It finally rained at the work site! When we started working this morning, the soil was nice and soft! I was a little muddy and sticky in places, but I’ll take that over dry, hard rock any day of the week! I felt a little less productive today because I was doing a lot of measuring depth with the laser level. It’s a pretty cool tool and it needed to be done, but it doesn’t feel like I’m doing as much as when I’m actually doing physical labor. We’re getting to the point where we’re scraping the walls and the bottom to get the proper depth and the proper width. It’s a lot slower work than when we start out and don’t need to worry about going too deep. Because if we take too big of a section of the trench too deep, then the whole trench has to go down to that depth to make it level. For little divots, we can just fill back in with the extra clay, so we make sure to measure frequently. To make things a little less boring for myself, I found myself a trench buddy! You see, there was a lot of worms since it had just rained, so I carried around one on my shoulder or neck for most of the day! His name was Frank. I lost him a couple times, so I ended up with Frank the 7th, who died a tragic death due to overheating in the sun. I was tired of losing Frank, so I put him in a bottle full of dirt, but the inside of the bottle was hotter than I realized. Also, it didn’t really have air holes. But the lid wasn’t really on, so I think it was mostly the heat thing. I finally get to wash all my dirty clothes today too! It’s an exciting time, because my work clothes are pretty disgustingly smelly. I’ve also been told we’re playing trash can tonight for our community life game, which is probably my favorite game we play! I’m looking forward to it! Word has also gotten around that I can braid hair, so I’ve been doing a lot of that for people in the mornings. I’m getting a lot better! Hopefully, I can also get a little more sleep tonight since I’m writing my journal early too! Waking up this morning was pretty rough.
God’s Blessings
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Laura
Today began with a nice morning on the site. Once again, I was with the roof crew. We have quite a bit of fun because it's extremely easy to make fun of Andrew. Today we named all the hammers and Andrew had them all talk to each other. We became fatigued quicker than usual, and we had to motivate ourselves by taking videos of us working and putting them into fast motion.
My wasp stings have started swelling up, but they don't hurt, so I don't super mind.
At lunch we had these super cool states and capitols graham cracker things, and Michigan was on the pack along with Florida and Alaska, so clearly we're one of the best states. I now dearly miss my Scrambled States of America game.
We had to cut the day short due to rain. It would kind of suck to slip off the roof. When we were waiting in the car we found a nugget of gold in the form of a DVD, "The Wubulous World of Doctor Suess." Sadly, our luck failed and the DVD player determined that we had a "bad disc," so instead we watched a chunk of copper: "Ghostbusters."
We did laundry. Now I have clean clothes.
We played trash can. I thought it was a fun game, but my poor shoulders thought otherwise. Someone went to the hospital with a possible concussion, so we're probably playing duck, duck, goose tomorrow.
Today, spiritual life was a bit silly; there wasn't a lot of time for discussion, which was unfortunate. It's that pastor syndrome of having too much to say and not enough time.
I wish we sung more hymns here. But today we sung a praise song that I actually really liked. So that's super cool.
Vici
Today on the work site we were still spackling the ceiling. Although we painted both room and the trim. We put up most of the railing outside and we have the flooring for the inside that we are going to put up soon. Today was laundry day!! I can't tell you how exciting that is here! It was pretty awesome. After dinner we did laundry. When everyone got back we played trash can. For people who don't know it's where a bunch of people connect in a circle and try to get someone to touch the can in the middle. My brother J.T. is still a legend from his time playing that game. It was super awesome and I hope we can play it again!
Nikki
The days are running together - plus if it is after midnight, it technically is not Thursday anymore. We are all alive and well. I must sleep and the youth have covered the highlights, so I will write more tomorrow. Blessings to all
