Laura
Today we went to Lowe's and then got lost, so we ended up at the site about three hours later than normal. When we arrived, I worked on the roof which was thankfully less damaged than we feared. We had to replace a board and rip out one of the chimney tops, but the damage wasn't extreme. Basically the majority of the day was spent pulling out nails, which was very not exciting. We had some nice group bonding today; Andrew did not take well to the sun, and his excessive complaining and bold statement, "someone spray mayonnaise on my face," spurned a thrilling "would you rather?" conversation. So basically it was a pretty fun day for us despite the heat and hard work.
Possibly the greatest moment of the day for me was when we discovered several wasps' nests under the roof, and Dennis decided to spray them. After a timid first attempt, Dennis was determined to keep spraying no matter where the wasps flee. The wasps then began to fly over his head, and true to his word, he spun on the spot and sprayed maniacally into the air around him. Thankfully, he didn't get any on him, so we were safe to laugh lots and lots.
We discovered some further complications on the bridge issue, but nothing that can't be resolved. A couple of the beams have sunk down several inches into the concrete and we're not sure how to solve that.
I got a watermelon shake today. So I'm trying lots of new things down here. Still haven't gone back to see my dinosaur though.
I'm starting to really like a lot of the people I meet. This is a really cool place. I'm also learning to avoid the people who I don't like as much. And they're not that bad anyway.
One thing I'm still not super fond of is all the hand holding we do down here. Every prayer involves holding hands. I'll have to learn to enjoy it.
Today we drew a fake worldly Jesus and the true Jesus on separate posters. I always knew I would use my art talents for something one day. Naturally fake Jesus was all about cash and played the role of a cross-dressing, fairy godmotherish body builder. Real Jesus was real Jesus. We drew the cross and the sacraments and forgiveness. And of course the world because that adds to any art piece.
Also, I got my first wasp stings today. It actually doesn't hurt much at all, so it's kind of a proud moment actually. My parents recorded Laura's first steps; I'm recording Laura's first bee sting.
Also, I'm gaining a greater appreciation of Ms. Waechter's English class every day. It's really helped me look into scripture a whole lot better. However, I still haven't managed to learn to write coherent journal entries before bed time. But hey, practice makes perfect. Although to be honest I think I'm getting steadily worse. So I'll stop for now; I don't think anything else happened today anyway.
Vici
This morning my group had to go to Lowes to buy supply's for our site. Once we got back on the highway one of our vans just shut off on us. My van had to go back to the church to get someone then go back if to that van. Once we got some supply's into a different van most of us headed up to the site so we could get started on working. Normally we should get to our sites at 8, but we didn't get to the work sites until it was about 11. We still got a lot done. Just not as much as we were hoping for. And poor Steve's van is broken now.
After we got all of that figured out we all helped but up insulation. Then some others put up some of the dry wall. We also got rid of a bunch of garbage Mrs. Fox didn't want anymore and all out garbage from tearing out the ceiling. We got back and did the norm. Nothing that different happened. We all took showers, hung out, ate, and did our studies.
We are slowly getting to know our owner as we are able to sign to her and learn what she is saying. Everyone is learning a little ASL and it's pretty amazing seeing everyone try to learn how to communicate with her. Not only that but we get to work hard as a team. And some of the more new people (like myself) are learning how to do all this stuff. I put in insulation and I helped take out a door frame. This servant event just keeps getting better and better. I love the site I have and I love all the people on this trip with us and I'm more and more thankful I get to do this work every morning.
Nikki
We had a pretty good day on the septic site today. Our inspector stopped out this afternoon and was pleased with our progress and the work we have done so far. He is a new to me inspector and seems like he will be good to work with. Not as hands on as some we have had, but I have learned that is the exception and not the rule. (There are a few that actually will come out and work with us when they can, sometimes even when we are not on their case load, because they ‘get it’.) We are still praying for rain, as yesterday’s rain bypassed our site. The ground is very hard and rain would help. Shortly after we got on the freeway to come to back this afternoon, there was a great downpour, difficult to drive in, that lasted all of the way back to the showers. We will see in the morning if it also rained at our site. We ARE making good progress, yet are frustrated by the combination of rock, roots (a fun word to have everyone say in their various accents) and hard dry dirt. Really we have not had any significant rocks or roots, just lots of little pesky ones. Margaret is currently the reigning president of the rock club, with a rock approximately five fists big. Didn’t know that was a measure, did you?! I did get myself a nice mattock pick kiss on my leg from a hard bounce back when I hit one of those rocks in the side wall of our trench. Ouch! Hopefully it will not be too much trouble tomorrow. It is just at the top of my work boot - actually I think my work boot saved me from worse injury. I best be off to bed. Goodnight!
Solomon
We got a lot of work done today! I can definitely feel the soreness today! My back is really sore, as are my hands, which also happen to be covered in blisters. But I still wouldn't trade this site for any other! We're doing good work and I know God will use me in ways I don't expect and may not even realize once they're completed! The pain is worth it! We're definitely starting to bond more as a site as well. We haven't been talking a whole lot in the trenches yet, but it's early in the week. We heard about everyone's favorite movies at lunch and we sang a few songs in the afternoon while we dug (mostly Disney songs). We finally played the name game today! I only lost one of the 4 or 5 times I played! My team also got the most points in our game of hungry hungry hippo! And we finally found worms at the site today! It hasn't gotten any softer or wetter, but hopefully the pouring rain today reached the site! We really won't know until we get there tomorrow. We did make good progress today though! Patrick and I are a couple inches away from bottom along a good half of the trench and we cleaned up some of the walls so they're wide enough and actually straight! We also got shakes today and that was absolutely delicious! On another food-related note, I learned that putting Oreos in one's pocket is not exactly a good idea. I forgot it was there and I put my phone in the same pocket, so I got Oreo filling all over my phone. Hopefully it's a restful night's sleep!
God's Blessings!
Dennis
Good afternoon/night, today was a pretty ordinary day at ASE including all those things you will always remember such as, waking up at the crack of dawn and getting lost in the back roads of the mountains. We had an amazing breakfast as usual and then set off for our sites with a stop at our local Lowe's in order to pick up the necessary equipment we needed, and place an order for the lumber we need. It was on the way from the Lowe's to the site that the fun truly started. So background, our adult male leader/ driver on the van is PK (Pastor Kufaul), and he has a trusty old GPS nicknamed Homer, due to it sounding exactly like Homer Simpson. Today Homer got us travelling down a narrow one way road with a drop on the edge, surrounded by trees and no way of turning around. So we kept going on up and up the hills, around sharp bends and finally we reached the top and started travelling down the other side of the mountain. We eventually turned off the road to realize that it had taken us instead of around the mountain over the top of it. All in all it was a pretty fun day. I hope is that tomorrow is even better.
