In 2017 Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico. Causing severe damage to the whole island. In June of 2018 our church youth group decided that we could help out the people of Puerto Rico by helping rebuild their destroyed homes. Getting there was quite the adventure in itself. We were flying out of Virginia. Everything was looking great there. Clear skies and beautiful weather. But our connecting flight was in Atlanta which was having really bad weather. After boarding the plane at the time we thought we were leaving. We sat on the tarmac for about 45 minutes before having to get off the plane because of the weather in Atlanta. After grabbing some food and stuff. We had 2 options to get to Puerto Rico. The first was trying to catch a later flight out of Atlanta and arriving in Puerto Rico really late. Or fly to Atlanta and get a flight out of Atlanta the next evening. We decided to get the flight that was leaving the next evening cause we did not want to be cancelled again by trying to catch an earlier flight. We still sat on the tarmac for a second time in Virginia because of the weather. We sat for like 2 hours before heading to Atlanta. Got to Atlanta around 10 that night. Due to all the delays Atlanta was packed with people trying to get a place to stay for the night. Just as we were. Waited for another hour and a half for the shuttle to take us to the hotel. Finally around 1 in the morning we had arrived at our hotel for the night
We had Saturday to explore Atlanta for a while, before our flight that evening. After some breakfast we headed out to explore Downtown a bit. Finding Centennial Olympic park. This is where we spent most of our time waiting for the flight. Since we stayed an extra day in Atlanta our flight to Puerto Rico was upgraded to First class for the flight! We were all kind of excited about this. Cause none of us had ever flown first class before.
Still arrived late that evening. But it was a good flight down. Got settled into the compound where we would be staying for the week. Lovely little place not too far away from the ocean.
Monday our first day of work. Started just as good as us getting to Puerto Rico. With one of the vehicles not starting and needing a battery swap. So our first day out on the job was started about 2 hours late. We were split up into 2 groups to do 2 jobs for most of the week. I was on a job where we needed to build a roof over a little extension for somebody. And the others were working on tearing one down to prepare it for a new one. It took us 2 days to build the new roof. Most of the day we were on the job. So there was not a bunch of free time during the day. But there was time in the evening to eat good food and hang out.
The last day of work we had a big roof to do, requiring all of us to work on the project. Working into the night on this job. And almost got it done. We worked into the night for a bit before calling it and getting a nice super.
The last morning we all got up early and went to tunnel beach for sunrise. And it was the most beautiful sunrise that we had the entire week we were here. Spent time enjoying the sunrise and beach for a while before heading into town for a nice breakfast.
It was a blessing going and helping out for the week. The people were super grateful that we were there and helping them get back to living a normal life.
