Mama Raquel's Cocina

Three months ago this Friday we began our first work day on our new home and ministry center. I will admit that the first day was full of the thrill of a major ground breaking event and the excitement of a company of people working together towards a common goal. Our neighbors came by in droves to toil along side of us. Even the combi bus stopped and gave "mini tours" of this restoration process. There was fan fare, excitement and the camaraderie of many people achieving this grand accomplishment together.

I would love to say that every moment of the next 12 weeks contained the same adrenaline surge and intense group energy that flowed during the first day of restoration on our house. Sorry to say, that is not the way it unfolded. Neighbors went back to their homes. The large group of workers went back to their regular jobs. Our friends needed to take care of their children and babies. Even the annual Thanksgiving and Christmas preparations came and went, all while our days of work dragged on into an endless nightmare of back breaking horrible drudgery.

Early on in our marriage I came up with an expression that seemed to fit this restoration process. "God's will is rarely easy but always good!" This process was not easy. In fact, it was the most challenging and difficult life experience that any of us have ever walked through. In spite of that, to get through it to the other side, was the most rewarding and blessing filled event that we have ever encountered. It has been like climbing Everest, it was grueling, excruciatingly painful, and many times we were gasping for even a tiny bit of oxygen. Yet, the view from the top and the thrill of achievement is well worth the enormous effort that it took to get here.

As a married couple Gary and I climbed Everest together! You can imagine how difficult it has been to have a peaceful and loving marriage amidst the physical torture of getting to the summit. Gary and I experienced the lack of oxygen, the burning pain in our muscles, the blinding snow and the freezing wind, and the frustration of being a loving couple in such difficult circumstances.

At the summit of Everest, all the agony of the climb has been turned into incredible joy! We made it to the top and now it's time to party!!!! We would love for you to join our fiesta and celebrate God's grace and goodness with us!

Early morning on our first day of the restoration process!

Bethany and I began our work in the living room as the guys (and the neighbor guys) began to clear the brush and debris from the outside of the house. There were untold horrors in this living room. Sewer rat dung, human filth and excretions, as well as nasty graffiti covering all of the walls. We began by sweeping all of the muck into buckets. After the buckets of filth were deposited into the trash cans, we began to dump bleach and detergent onto the floors. We had no running water so Bethany and I walked up to the apartment, up the 30 stairs, and filled buckets of water to carry down to the house. Needless to say this was an exhausting process. We carried countless buckets of water from the apartment, in order to be able to clean the horrid mess of filth, during those first few agonizing days of work.

Entry way view prior to restoration process!

Living room prior to restoration process!

Entry way view after restoration process!

Living room after restoration process!

The living room also contained the downstairs bathroom. To say this was a trial in my life would be a huge understatement. Apparently there had been people who used this room as a toilet, even after the toilet had been stolen! There was human dung as well as the location where the sewer rats ran back and forth. To top it off the bathroom is in a dark location and prior to having electricity it was very difficult to see. I had to face all of this in a very dim area and no light in the actual bathroom, which added significantly to the creep factor!

A picture that shows a tiny bit of the filth in the bathroom. There was much more than this picture captures!

The downstairs bathroom after the restoration process!

The office was full of a large amount of silver cases, covered in rat dung and human filth. Of course there was also graffiti covering all of the walls. Gary and Nathaniel had to carry each silver case out of the house and down to the basement. They are incredibly heavy, made out of thick wood and covered in heavy glass. Thankfully, these cases will make a great resource to repair the many broken windows in the house!

Office before restoration!

Office after restoration!

The dining and breakfast room was dirty and had graffiti covering the walls but they did not have as much filth as some of the other rooms. The brick had a bit of graffiti on it but thankfully most of the brick was left untouched. The floors were dirty but didn't seem to have the level of rat droppings that the other rooms contained.

Dining room prior to restoration!

Dining room after restoration process!

Breakfast room before restoration!

Breakfast room after restoration process!

The kitchen was another story. The filth was indescribable as well as the skeleton of a rat on the floor! 

Kitchen prior to restoration process!

Beautiful kitchen after restoration!

"Rachel's Cocina" is the delight of my life! I love spending time in here creating wonderful meals for my family as well as worshipping and praying. It is a beautiful room and such an incredible blessing in my life.

Now for the upstairs. We will begin in our bedroom, which is at the top of the stairs and sits just off a little landing that separates Bethany's tower bedroom and Gary's and my room. Our bedroom and bath were the two most difficult places for me to clean. I sensed a strong spiritual darkness in the area as well as the physical presence of sexual paraphernalia, rat and human dung, and other filth. I was shaking, crying and praying as I cleaned our future bedroom. I don't know if I will ever forget the terror that gripped me as I cleaned and prayed.

Bedroom before restoration process!

Bedroom after restoration process!

Bathroom before restoration

Bathroom before restoration!

Bathroom after restoration!

The next area that we worked on was the rec-room. This large space had the most graffiti and had beer bottles strewn around the room. As a family we struggled working on this large room for weeks. The first round of work was the massive cleaning effort done by Nathaniel, Bethany and me. The second round of work was shared by all of us as the walls were too high for us to scrub them without Gary's help. The third round of work was the painting of the room. We ran into numerous difficulties and ended up buying several different types of paint and working through about five separate coats! Needless to say that with all of our painting difficulties the graffiti has been thoroughly covered many times over! The fourth and final round of work is wiring the room for electricity and that is still in progress.

Bethany's area of the rec room before any restoration!

Bethany's area of the rec-room after restoration!

Bethany's area of the rec-room prior to restoration!

Bethany's area of the rec-room after the restoration process!

Nathaniel's area of the rec-room prior to restoration!

Nathaniel's area of the rec-room prior to restoration!

Nathaniel's area of the rec-room after restoration!

Nathaniel's "Lego area" of the rec-room after the restoration process!

The laundry room/school room was also a challenge, as the graffiti also covered the beautiful tile in the laundry room section. We all worked together and used the drill with a special attachment to grind off the graffiti. It was extremely difficult and time consuming. Still the final results were worth the effort.

Laundry room before restoration process!

Laundry room after restoration process!

There is also a bathroom in this area of the house that was very difficult to deal with. First of all, Bethany was elected to do the initial cleaning. And once again there was rat droppings and human mess as well as other filth. The worst part about this bathroom was the graffiti that was on all four of the beautiful tiled walls. Nathaniel, Bethany and I worked on the tile on this bathroom in a race to get it finished before the plumbers came in and installed the toilet. We knew that the graffiti would be much more difficult to get off if we had to work around a toilet. Also, the upper part of the walls needed to be re-painted white. I raced over to the house on the morning that the plumbers were to install the toilet and finished up the removal of the graffiti and did the fasted painting job in the history of man! The plumbers came just as I was putting the last coat of white paint on the upper walls. It was an extremely stressful and complicated job. Bethany was my assistant and at times I was less the calm and sweet mom that I desire to be. Thankfully she forgave my cries of, "I'm so sorry I was a grumpy bear!" and we were successful at removing all of the graffiti with a drill and a ton of "elbow grease!"

One of the four graffiti filled walls in the upstairs rec-room bathroom.

Another graffiti filled wall in the upstairs bathroom.

Beautiful ceramic tile in the rec-room bathroom after the restoration process.

What is completely amazing in all of this is that we did nearly 100% of the work ourselves! It was an incredible amount of effort and through the grace of God we got through the agonizing process! Financially we really dragged bottom as we used every cent of our savings on materials. However, after only a short time of living here we will have more than compensated for what we have invested because of the incredibly low rent we are paying. (Our rent for this large house and ministry center is only $150 USD! Which is $500 USD less than what we were paying in our cramped apartment!) This is not only a wonderful home but also a fantastic finanical blessing!

One of the few things that we hired someone for was the plumbing. The entire house needed to be plumbed. Everything had been stripped including every exposed pipe, sink, and toilet. It was a huge job and one that we are forever grateful for our plumbers for accomplishing on our behalf! They were amazing! There were four men in the same family working incredibly hard for about $40 a day split between them!

The last area is Nathaniel and Bethany's tower room bedrooms. These rooms are thrilling to me. I would have loved a room like this when I was a young girl! They sit on top of the house as towers. Each room flanks the upstairs hall way and is up a set of spiral stairs. They are small rooms but plenty large enough for a teen bedroom, particularly when there is also a large rec-room.

Nathaniel's tower room before restoration.

Nathaniel's tower room after restoration!

Bethany's tower room prior to restoration!

 Bethany's tower room after restoration!

There is no way we can adequately describe what this process has been like. I have watched my children work as long and hard as any adult. Nathaniel has become a man during this process as he and Gary have worked side by side in every aspect of restoration. Bethany and I have become a team and I have seen her work develop into excellence and an attention to detail that I didn't think was possible for her personality! There has been much good that has come of this. Yet, the mind boggling difficult process has been way more than we could have handled without the grace and mercy of God carrying us through.  We endured so much during these past three months in addition to the day to day grueling restoration work. We had a robbery, a month long sickness that hit the whole family, and a necessary but time consuming trip across the country to sign papers to sell our house in Loveland. Good things also happened; such as Gary preaching, our Christmas cookie outreach and our hosting a major Christmas Eve dinner for our friends. However, in all of these things we had so little energy left of ourselves to give. There's simply no way that we could have accomplished so much in these past three months without the grace and mercy of God carrying us through. He has been our strength, our shield, our comfort and our deliverer! We are humbly and eternally grateful for all that God has done!

 Home of Swordmaster Ministries Inc. After restoration process!