Is It Over?

I’m sitting here, it is Saturday morning and our work week at Urban Impact is finished.  As physically exhausting as hanging sheetrock has been I think the real hard work is only just (re)beginning.

Yes, I missed a day, I mentioned the exhaustion didn’t I?  Thursday is typically a very productive day as everyone is rolling along in a good groove.  We all know pretty well how to use the tools and what the task is that we should be performing so a lot of real progress happens.  And, we also go to the Creole Creamery on Thursday so we put it all out at work knowing we will enjoy that delicious ice cream all the more ( there’s an allegory in there).

Thursday was a rainy day and it rained hard all night into the early hours of Friday.  Rain wreaks havoc on a traditional construction site, imagine how much worse it is at such a nontraditional project as the Porch.  We had a few wet walls and some probably damaged insulation and sheetrock.

Friday was a relief, crazy, happy, sad, great day.  It is of course the end of the week and the majority of what we have been assigned we have completed or maybe more accurately have gotten better than half way done.  The team from Eau Claire left early on Friday.  This precluded them from the gumbo lunch which is almost reason enough to come for the week.

Lunch was a good opportunity for me to sit with one of the tradesmen and just chat.  Thomas (Tom) is a young man with a deeply troubled past.  Tom readily admitted he had been a bad boy, with emphasis on the bad.  He is a single dad of abeautiful 8 year old daughter, Liz Beth.  Tom’s own youth was hard and his dad was physically abusive.  Tom was a good student and a bright kid.  He told me he had been in jail and prison multiple times.  He was a physics major at LSU when he was arrested the last time for selling drugs.  I sensed he was holding back on some things that he felt were so bad he just didn’t want to share.  The birth of Liz Beth caused him to change 180 degrees,  He is now sober and has a good job as an HVAC technician.  He really lives to see his daughter on the weekends.  When Liz Beth was born Tom was a mess and didn’t have the means to care for her, so even though he had reservations, he allowed his parents to adopt her.  He has a lot of anger towards his father, but does admit his parents care for Liz Beth very well and he is grateful that he is able to have some say in her upbringing.  I don’t think Tom is an unusual man here in NOLA, but he is singularly unique as all are and as our morning lesson was on caring for “the poor”…  Tom went back to work before I could muster the courage to ask him if I could pray for him.  I did stop him as we were picking up our tools and asked him if I could pray for him right then, he said that would be great, so I prayed with/for him.  So many young men here need to be held by an earthly father and just told that they have value and that God loves them.  It isn’t a pefect world, but God has a perfect plan – Would you remember Tom, Liz Beth and Tom’s family and their future when you pray?

There’s more work to be done at the Porch.  We didn’t really come close to doing as much as we would have hoped we could do.  Many hands make light work – join in.

Friday night is seafood night and so for us it is a short ride to Cajun Seafood #1 for some boiled shrimp, crawdads, and po’ boys.  Good food and good meal with friends.  The house next to us is some sort of a group home.  At least one of the men who lives there is always outside and seems quite social.  But, John has many challenges and I feel quite positive that when John is talking to you he is also hearing other people talking in his head.  It can be quite a challenge to engage with him.  He showed up just about the time we were sitting down to eat so I invited him to join us.  Our church planting friends Eric and Christina Holtrop joined us as well.  We had a good time.  John was a bit awkward at times and it was difficult to know how to respond to him.  We just showed him love and patience as best we could.  At some point John decided to pick up his plate and went inside the group house to finish eating.  Pray for John as he struggles to live a productive life.  Eric and Christina hung out with us for a while.  Pray also for them as they work to expand the Kingdom here in NOLA.  There are many challenges – most of them I’ll never understand and hope to never experience.

Is it over?  No the reality is that now the hard part begins, as we leave and reenter our suburban white bread world with our closed doors and “do not disturb” realities.  How do we process and apply the truth of the Gospel and the true lives of Tom, John, and Eric and Christina as well as the others we’ve encountered this past week?  Can we put the lessons we’ve learned into action?  They taught us challenge circle on Monday and we never had a chance to “play” challenge circle, but now they turn us loose back into “challenge life” – join the game.

Middle of the Week – Is This the Peak?

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Kim and Kally - These two are members of the construction crew.

Wednesday is our big day, we are all working as a team and we know much better what the task is and how we are expected to perform.  This reality is born out as we really got going and made the day a good one.

I had hoped to get three projects completed and we got going on them pretty good.  As with all plans this one had some interuptions and some hitches.  My ‘hard workers’ got going quickly after we prayed in.  They know what tools they need and they get them and gather the supplies quickly.  We covered the first two projects and then discovered a small problem in one of the bathrooms – first hitch.  Got TJ refocused on resolving that problem and by then it was lunch time.

Of course the weather had been cooperating up until now, but the skies were ominous and the rain was just waiting for the chance.  As we broke for lunch the clouds broke open and a few more hitches in the whole project were uncovered.

Uncovered is an appropriate term.  There were a few open spots in the roof and the water was pouring into those holes like a fire hose was opened onto them.  The rain was fierce and was soon fallowed by a power outage.  Great – now we’re at a work stoppage.

I was able to use the time to do some leyout work and line up some of the cuts and get more materials for my team.  When the power came back on we were going to get right into it.  Fortunately the power came back within about 30 minutes and my crew got right back to it.

The crew and all of the folks here are really energetic and are getting things done all the while glorifying God to the utmost.

We really did get after it and I know that Thursday will be even more of an accomplished day.  Try something new today.

Full Day – Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A regular work day.  No, wait this might be what a regular work day is like for someone who actually has to actually perform a trade.  This was / is not what I would call a regular work day for me.

The day begins with some personal time and breakfast.  After breakfast we have time for personal devotions and group devotional time.  We try to get to the job site by 9:00am.  Each day at the Porch we start with a short period of worship and then we pray in for the day.  It can be a dangerous job, there are some really high walls that the paint team is working on on the outside of the building.  There is an electrical crew that is wiring and installing electrical outlets and light fixtures.  The blight-busters all wear massive protective gear as they swing grass cutters and generally clear debris from property.  The construction crew is cutting steel and sheetrock so we have some pretty sharp tools to be wary of.  The real tradesmen working here are quite good and they also need to be prayed for.  This job is a challenge.

My crew is making progress although not quite as much as I’d hope for.  It’s okay though, they are very inexperienced (as am I) and so we take a good bit longer to solve some problems.  I’m hoping we finish two or three small projects today.  We have to hang sheet rock in two bathrooms then have to mud and tape those walls.  We also need to finish an air handler closet in the conference room.  We are framing the walls then will rock and mud those walls inside and out.  We have one small wall to repair by adding a 4 inch section to the end of it.  I really want to try and finsh those on Wednesday.

Here is a picture of Evanda Christoph, an intern here at Urban Impact.  Jolly as he is called is a freshman in college this year and goes to school part time and works with teams and runs challenge circle.  Good guy – this is our first family portrait with him.

At the end of the work day we took a side trip to get a snow ball and see Pastor Perry’s church.  This is the property we worked on last year.  It formally opens this coming weekend – New Dimension.

The church looks great, they will need a new A/C soon, so pray for them that God will answer their prayers as they faithfully follow and honor Him.

Snow Balls were good.  Kim had banana and I had Georgia peach.

Sheetrock And Mudding, Oh – My

Monday was a good start with Challenge Circle training at CRCC led by Tyrone. We (re-)learned all about the colors and the cheers to use to encourage the kids and teach them about the gospel. The goal of challenge circle it seems to me is less about the kids in the neighborhood than it is about us. Many of the teams that come to NOLA have most likely not had a great deal of interaction with people who don’t look like them. So this cross cultural interaction is a good opportunity to see others as people rather than perceptions.
Once Challenge Circle training was done, we drove to the Porch for a short time of worship and prayer then an orientation and work assignments.

When we were here last October we had been in full demolision mode for a week and we left the sanctuary sections as a shell of a building. A roof, support steel, and a slab. No walls! Now the sanctuary is fully enclosed and the interior walls and ceiling are finished, the A/C system is in, the phase one project is just about coming to a close and good thing since the church must move in by May 15.

Kim and I are part of a construction crew this week.  As much as I may dislike it (because I don’t want to make mistakes) I am leading a sheetrock (wall board) crew this week. Putting up, mudding and taping sheetrock is not glamorous and is slow going for us as we start and get our feet under us. The crew is Kim, Kally (UWEC), TJ (UWEC), Paul (Bethel), and myself.

As the week goes on we will also do some wall texturing.  That will be a new experience for me and for my less experienced crew.  They are game though and are good workers so we’ll make the most of it.

Follow The Yellow House Road

The team form Hope Church was on the road this am by 7:15.  There are eight of us leaving this morning and three will join us later in the week.  As a humbling reminder of my own folly and self righteousness, I caused Kim and myself to arrive late by about the requisite 15 minutes.

We are on our way to New Orleans, LA (NOLA) to work alongside other mission teams and the staff at Urban Impact (UI) and Castle Rock Community Church (Castle Rock) on what is being called “A Bigger Porch.”  The Bigger Porch, located on S. Galvez St. will serve as the new worship and community center for Castle Rock and administrative offices for UI.  This new facility will provide them with more opportunities to reach and serve the Central City community.

Coming into the city from the north is always a bit strange, you can see the skyline almost as soon as you get onto the bridge that takes I59 across Lake Ponchatrain, but it is a long time before you actually get into the built up part of the city.  As we begin to see building there is still a lingering trace of the devastation of Katrina.  Every so often a building will appear that has not been demolished or rehabbed.  And, mixed in among the rebuilt homes you can spot a roof that is crumbling and you know it is attached to a house that some family has abandoned.  The storm displaced so many people.

We always know we are close to Claiborne Ave. when we can see the Super Dome.  It probably isn’t detectable in this image, but there were people on top of the dome doing some sort of work.  There was some sort of parade on MLK that ended at Claiborne and we had the misfortune of arriving as the parade was hitting Claiborne.  We needed to turn left onto MLK to head to the Yellow House, so the blocked streets really caused some confusion.

We arrived after a bit of angst and some misdirection – All is well and we are safely here in NOLA.

We are sharing the Yellow House with a group from Bethel College in Arden Hills, MN and another group from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire in Eau Claire, WI.  Sounds like Kim and I are at a family reunion.  And in part we are, as we meet back up with old friends from our past trips and meet new friends.  The mission introduction and concert of prayer are always a good time of sharing and worship.

The Ides of March

I’m not certain why, but every March 15^th, I recall the warning given to Julius Caesar by the Soothsayer (via W. Shakespeare’s pen) to “Beware the Ides of March.”  I was in high school when I first heard the phrase and – for some reason – this little statement (along with Caesar’s tragic expression of surprise, “Et tu, Brute?”) is embedded in my brain.

So, some of you came here for a little culture and that’s as little as it gets.

One more reason the Ides of March sticks in my brain…circumstances, some beyond my control, turned March 15^th  (1991 to be exact) into a major life event.  It was on that day 21 years ago that I reenlisted in the U.S. Army for the last time, and (this is the icing on the cake) the reenlistment ceremony took place on top of a destroyed Republican Guard T-64 tank in the lovely countryside of Iraq.

I was the first soldier in the 1^st Armored Division to reenlist in the desert, and my reenlistment documents were hand written.  The folks in the photograph above (starting in the back) are (L to R): SSG Robert C. Wolf (holding U.S. flag), SPC Charles Snyder (holding 123d SB flag), 1LT Wm. Mark Hunthrop (officiating), SFC Dale Anton (reenlisting), SGT Jackson (holding HQ guidon), and SPC Robert Schneider (holding E Co. guidon).  What a fine group of men; thanks for being willing to be a part of my reenlistment. I was more than pleased, honored in fact, to include you.

Cheers to you guys and best wishes to each of you. Thanks for making the Ides of March an even more memorable day for me.  No cause for me to utter in desperation “Et tu, Uncle Sam?”

An aside here – Kim did not know I was reenlisting.  I hadn’t consulted her and I don’t actually remember how I told her about the reenlistment.  She didn’t leave me so I guess she agreed it was a good thing.

In the photo (L to R): SGT Jackson, 1LT. Hunthrop, and SFC Anton standing in front of the same photogenic and extremely destroyed T-64 tank.  I’m holding my discharge and reenlistment in my left hand.  Technically I was not in the Army on the 14^th.  The Iraqi desert is not as desirable an exotic location as you might think and there are many other locales I’d have rather been on my day off.  On the bright side, there really are very few places where you can spend your day off driving a tracked vehicle around with total disregard for tearing up the ground and actually play soldier!

 

A little post reenlistment Bar-B-Que feast.  Finding charcoal in the desert is not as easy as one might think.  Luckily we had an abundance of rat traps and a dearth of rats.  Rat traps have a wood base, and so, with a little creativity, we have a grill (and, no, those are not little rat carcasses on the grill!).

I Hate Them Even When They’re Not Real

snake Noun: A long limbless reptile that has no eyelids, and jaws that are capable of considerable extension. Some snakes have a venomous bite.

Well that’s how dictionary.com defines the dang things. Me I have a different definition and I think the Bible backs mine up so I’m going with it.

snake Noun: Satan’s little hand puppets.

Let’s face it Satan did use them to cause us a few problems, God noticed and cursed them – He took away their legs! That and a few scary encounters over the years have given me the normal reaction to snakes. I do not care for them at all. I know that (in theory) there are some that snake apologists claim are harmless. But to me the only harmless snake is a dead one that has been doused in gasoline and is burning at 9,000 degree Kelvin. I’ll take my chances with the fire.

I normally do not have dreams while I sleep so having one last night was memorable even if the dream had not been very odd. But the plus side of this dream is that I know for certain that I dream in color. And, I have to say given my revulsion with snakes that having a dream about snakes is even more of an odd occurrence. Yet there they were in all of their vivid terrorizing color. I don’t recall how many I killed before my shovel was lost, I just remember the last one was really persistent and relentless. They were striped from the tip of their business end to the tip of their tail. They were red, lime, blue, orange and yellow stripes, very vibrant colors, but not good on a snake.

I had killed quite a few, but this last one had me backed up against the wall and still kept coming. I was yelling at it, well possibly screaming in terror, but it sounds better if I phrase it as I did initially. I had a problem – l couldn’t find my shovel and Satan’s little hand puppet kept slithering forward. I realized I’d have to grab this one with my hands and kill it by beating it against the wall or floor. I waited as long as I could then it lunged at me and I grabbed it as I was falling to the ground. I quickly began to beat it against the floor.

I woke hearing a loud crash and almost immediately heard Kim ask if I was okay. My CPAP machine was roaring and the hose was in my hand. I had jerked it out of the head piece and had cleared off almost all of the items on the night stand where I had been slamming the hose in an effort to kill the “snake.” Damn snakes. Damn snakes.

So, I picked up all of the items and placed them back on the night stand. Then I reattached the hose to the head piece. Next I apologized to Kim as I explained the problem and we went back to sleep – for me dreamless sleep, the best kind. At least Kim had something to chuckle about as she went through her day.

Damn snakes.