Sigh. Last day on site. Was a wonderful, glorious day. Many things happened, and for the most part, outside of our control.
Team T-Shirt
Like many of the groups before us, we left a team Tshirt, this one with our name tags clipped on, much like our CoEd team that came a few weeks prior.
We also put our names on the wall aside our Coed team, and prayed for the facility before we left.
The day started out with Craig K.’s devotional, but due to time constraints, and I guess, God’s design, we had our devotional at the work-site. We shared the moment and prayer with other co-laborers before we worked.
We also presented site leader Brad with a baseball cap we brought from L.A., representing the San Gabriel Valley affiliate of Habitat.
The Rain
Since it was our last day, we ordered pizzas for ourselves, Lifesong and all the volunteers and crew. It was a warm humid day, and we were grateful for the cloud cover as we put the felt/tar paper on the roof, to make the home waterproof.
Little did we realize that the rain we thought would come tomorrow, decided to hurry up the schedule. After we had papered the majority of the roof, the rumbles of distant thunder chilled our bones. Within minutes, lightning strikes could be seen in the distance, and moments later, the rain started and then arrived as a full on storm.
We gathered our tools and equipment into the house and coaxed the Lifesong to make the rainy muddy trek three doors down to our place. With a bit of slipping, sliding and waterlogging, they arrived, we prayed and broke bread/pizza dough.
The odd circumstances brought both teams together, and many great moments of us sharing thoughts, hearts that went beyond just sharing workspace. We “found common in the uncommon” as one of the Lifesong guys said, trying to make sure that our crew and leaders knew we appreciated and cared for them. Spiritually, emotionally, and pizza-wise.
Some interesting situations occured…
Peter almost fell off the roof, and scraped up his leg, but it gave him time to spend with Kathy, a partner family that will be moving into the house next door to the team built in 2009. It looks like she moves in July/August of this year. She said we might get some brownies if we visit her next year. Peter and Kathy talked about faith, and we were able to pray about her, her pursuit of God, and her exciting new home.
While we were in the house during the storm, sharing pizzas, we were able to get to know the leaders of the other teams.
Denise seemed pretty interested to learn “Ultimate Ninja,” which will be one more thing to teach the kids that she meets. Bu was happy to oblige.
Lifesong played some crazy head shaking game that we got on video (up soon). Kelley from Lifesong was able to humbly minister to one of our site leaders, Tommy.
We wrote verses on the walls, blessing the homes, the neighborhood, and our Americorps/Habitat staff. Although we hope to see them on our next visit, we know that things change, but as was said many times, we’ll see them later, one way or another. God bless you guys, not so much for the work you do, but for trying to do it for the right reasons, for trying to put faith in action. Hold on to that.