Let the Games Begin…Day 3

Jody and Jill thought painting was hard last year...but taking apart a kitchen was even tougher.

Mark led the crew in being the most dirty.

Norm was “wire stripper”, removing electrical conduit too.

Jessica and Dillon Thomas helping prepare the hundreds of pieces of cloth.

March 8, 2010

The morning devotional led by Lois started us off on the right foot. We approached our various assigned tasks knowing that we had somehow been appointed to be here at this time doing this work. As John Belushi and Dan Akroyd said in the Blues Brothers, we are on a mission from God. Humble though our talents might be, we had work to do. And work we did, long and hard. Only our two veteran construction crew leaders had injuries: Richard walked into a low bathroom overhang on the construction site; and Dean,

Terry stayed up with Lisa til nearly midnight helping to prep the sewing materials.

with his usual high energy, bounded over rotting floor joists only to discover that one of them couldn’t hold his weight. Thankfully we had our nurse

Jaime learned a few things about floor joists.

Jill on hand to patch them up. And injuries didn’t stop either of them from putting in a full day.

Pictures speak a thousand words, and today’s photos tell the story a

Diane is an expert cutter, a skill that's needed on prepping the crafts.

s well as any long-winded tales. Richard carefully organized us into five teams. The Bonanza house team of Lisa, Diane, Dillon and Jessica worked on craft preparations. That was no small deal considering the amount of cloth that had to be cut neatly into small squares and sewed together so that the house mothers

Patrick was a whirlwind - everywhere materials needed to be safely moved

would be able to complete decorative pillow cases and wall hangings. It was almost midnight before this team was finished –

thanks in large part to Terry who stepped in during the afternoon hours to assist with the massive sewing machine work. The kids helped to prepare materials for greeting cards, too. The idea is to help the women learn how

Ron and Lois washed down two classrooms in the school that's being extensivedly remodeled

to do these crafts so that they can teach the children. The Roblealto Mission project was able to donate two sewing machines for this effort. Imagine the surprise when these hard-working house mothers learn that tomorrow when they come down to the house for “instruction classes.”

The three demolition crews never knew it could be so hard and dirty to take down a house. Jill and Jody worked sledge hammered concrete and took apart the kitchen; Norm and Terry striped old electrical wires and conduits; Kathleen and Jaime used reciprocating saws to remove the decaying floor joists; Mark and Dean had the really dirty job of taking down the ceilings; and Patrick – who also does construction for a living – was everywhere providing the extra hands and support needed to get the materials out of the house safely. The painting team –

Injury or not, Dean kept at it all day, almost as dirty as Mark.

Kathleen kept her head down and worked hard removing floor joists all day.

Cindy, Lois, Ron and Harriette – prepped two school classrooms by washing down walls, spackling and taping. Mold was found early on behind the floorboards and so a slight delay ensued while the construction workers took care of it.

By the end of the day, our bodies were tired, but there was sports programs with the kids to participate in…more on that tomorrow.