Working on a porch, day 2

      The team of Page and Jimmy Fulgham, Bob Jernigan, and Marc Beaver accepted two new members today. Jeff Badke and I joined them to work on the roof over a porch that a Smoke Rise crew had worked on back in October. We got the braces placed as well as the support pieces for the metal roof that we will put on tomorrow. We had a bit of a snafu as the metal shop was not able to cut any metal this morning. This afternoon the metal was delivered to the site. It will be ready for us to complete in the morning.

     In the meantime we were able to come back to the lodge and work on the door to the shed. I use "we" loosely. We made efforts to repair the door and then Sean showed up. My favorite comment of the day was when Sean told Page "Get out of the way, just this one time." So we watched as he made quick work of the door.

    The other teams were making progress on their projects as well. The bathroom project hit a few snags along the way as is typical of bathrooms. They had to do more floor repair than they had expected. They should be able to seat the toilet and attach the tub tomorrow to finish that project.

     The window team went to their second house today to remove and replace several windows and a double sliding door. Sean was able to show up at all of the sites throughout the day and offer his assistance to each. He headed back to Frankfurt this afternoon.

     Tonight the team was treated to supper from Nancy Gibson. She is lady that lives down the holler from the Lodge.  Smoke Rise worked on her kitchen on one of their first trips up to McDowell. Since then she has cooked for the team each time they come up.  This has been a great week of work and fellowship.

     Continue to pray for the team's safety as we work on the various projects. Pray for the homeowners that they would recognize our work as a gift from the Lord.

Furniture sale, day 1

   The whole team started out this morning at the distribution center to unload the vehicles of the furniture. Four of us stayed around to be personal shoppers and loaders while the rest of the team went out to begin work on the various construction projects. Again, thanks to La-Z-Boy and the members of Smoke Rise for the furniture donations.

     Linh was a great packer and knot tier. We thought we were going to lose him on this ride as we almost hemmed him in.

     This was the most creative packing job of the day.

      We have one team that is working to rehab a bathroom. Jim Huston is the crew chief for that group. His crew is made up of Johnny Lavender and Jeremy Colliver. They also received a good bit of help or at least moral support from Cheryl, homeowner and handy-woman.  Allen Hardin led PJ Testino, Neal Barton, and Wayne Hardy in a project replacing windows.  They finished one project and began a second window project this afternoon. The third construction project was to build a roof over a porch that Smoke Rise had built on their last trip in October. Page Fulgham is leading that team consisting of his brother Jimmy, Bob Jernigan, and Marc Beaver.

     Pray for continued safety for the teams and continued blessings for the home owners as we serve tomorrow. Bill Blanton, Linh Luong, Malcolm, and I will join these other work teams tomorrow.  I hope to include pictures from the other work sites as the week goes on.

Yard Sale Day

All 8 of us arrow early this morning to be at the GAP by 7:00. After waiting for our marching orders and for the rain to subside a little we began to unload the two trucks and trailer and stage the items for the sale. It continued to rain of and on throughout the morning. We covered the furniture with tarps and cardboard so as not to get it too wet.
     About 10AM the FBC crew loaded into Stuart's truck and followed Terry to Elkhorn City air an hour away. When we arrived it was sprinkling a little. Terry showed us what was to be done and then dove back to continue helping with the yard sale. Since it was raining we decided to easy our lunch before starting our work in earnest. We were able to complete the underpinning on one end of the trailer before the rain came back again. Unfortunately, it was a short day of work, but we have a plan of attack for tomorrow.
     Jeff cooked another great supper for us tonight. After supper we had a good discussion about Mission opportunities and development that have stemmed from our readings of ”When Helping Hurts” and other such books. Whether it is with or people in Augusta our with the good folks of Smoke Rise I am always energized by these discussions. They bring encouragement to me that we are on the right track. These discussions also serve to push me onward in my thinking and planning of current and future partnerships.
     The Smoke Rise gang will be heading back home tomorrow. We will head back to the worksite hopefully under sunnier conditions.