North Africa 2005

N'Africa '03 I N'Africa '04 I N'Africa '05 l N'Africa '06 l N'Africa '07 l N'Africa '08

Eight men from our church were joined by 12 others from the Ballymena area, travelling to North Africa in May 2005. These 20 men from the Ballymena Presbytery assisted in reconstruction work following last years earthquake. This is the first time that the Presbytery has formed a work/outreach team in response to an overseas situation such as this.

.....the Ballymena Presbytery Team

The team leader, Gareth Williams , comments “It was a great experience setting off with men who hardly knew each other, and seeing the friendships develop so quickly. Although we had prepared as well as we could, there was definitely a sense of heading into the unknown together. It was an act of faith for all of us.

The remote mountainous area to which we travelled was beautiful – it was harvest time, the fields were golden with ripe barley and it was around 30C with a lovely breeze. And yet it was far from idyllic for the local families, living in tents beside their ruined homes – and they had been like this for over a year, including through a winter. While we were there two of the tents were moved because snakes had become frequent visitors. On the weekend that we returned home a 14 year-old girl died from a snake bite. We spent our time working on four new homes – putting in a concrete floor, concrete roofs, building and plastering walls and digging septic tanks. All of the concrete was mixed by hand and septic tanks, 2m deep, dug out of the hard clay and rock using picks and shovels. We were treated with great hospitality by the local people. Male members worked alongside us, while the women made bread for us to eat along with the sweet mint tea. We came away feeling that a real bond had developed between us and the families we worked with – we could only speak through an interpreter, yet an amazing amount was communicated with smiles, gestures, sweat and even our tears. There is an enormous amount of work still to do. Something tells me that some of us will be back”

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