Weekend Fun

Kaidence Neil

Saturday we went rafting, and I loved it!  Our guide Patrick was so awesome and he brought us through all the best parts.  We also stopped at jump rock on the river, and I got to jump off twice into the water.  I got such an adrenaline rush from the first jump that my legs were shaking wwhen I was walking up for the second time.

Izzy Sullivan

This weekend has been packed with so much fun!  On Friday we went to Feed and Seedwhere they played bluegrass music.  It was a blast.  On Saturday we went white water rafting it was so much fun!!!  Our guuide Patrick was the best.  We got to jump off a roc and I ended up falling out of the raft at the end.  One of by far the best days!!! Not to mention we fot to sleep in and then eat an AWESOME breakfast courtesy of Steve.  Sunday we sang for the two services and took group pictures.  We are going to leave to downtown Asheville soon.  I am sure that will be just as fun.

Lauchlan Sullivan

We went white whater rafting which is lots of fun.  My sister actually fell out but she is fine.  It was a new experience and I will go again if I can.

Nikki Spangler

Friday we were able to lay the materials in our trench and cover before the rain came.  I heard from Rich over the weekend that the EZ flow we discovered ran the entire length of what was supposed to be our second trench.  Rich & Seth moved the trench further downhill to clean soiland machine dug it over the weekend on order for the job to get completed by Tuesday.  This trench still needs to be inspected in the morning.  We still have the bottom trench to cover once inspected, connections to make and the tank to cover.  

As you see from the youth, we've had a busy weekend of recreation and worship.  Tomorrow is back to work. Two more work days, an all nighter, and then we head home.

 

Wednesday & Thursday

 

Izzy - Wednesday

Day 6

Today we were done with demo aside from the stairs so we got to work on actually building the deck. We had to redo a couple things over and over again but it was a learning experience. On the bright side the home owner bought us all cheeseburgers for lunch which was so nice of her and I know it made my day. She also talked about some history behind the house again today which was again very interesting to hear. But aside from that the deck is coming along fairly well! I got to use a nail gun today which was lots of fun! 

Nikki - Wed & Thur (really it's early Friday morning - I think!)

For those who aren't aware, the schedule here at servant is lights on at 6:15 am and lights out at 11:00 pm.  There are things happening all day long with only short bits of free time.  We have reached the point where the youth have built relationships with eachother, PK and PC have started talking about going home, everyone is overtired and they want to spend every opportunity either spending time with eachother or sleeping.  

This girl here chose to go to bed before midnight the last two nights rather than write journals, post what Izzy wrote or prod the other Our Savior youth to send me journals before bed.  Someone in my room had their alarm set for 5:00 am and didn't turn it off promptly - so you get journals this morning!

I am hearing good reports from all the work sites and about our youth.  You should all be proud of the work they are doing.  

Kaidence ended up on the septic site with me.  Wednesday afternoon she uncovered a surprise in our bottom trench.  It first appeared as the end of a black corrugated pipe.  I was called over to take a look at it.  Immediately took a photo and sent it to Rich, whose license we operate under.  While waiting for a response from Rich I exposed it a little more, knowing he would need to see more.  I found an EZ flow sock.  Now the homeowner had shared a at some point that someone had once helped Granny out with the septic.  He didn't have any paperwork or information and no permits were pulled, as the county has no information on it.  

Rich came to look Wednesday afternoon.  We left the work site Wednesday leaving Rich waiting for the county inspector, unsure if we would be able to continue.  Thursday morning Rich met us at the worksite.  Rich says "Now this is what we call bootleg."  Paraphrasing the rest - someone tried to help and take care of something here but didn't do it properly.  Now it is interfering with us being able to do it properly.  We don't know exactly where the rest of the EZ flow and how much it would interere with our trench.  As Rich said - this could be a whole lot of digging to find out if you can dig or not.   

We are no longer able to work in the bottom trench, which has contaminated soil.    We are finishing the top trench and will make connections.  Rich & Seth & the county inspector are working togather to determine the best plan forward for the bottom trench, so that this family will still have a working septic that will allow them to get their water turned back on and continue to live in their home.

TTFN - I hear the rooms being awakened.  Time to go get ready for another day.

Tuesday 7/16

Kaidence Neil

Today we made good progress on the worksite, and our late arrival came to help us out shortly after we started.  I picked up a few baby jumping spiders, they were so tiny!

Nikki Spangler

A highlight today is that our homeowner came out and worked in the trenches with us all morning.  We are making good progress on the trenches.  The top trench is to depth about half of it's length and to half depth the rest of the length.  The bottom trench got 'framed out' today.  We did not dig down, but rather got the top grassy layer off so that work team can clearly see where they are to be digging.  There are storms forecast for tomorrow.  We DO work in the rain, we do NOT work in thunder and lightening.  Please pray with me for favorable weather during the work day.  

Before

Tuesday afternoon

View from IN the trench

First Work Day

Brody Gallegos

At the time of writing this entry, though it is my first one, we are at least 3 days into the servant event. The reason for this is my negligence to carve out time to write and short term memory loss. Of the four job sites we have I have been assigned to site 2 which involves the installation of new floors and eventually dry wall. As of today we have gathered the materials for the job and preped the floors for installation. Me and two others got pulled away by Steve to do the “heavy lifting” for him in getting the supplies for our site and that was my entire day.

Lauchlan Sullivan

Today is the 15th we woke up at 6:15 ate breakfast and went to our worksite, we did a little demolition on the inside of a house to get ready for framing and started to work on a new porch. At around 4 we headed to the showers after that we had dinner then a fun game called trash can I would explain but mysteries are fun, we had devotions then headed to bed

Nikki Spangler

Today was the first day on the worksites.  I am the lead on site #4 - the septic site.  We are no longer allowed to hand dig tank pits due to safety regulations.  The new tank was installed, ready and waiting for it's new drain field and connections when we visited sites on Sunday.  Our task is to dig the drainfield - two 24" deep by 36" wide trenches - one 62' and one 58' if I recall correctly.  We are doing a chamber system this year, which is a little less forgiving than the 'peanuts' - if you know, you know.

It has been very dry here for over a month, which makes the ground (and digging) very hard.  Our prayer is for gentle overnight rains to soften the ground without flooding our in-progress trenches, and for dry work days.  I know, it's specific.  This scenario could make a huge difference in our progress.  There are smaller numbers of people in general, and so between this and the lack of need for a tank pit, we have a smaller septic crew than I have ever worked with.  We made reasonable progress for today.  Overnight rain would be a blessing to us and help us to be a blessing to this family.

A highlight of the day was that our homeowner, who we always invite to join us in morning circle where we discuss the work to be done and start our day with prayer, offered to give our morning prayer when I asked if anyone would like to offer the prayer.  I don't know that I've ever experienced that on the first work day in all my years at Servant Event.  Certainly, we've had owners pray for us before.  Usually it is later in our time after they have gotten a chance to know us a bit.

Izzy Sullivan

Day 4 

Today was the first full work today. I was on site one and we are working on taking out the current deck and putting in a new one. So today was filled with lots of demo. We also ran into several wasp nets and went through seven almost eight cans of wasp spray. Luckily no one managed to get stung. We also got the chance to use some cool power tools today. The owner of the house we are working on also came outside and talked with us a little bit about the house. She has lived in it all her life which is very cool. When we got back from our worksites we played this game that everyone held on to this rope and tried not to let go or be pushed into the garbage can. I was very bad at it as I was the first one to get out. But it was enjoyable to watch everyone else. Overall today has been filled with fun and lots of learning!  

Sunday

 Lauchlan Sullivan

Today is the 14th we woke up to a scrumptious breakfast headed to church then did devotions, after lunch we headed to view all of the worksites to get idea of how the rest of the week would go

Izzy Sullivan

Day 3

Today was our first full day with everyone here. We all attended the church service here and then did bible study. We all got to enjoy pizza and then we headed off to tour our worksites. There were four worksites and we had the opportunity to meet the owners of the property that we were working on for 3 out of the 4 worksites we visited. All three of them had their own unique story and it was so cool to hear from them. We also got assigned our worksites today tomorrow we will get started on actually working. 

thats my journal for today

-Izzy

Getting There

Nikki

The plans of mice and men... Getting our entire group to ASE this year has been an adventure.  I am writing from the Charlotte airport while I have breakfast at 6:00 in the morning.  My son, Solomon Spangler was ordained into the Holy Ministry on the same day Servant Event started.  My gracious friends and comrades from St Paul Northville and St John Midland agreed to take Our Savior's four youth participants down in their vans, leaving very early Friday morning, without me so that I could be at this milestone event.  The plan was for me to fly in and arrive by bedtime on Saturday.  I expected to arrive during evening worship, which ends the first night by placing our individual Covenants on the altar.  Sadly there were delays and I am still not there.

In the meantime, our youth have already been serving!  Host congregation Emmanual has purchased a shipping container for ASE tool and supply storage.  It arrived just last week and needs some work.

As far as journals, I will endeavor to have something posted daily from here on out.  May not be from everyone everyday, but we'll all participate.

Lauchlan (from yesterday)

Today is the 13th and in the morning and afternoon of today we dug a small trench to lay conduit to power a storage unit