and over the years hes lived there, his home looked like a disaster.  After some planning, lead by Mr. P. Taboada and Arturo Manzenares, this project came out successful.  We bought 10 gallons of terracotta red paint to do the outside of his house, to cover the graffiti and also paint the majority of the inside of his house, which was also graffiti-ed.  After help from many of the friends from the hall, it was a mission success.... anyway, have a look at the pictures and see for yourself.

Before:

Phil, Jordan, and I got to his house really early and brought over the paint and tools.  You can see the front part of Lagos' house, who's standing right there, and some of his living conditions.  His windows, well, they're covered by various scraps of cardboard.

This is the side of the house where the graffiti was the worst.

During:

We got to work right away and started preparing

This was later in the day, and a bunch more friends from the hall showed up.  Things started moving along nicely.

Jehovah's people are hard workers, so we didn't stop just with the painting.  So many people showed up, so another crew was formed for a complete clean-up of his yard, which was strewn about with trash

We had more than enough paint to do the outside walls and some of the inside as well.  Here's our Nicaraguan paint crew

Arturo and Os'mar

After:

Here's a pic of the lively home make-over crew at the end of the day, many of the other brothers and sisters left at that point

Lagos and his new clean, freshly painted wall

After painting the window bars and replacing the cardboard with painted plywood to match the outside, it gave the house a finishing touch that came out great

Such a difference, like night and day.  You could tell Lagos truly appreciated all the help from the brothers and sisters.  It was a great day to help a brother in need and reflect Jehovah's loving-kindness

Enjoy!