Replacing the Dining Palapa

On August 4 of this year, Hurricane Earl battered the coast of Ambergris Caye, causing much damage. One of the structures at YWAM Destination Paradise the dining palapa, [palm shelter] had half its roof blown away.

This week, about a month later, work continued on replacing the thatch, enabling us to see this process in operation. This is my 'lay person's' description:

The skeleton of the structure was partially replaced with new skinny poles, curved to fit the original oval shape.

Three Hispanic workers arrived on the job with a load of palm fronds.

These were hoisted up onto the cross-pieces. The worker had climbed up via this rickety version of scaffolding. I noticed that he did wear steel toed workboots!

His helper, sometimes a woman, piled the fronds onto a rope which was hoisted up with a bunch of fronds.

The fronds were arranged neatly in a row by lifting up a couple of the leaves, and lining the whole frond along the crosspiece, beginning at the bottom.

Each successive layer overlapped the previous one.

You could tell where the new row began, as it was a greener colour, as opposed to the weathered, pale thatch.

When the whole roof is complete, the electric lamps will be replaced, enabling us to be able to see what we are eating for dinner!  
We are a work in progress just like this shelter.  Sometimes the winds of adversity blow us apart, but God in His mercy lovingly rebuilds us, until we are a structure fit once again for His use.