A Slower Pace

Mission trip — I’m beat…..

For those of you that have offered spiritual and financial support for my trip, you are getting your efforts and monies worth. I spent today with two of my teammates at an outlying house quite a ways from here. It took a while this morning to get organized and figuring out what out tasks were. The house was a previous hurricane Ivan victim as well as a hurricane Katrina victim. Quite a bit has been done and the house is on the bubble of move in condition. However, it needs electricity and because the power has been off for so long the property needs a perk test. It made me wonder how much bureaucratic red tape has held up rebuilding and reconstruction efforts. I know rules are rules but Katrina bent almost every single one of them and we need to be creative and flexible in getting things back to normal.

I had an enjoyable but very hot time putting down some laminate floor with a teammate of mine. She hadn’t done flooring before but she is a Habitat for Humanity weekly regular and very skilled. She and I tackled that floor until we A) ran out of planks and B) encountered a curved step stair section. Tomorrow we hope to get that room done and move on. While we were at the house we drafted up a materials and tools need list so we will be much better prepared tomorrow.

The list for tomorrow is:

complete laminate floor
kitchen sink drain (fix a prior mistake where someone put the cabinets OVER the drain
level all cabinets
possible kitchen countertops
locate and position the kitchen island
mow or weed-eat the 2 foot high front yard
mow or weed-eat the 4 foot high back yard

Probably the hardest thing for me to do is follow an instruction that came up in our orientation yesterday evening. One of the camp directors told us that we needed to help out with an open mind and not judge, jump to conclusions or otherwise Monday morning quarterback anyone who is in a state of need down here. Our job is to help — and that is it. So I really focused on being a tool of God and not second guess a homeowner, person who stayed during the storm or person who choses to stay down here. That has been hard for me but I pray for strength to do my part, help out and make a difference — not meddle, second guess or all the other paths of least resistance. I think I’ll call it — “Shut your piehole and get involved.”