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It wasn’t until Saturday, on the coed teams last day at the work site, that I was struck by a new meaning to Paul’s words from 1 Cor 3:10-13.
“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work.”

In reflecting on the work we’d done the past week I saw many parallels in the building process to our Christian growth. In working on the house I witnessed first hand how things are done in “layers”. The foundation and framing was done by previous workers and we were adding to their work. Brad had us screw cement boards to the floor of the bathrooms and in the process we found that there was a spot that wasn’t level so he showed us a power planer and in minutes we’d leveled the spot so that our cement board was no longer rocking on it.

Later we had to place a tape on the floor along all the seams. (Sort of like what you do with dry wall.) Then we mixed a putty/cement to seal the seams. That’s so water doesn’t get into the sub-flooring. Anyways, we had to make sure that it was put on smoothly so that later when another group came in they’d be able to set tiles on it. We had to make sure we did a good job so that they wouldn’t have to make too many adjustments or corrections.

Paul says we need to be careful how we build. In other words we need to present the gospel of the Lord as accurately as possible so that when the next “crew” comes in they won’t have to take a planer to what was already laid down. Or if they do, that they won’t have to make too many adjustments…since none of us is perfect there are bound to be needed adjustments. But like one of the guys said…only God’s perfect and that’s why we have caulk-to cover up the cracks when the ends don’t meet perfectly.

In making the wrap-around stairs for the porch I saw how the base for the stairs had to be hung evenly or the next step of nailing the boards on would not be level. Each previous step needed to be done correctly and with accuracy or it would require more sanding, removing and re-nailing, to adjust things in their proper place so that the end product would be acceptable. How many times have we had to have our misconceptions about who God is “sanded” and refined? As a new Christian I thought that God was all about “Love” and that love would cover all my sins. It wasn’t till I became more mature in Christ that I learned that God is also a “Just” God and that our sins needed to be paid for. I learned that the only thing that could compensate for my sins and keep me from an eternity of burning in hell was the precious blood of Jesus. In other words, Jesus had to die for me to pay for the sins that I am guilty of. There had to be a balancing of the scales for a Just God to be satisfied and because he loved me so much he sent His son to pay the penalty for my sins.

I thank God for His loving provision for me. Now it’s up to me to try to live a live worthy of that love!

We’re on the road again.

It went from cool to cloudy to non-stop raining. During that time, we packed up our tools to wait out the storm. Some of the guys worked under the decking on the posts. The rest of us stood around with a lot of ideas, opinions and other “helpful” chatter.

Coffee and donuts = fellowship, so we took our 10am break during this time and enjoyed the hot coffees went out to get. Stories of life and faith were swapped as the rest of the team were sledgehammering away in the background.

But now we’re on plan B. Paul, our friend (and second boss) has a friend who recently lost his job and is relocating. Paul offered to paint his home so his friend can rent it out. Paul “put it out there” to see if we’d help, but he kept saying “I know you’ve already done enough for the Habitat home, and you don’t have to feel obligated….”

Given that we can’t work on the Habitat site today, we’re more than willing to help Paul in his personal act of service, and it’ll give us an opportunity to bless the home with our hands.

Jim and Shirley were only too eager to join us and are part of our caravan. Uncle Roy says that we’re like a minstrel band, going from gig to gig.

Personally, when preparing for this mission, God said to be true to purpose, but to have no agenda. I’m glad that God’s plans are good. I love this team. We are different, have different talents, personalities, but at the end of the day, we just (as Jim said) want to help “make God look good.” It’s our band of brothers (and sisters) and we’ll take this show to the next place, the home of someone who could use a reminder that God loves him even though he might feel forsaken.

There have been predictions of rain on the horizon, and they have come true.

It was pouring rain a moment ago, now it has broken and the skies are cloudy. Either way though, it’s humid. Have we mentioned it’s humid down here? Oh, well, compared to Southern California, it’s humid? Yep. Humid.

The first week’s moderate weather has changed this week to a heat that sapped the strength of every man into a van-sleeping volunteer, then today with the rain, we’re reminded of the first year we came out here, when the framing was barely up and the job site was covered with water. That very same day of thunderous storms and pouring rain, then an afternoon of clear skies and rising heat. Well, that helps explains the humidity….

With that in mind, we don’t know exactly what we’ll be doing on the job site today. If raining, presumably, we’ll be working indoors, much better than atop a tin roof in a thunderstorm. Habitat usually has backup plans for situations like this, even to the point of doing administrative work back at the home office. There’s always the chance we’ll be doing some touch up work in an existing home.

No matter where we end up working, we’ll try to take heart to Kelly’s devotional (his first!) this morning, to not only use all of our abilities and gifts, but use them as to the Lord. He encouraged us to try to move past doing a job “good enough” or saying “that’ll do” and to approach our efforts pursuing excellence. Each member of this team has an unspoken contract with every effort of this home. There are so many nails, joints and other small elements of the home that we will touch, that no one will probably ever see again. But that’s probably why it’s so important to do them well, because we will be the last human that will know if it was done well, helping this home last a little longer.

Thanks Kelly, for that reminder and encouragement, and in line with Jim, we’ll try “to make God look good today.”

It was a long day on the site.

First off, Jim and Shirley/Nannie work hard. They know their limitations, but they work hard, right up to it. Kinda like Uncle Roy, but maybe a bit more.

We arrived on the site to be greeted by Brad and Paul, warm hugs for Craig and Gary, and meet and greet with Jim and Nannie.

Jim and Steve, the hobbler, went to work on the stairs. All day, well, we had several job assignments, but here are the highlights:

Craig and Chris were tasked with moving the portapotty. We had to move it and the sign so that an electrican could have access. Without a blink of an eye, they went to work. You should know that it had yet to be emptied. Put (number) two and two together, and well, it was an unpleasant smell all day.

This dynamic duo was then tasked to go under the house and tack up some plastic sheeting. Somewhere in the process, Craig accidentally hurt himself. It looks worse than it is.

Hot hot day on the site, on the roof.

Finished the day and went to Quakes, to celebrate Uncle Roy’s Bday with Frozen Custard. As usual, he treated.

Jim and Nannie joined us for Quakes, and had a good talk with them along the way, sharing faith and stories. They’ve been a good presence in our lives.

We’re off for dinner off site, and will recap later, in the meantime, here’s a video and some pics