Every year, CVCA takes all of the seniors to a camp for 3 days as part
of the celebration of graduation. This year was my first year on the
trip, which was May 16-19th. I had a good time, and I was especially
happy to get to room with the male senior Fools. They really are as
nuts as I had suspected, and it is my sincere hope that I fit right in.

We
got to the camp on Tuesday. I got to drive my own car, and had a good
time driving the hour and a half chatting with the female mriordan and
a visiting Caribbeaner.
This was a good thing, since the rain and busy schedule of activities
kept us from visiting with Caribbeaner much the rest of the trip.

My cabin had 6 guys in it (not counting me). 4 of the guys were Fools,
1 was a former Fool and someone I knew fairly well, and 1 was a friend
of the Fools that I did not know, but was a nice guy. The cabin seemed
to get along really well, and I never saw any problems.

In case you are wondering, we are drinking IBC Rootbeer. We managed to drink 48 bottles in the first 24 hours.

We
ate very well on the trip. The first night, we were treated to burgers
by our master burger chef. The cabin kitchen was small, but the guys
managed to make pizzas, fries, omelets, and more in the 3 days we were
there. We also had soda, 4-5 bags of chips, 6 boxes of Little Debbie
treats, and 6 boxes of cold cereal. And that was just for the meals in
the cabin. We were treated to a breakfast in our sister cabin, a pizza
party in the main lodge, and a really nice sit-down dinner in the
lodge. Needless to say, I gained 5 pounds which continue to be a nice
reminder of senior trip, even 2 weeks later.

The
weather was fickle. It rained a lot, but either lightened to a mist or
stopped raining whenever we had outdoor things scheduled. Here, I have
to give the kids credit. I never heard any of them complain about the
weather, even when they ran all around the camp on a scavenger hunt on
Wednesday morning while it was actually raining on and off. Some of the
boating trips were rained on, but I guess if you want to get wet in the
lake, you did not mind the rain too much. When it stopped raining
(usually for several hours at a time), it could be very pretty.

Being
with a group of teenagers meant that you can have competitions that old
fuddies like me would never do, but can laugh at students doing them.
The best example of this was the first night’s Feats of Strength, which
included eating a can of Spam raw, fishing for olives in a pan of
pudding using only your mouth, and the mighty Drink Gauntlet, which
included drinking nasty things such as kraut juice, lemon juice, oyster
juice, birch beer, and other lovely concoctions. Why would students do
all these things? Because they got divided
into eight teams, and each event had points associated with it. So, you
would eat a whole can of spam because it would score your teams points.
Ain’t competition a wonderful thing?

Other
competitions included the (rather soggy) scavenger hunt that was
organized by the camp staff. (As an aside, the camp staff was AMAZING
and wonderfully helpful.) There was a team naming/team cheer
competition (which were quite funny), and the above-mentioned Feats of
Strength. Thursday’s competitions included games, suduko competitions,
horseshoes, and other things, but by far my favorite was the
tug-of-war. The kids were fierce in this one, and while size and
strength did matter some, there were still some upsets through the wise
use of technique and sheer refusal to lose (a few teams were helped by
the very slight downhill on one side, but that was luck of the draw and
the teams rotated sides every couple of competitions).

At the end of the day, the competitions resulted in the top three teams
(out of eight) got movie tickets. My cabin’s team came in fourth, which
I was pleased with.

There
were other activities to do over the three days. The lodge had a game
room (the female mriordan schooled me by winning over 10 games of ping
pong), a pool, a big-screen TV for the Cavs fans to watch the playoff
game. There was boating on the lake, and there was a soggy night game
of par-3 golf. There was organized paintball, “real” golf (as opposed
to par-3), and bowling (which included my 3 best games ever in
“big-ball” bowling, topping out with a score of 151. Of course, real
men from Maine prefer Candlepin bowling, but you can’t expect that in Ohio.)

We also could do individual things, like hanging out or playing games.
Mrs. mriordan and I played Cranium with some of our kids, and we won,
but at a cost. We ended up feeling old as we were the only ones to know
about songs by the Beach Boys, about Presidents prior to Clinton, and
other look-at-the-old-folks kinds of questions. Still, a win is a win.

All in all, I had a good time on senior trip. I am very glad the Fools
asked me to go. My cabin was well behaved, and in general the kids
acted great (as far as I saw). Nice job, guys!

I do want to get my impressions up of CVCA’s senior trip, but first things first! Here are my three cats:
Bocca (the big tiger cat), Emma (the white cat – her real name is Enigma), and Macska (the long hair).

So, I was out doing my usual Saturday errands, and I saw that Maize Valley Farm
(of the Halloween Maze fun) was having a Celtic festival today. Being
rather into that sort of thing, I stopped for a little over an hour.
The festival was very small – 4 vendor booths, 2 stages, and one
athletic field where grown men wearing kilts were hurling very heavy
objects. The music was okay (the bagpipes were fun), but mostly I was
enjoying the small-festival nature of the event. These were not
world-class musicians or athletes; they were just people who like all
things Celtic (except, hopefully, haggis). This made me quite happy.

As you can see from the photo, I decided to get a (temporary) tattoo
(largely inspired by Caribbeaner’s pirate tattoo from a few years back,
and my love of the Celtic cross). This raises an interesting question:
can CVCA fire me for getting a visible temporary tattoo of an ancient
Christian symbol?

*whew* The female mriordan was in charge of putting on CVCA’s
Junior-Senior Banquet this year, and it went off well. It was a very
lovely evening. It is fun to see the kids get dressed up – they do it
very well. I’m mad at myself that I did not get any good photos of the
students – they all came out blurry or dark.

Prom also gives me the chance to get dressed up. Luckily, someone else
who has some talent also had a camera, so a decent photo of mriordan
squared exists.

I have to admit that any romantic airs of the evening were canceled by
being part of the official set up and tear down crew. You can only get
so romantic when you drive to prom in separate cars, and I showed up in
shorts and a t-shirt so I could move heavy audio equipment into the
building. Still, it was a very nice evening, even with the inelegant
arrival for us.

It was also much fun to see Julie Claypool again. She and Mr. Myers
were showing off their finery as well, and it added nicely to the
festivities. Meredith and I did not get to see as much of Julie as we
could have hoped for (what with having to run things and all), but it
is good to see Julie when she is in town.

I liked Greystone hall as a venue. The setup was elegant, and the
staircase added much to the effect. The steel drum band that played for
2 hours was WONDERFUL, and as happens with all cool music, it  made me wish I had and
could play the instrument (in this case a steel drum). The music made the evening light and fun.

The food was great. I had chicken, and the company at the chaperone
table was much fun. Being someone who gets very excited over desert, I
was a little sad to see desert was small bars of various cookies and
brownies, but they were still tasty.

Mr. Myers’ senior video was again well received, and although he
downplays the importance of the video, it is a real (reel?) highlight
of the evening.

On the whole, the evening was a great success. The music and atmosphere
were fun, the kids looked great, and everyone behaved well.

I’m just glad that Meredith will not have to be in charge again!

For those who have asked (that would be Julie), here is my pizza
recipe. Note that I am an organic cook (not in the natural food sense)
who deals in measurements that start with “about.”

Warm up 2 – 2 1/2 cups of water in the microwave, to a very warm bath temp (about 80 seconds on my microwave).

In a large bowl, add 3 tablespoons of sugar.
Add water and mix well. Add some honey if you like. Mix.
Add 1 tablespoon of yeast (I buy it by the jar to save money).
Add 1 cup of King Arthur (employee-owned!) wheat flour.
Add about 2 cups of King Arthur unbleached white flout.
Add about 1/2 container of oregano to the mixture.
Add about 1/4 cup of olive oil (I just guess and pour some in).
Mix well. Add more white flour as needed to get the dough to stick
together. NOTE: The more flour you add, the more it will be like a
traditional pizza (aka, one you can hold to eat). I have found the more
flour you add, the more flavor you lose. I add just enough flour to
make the dough hold together. You can always add more later.

If possible, let dough rise 1 hour.

Get out two cookie sheets and lightly coat them in olive oil.
Split dough into two equal lumps (add more flour if it is too sticky).
Put one half on each pan and roll out (add a dusting of flour if the
rolling pin sticks).
Lightly coat each pizza shell with olive oil.
Lightly dust each pizza with ground red pepper.
Add pizza sauce (14-16 oz. should do).
Add cheese (I use finely shredded mozzarella, 2 8-oz. packages – you may need a third depending on the pizza size).
If possible, let pizzas rise for about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to about 425 degrees. Bake pizzas for about 10 minutes. Check pizzas often after 10 minutes. Allow cheese to brown.

These pizzas will probably need to violate pizza etiquette and be eaten with a fork. Enjoy!

This should wrap up my postings about Diakonos. I wanted to briefly post what I learned from the trip.

1. The students are pretty cool. This will cause much chagrin amongst
the students, who most assuredly do not want to be judged cool by a 35
year old computer nerd. But there you have it. They kids acted great
and there were almost no tensions that I saw. These kids amazed me for
serving others on their spring break. I do not think I would have done
so when I was 17 or 18. By contrast, I was 34, had been at CVCA 4
years, and had been a Christian for 10 years before I went on a
missions trip. It took 5 years at CVCA and being a Christian for 11
years before I put my money where my mouth is and went and served the
poor in this country. Many many kudos for the students for doing this.

2. Much to my surprise, God taught me that I needed to value people
over things. I did not think I had a problem with this – I am fairly
generous with things, but God had more in mind. On the first day on the
job, I went to a site where I did not need the new tools I had bought.
I was forced to give them to others who could use them, and I had not
labeled them yet. I had a momentary panic over that, but God let me
know I needed to value people over these tools, and so I had to let
them go (and I did get all but 2 small things back – God can be trusted
with these things). Over the entire trip, my car got more and more
dirty on the inside. I am not a neat freak, and I am not a car nut, but
again, this bothered me some for awhile. God again had to let me know
that the people I was serving were more important than my things (in
this case, my car). All week, I had to keep telling myself to value
people over things. This lesson still surprises me – on the list of
things I need to learn in order to become more like Jesus, this was not
at the top of my list. God does not ask for my list – he just teaches
me what he wants me to learn. I just hope I remember this one for
awhile.

3. I learned I am easily distracted from worship. I has suspected this
for some time, but it was brought to the fore by my having nightly
worship and having a couple of headaches that distracted me from that
worship. I’ll need to try to focus more on God when I worship, and less
on my whining to myself about things not being perfect.

4. I learned that part of serving is keeping your mouth shut and going
where you are needed. I was on a different job site almost everyday. I
think this was God’s gentle way of reminding me that he was running the
show and that I needed to go where He was going.

So, that’s it. I really liked this trip, and it was a privilege to
serve with Craig and the rest of the Diakonos crew. Lord willing (in
the fullest sense), I hope to serve again next year. Thanks to everyone
who helped me on this trip, and many thanks to God who never
gives up on me and never stops trying to make me more like his
son.

It was not just all work on the trip. We did have entertainment each night as well.

Sunday-Tuesday
This
does not really qualify as entertainment., but from Sunday through
Tuesday night, I was in charge of supervising the lunch-making for the
next work day. While the kids had the right attitude of service and had
fun making the sandwiches, I was more stressed than two pieces of bread
warrant. I just *knew* that the morale of the kids for the entire trip
hinged on getting the correct, well-made sandwich. You never know what
might happen if a smooth peanut butter
person…..MIGHT…..GET….CRUNCHY. Needless to say, I needed to
chill. Fortunately, lunches were taken care of for Thursday and Friday,
so I was let off the hook.

Sunday:
We
were given free time on Sunday to do what we liked. Since I was working
on a decent headache, I decided to stay in the room and read Hamlet. I
like to read what Meredith is teaching so we can talk about it, but I
also wanted to be able to talk intelligently about Hamlet if the
occasion arose on the trip (surprisingly, it did not). I did make it to
worship, and enjoyed that very much.

Food on Sunday was chicken patties and mac n’ cheese.

Monday:
Supper
was great – it was Italian night, so the dining area was lit by candle
light and Italian opera was playing softly (which is the best way to
hear opera for me). We had the introduction of the first of three days
of sausage making an appearance in the sausage lasagne. There was also
bruschetta and salad, all served by the food crew. I do have to say we
ate VERY well all week. Kudos to the cooks!

Monday was game
night in the common room. I am not the world’s most social person, so
my first taught was to flee. But, I forced myself to stay, and I had
great games of foosball, airhockey, and pool with a student. It was
fun. Then I fled…

Tuesday:
Supper was Mediterranean night with gyros (with beef and chicken, not lamb).

I
read some more of Hamlet, before heading down to the church gym to
teach ceili dancing (Irish social dancing). I was not sure how the kids
would react, but I was delighted. They really loved it (they are still
randomly dancing in the halls at CVCA, a week later). I taught two
dances – The Walls of Limerick, and The Four-Hand Reel. Not only did
the kids really seem to like it, but they were really GOOD at it too. I
was really amazed at how quickly they picked it up. We danced for over
an hour. What a great time.

Wednesday:
Wednesday,
we got to go to Cici’s pizza (a pizza buffet). I ate WAY too much (I
have this problem at buffets). The pizza was okay, but the bread sticks
were really good. Yum.
In a nod to my early years, I played a video
game in the arcade, and did well enough that everyone else was leaving
by the time I finished. That would have been a lame excuse for missing
going to Pittsburgh.

After
supper, we took the 40 minute trip to Pittsburgh. I drove my car, and
as one would expect, I got slightly lost. I could see the Incline train
(the place we were going), but it took me awhile to get there. I was on
my way there when Craig reached me by cell phone. The new-fangled
devices! Who would have thought you could get a call in your car?
Anyway, I did meet up with the group at Station Square (a nice shopping
area), which is within walking distance of the Incline. Craig gave us
about 40 minutes to shop at Station Square. Craig had gotten
instructions from Meredith to keep an eye on me and not let me spend
too much. He did give it a game try, but he had no chance when I saw
Station Square had an Irish Import store. I did quite well. Instead of
buying the four CD’s I wanted to get, I got Meredith a replica of the Tara Brooch.
Then, I saw Station Square had a chocolate and fudge shop, so I had to
get to good sized chocolates (remember, I had already eaten too much at
Cici’s). Craig took advantage of Station Square by getting cold sesame
noodles at his favorite Chinese restaurant.

We
then walked over to ride the incline up to the top of a VERY steep hill
that overlooks the downtown. The Incline train was great – I love
things like that. However, once we got outside of the station, I ran
headlong into my well-developed fear of heights. I had to walk on the
road-side of the sidewalk, as far away from that nasty drop as I could
without getting run over. Craig’s destination was this stupidly small
concrete island that JUTTED OUT OVER THE KILLER DROP. Fortunately, it
was closed for repair. There were others, however, so we trooped on,
passing two more of these monuments to folly that were also closed. So,
finally, Criag settled on some benches that overlooked the city, and
that is where we had worship that night.
Here,
I have to admit, I did not do so well. Several of my personality quirks
came to the surface here, so that I did not focus on worship as I would
have liked to.
1) The aforementioned fear of heights was not
lessened, even though I was sitting 20 feet from the railing (that some
fearless students WERE SITTING AGAINST).
2) I could not hear well
for the singing or for Craig’s talk. This made me slightly cranky. I
could have moved, but that would have required going near the edge
again.
3) I have an ENORMOUS aversion for inconveniencing people.
Our group was so large, we took up all the sidewalk space except for
one narrow lane. I felt bad for the people who had to walk through that
lane. It is not an easy thing to walk through a group of 20+ people
that are all singing. This anxiousness distracted me.
4) Even after
11 years of being a Christian, I do not do so well at public displays
of faith. To be fair, I don’t do well at public displays of almost
anything (that goes with being a good stoic Mainer). However, I do have
to face up that it is hard for me to be so public about my faith, even
after all that God has done for me. Sad.
5) I was anxious over
having the students “out in public.” This was not so much for the
students, all of whom were acting great, but for what nasty Pittsburgh
might do to them. Needless to say, Pittsburgh was great, and it was a
wonderful experience. It is hard for a control freak to relax when
things are out of his control.

So, these 5 things made worship
hard for me this night. I still loved going to Cici’s and Pittsburgh,
and will go again if I get to go back. I’ll probably just be worried
and scared again is all.

Thursday:
Supper was Mexican night
with hard and soft tacos. It was also Craig’s birthday! To celebrate,
Craig got to whack a pinata, which he managed to hit with such great
force that it broke loose and hit a student. (It is worth noting that
Craig was blind-folded at the time, so it was an accident). No serious
harm was done (except to the pinata).

We had free time again
this night, so I read more of Hamlet. Most of the kids stayed in the
common room and had a fashion night where they did each other’s hair.
The results (that I saw from pictures) we, um, interesting.

I
also got to sing some worship songs from my college days with a student.
That was a very nice time for me, and the student did not seem to mind
my playing or singing.

After worship, I got to call Meredith and
make sure she was okay (she was). Nate decided to go out and get a
barbeque and have a “guys night” where they cooked burgers and brots.
Since this all was taking place after 12:00, I went to bed.

Friday:

Friday was chili night in the common room.

Some of the kids used the extra down-time to try to catch up on school reading, which resulted in getting caught up on sleep.

The big event of the evening was the “talent” (oops – I mean talent) show. We had students whistling, skits
imitating
what had gone on during the week, some free-form song creation, some
poetry readings, and a dramatic skit from a student group acting out
the clean parts of a romance novel. I was able to be in a couple of
improv skits myself, which went pretty well. It was a really fun
evening.

In worship time, we had a time of sharing about what people had
learned on the trip. That was very nice. The only slight problems I had
was that I was working on the start of a headache, I was tired from the
week’s work, and I was really hot (it was about 85 degrees in the
room). This meant that by the time we got to the worship songs, I was
having trouble staying focused. It was request night, so the songs went
on for about an hour. I did have to get up and leave for awhile in
order to splash some water on my face. Craig’s talk was good, but I was
still having trouble focusing. Funny how many things can distract me
from worship.

Anyway, that is the entertainment of the week. I’ll probably post one more post on the trip to summarize what I learned.

Craig (aka Ombudsman) gave exhortations from the Bible each night. Here is the summary of what he said over the week:

Sunday: Craig talked about the feeding of the 5000. He pointed out that
Jesus asked Philip where they were going to get enough bread to feed
the 5000+ people that were assembled to hear Jesus. Philip’s
(paraphrased) reply was, “Impossible!”
    Andrew then spoke up and told Jesus that they had 5
loaves and 2 fish, but he did not see how that was going to help.
    So, Craig pointed out that there are two was to
react to Jesus when he calls you to do something. You can write it off
as impossible, or you can offer what you have, even knowing that it is
insufficient. Craig pointed out how silly (in the eyes of the world)
that it is to bring 23 unskilled teenagers to help build homes for the
poor. One reaction would be to say it is impossible, but the fact that
we were there was out willing to give Jesus what we had, even if it was
insufficient for the task. Jesus takes it from there and multiplies it
mightily. We just need to be willing to give what we have.

Monday:
Craig shared about Jesus walking on the water, and calling Peter to
him. Peter goes, but “sees the wind” and begins to sink, and Jesus must
save him. From this, Craig gave Peter mixed reviews. On the positive
side, Peter got out of the boat, while the rest of the disciples stayed
where they were. Peter was willing to risk to heed Jesus’ voice. On the
down side, Peter “saw the wind” – he “saw” what he could not see, and
he took his eyes off of Jesus. Craig pointed out how well we function
in community, and how great it would have been for Peter if one or two
others had gotten out of the boat with him. Craig warned that you
should not take your eyes off of Jesus, but this is especially true if
no one is going with you or going to help you. Craig pointed out that
the students had “gotten out of the boat” – that they were risking to
hear Jesus’ voice. He reminded us not to take our eyes off of Jesus.

Tuesday:
Craig covered where James and John get their mom to ask Jesus to allow
James and John to sit on Jesus’ right and left, when Jesus came into
his kingdom. James and John reply that they are able to sit on Jesus’
right and left. They do not understand what Jesus’ kingdom is going to
look like. Anyway, this maneuvering by James and John gets the other ten
disciples angry. Jesus has to step in to calm things down by turning
greatness on its head. Jesus tells the disciples that if they want to
be great in his kingdom, they need to server each other. Jesus has to
repeat this lesson to the disciples several times (he has to do that
with me sometimes as well). Craig pointed out that Jesus does not want
acts of service (although it is a fine place to start); Jesus wants
servants – people who are ready to serve whenever Jesus calls them, not
just when they feel like it.

Wednesday:

This was the night in Pittsburgh, where I was fighting my fear of
heights and my fear of blocking the sidewalk and inconveniencing others
(more on this in a later post – Wednesday was an interesting experience
for me). So, I hope I have this one mostly right. Criag spoke on the
three temptations of Jesus, and what would have been wrong with them.
The first temptation was turning stones into bread, and bread is not
sinful. What was wrong with this is that Jesus came to use his power to
serve others, not himself. So, using his power to turn stones into
bread would have been outside his purpose and mission. The second
temptation was foe Jesus to throw himself off of the temple and be
caught by angels. Again, being saved from harm by God is not sinful,
but in this case, the event would have been a glorifying of Jesus and a
making of spectacle that would not have served anyone else. Lastly,
Jesus is offered all the kingdoms of the world if he will bow and
worship Satan. Jesus refuses this very blatant sin. Craig focused on
the last temptation, and pointed out that Jesus resisted the temptation
to rule all the kingdoms of the world. If Jesus can resist all of that,
we would do well to resist our far lesser temptations. Craig pointed
out that many people sell out for far less than all the kingdoms of the
world. Craig also pointed out that if Jesus did not use his power and
talents to serve himself, then we should not use our talents to serve
just ourselves, but we should use them to serve others. Finally, Craig
urged the seniors to start making good decisions now about where they
were going to be in year. Where they going to be closer to Jesus, or
farther away?

Thursday:
Criag spoke on the metaphor of Jesus being the vine and we being the
branches. He pointed out that Jesus only allows two options for the
vines – you are either dead and will be burned as useless, or you will
be pruned by the gardener. Craig pointed out that we are, in effect,
bushes with legs, and we have the option to run from the gardener, even
though the gardener wants to remove the dead branches from us and help
us to thrive. He pointed out that it was like having a doctor tell you
that you needed a tumor removed, but you wanted to keep the tumor
because you loved the tumor and were afraid of what would happen if it
were gone. God prunes us to make us better and more alive, even if the
actual pruning can hurt. Craig again challenged the seniors to make
good decisions now about where they were going to be spiritually next
year – he challenged them not to run from God, but to endure any
pruning that God was doing. God loves us and does it for our own good.

Friday:
I had some trouble focusing on Friday – I had a mild headache, was
tired, and was in an 85 degree room. But here is what I remember:
Craig reviewed the lessons he had taught all week (what a great
teacher!), and then he finished the metaphor of the vine and branches,
where Jesus tells us to abide in his love and to love each other. We
show love by doing what Jesus tells us to do, and by serving each other.

Worship times usually began and ended with singing. I learned many songs this week that I had not known before.

I’ll post later on the entertainment we had each evening, and what things I learned on the trip.

I
just finished my first spring break trip going to work with Habitat for
Humanity, and the quick and dirty is that I really liked it. I liked
the work, I liked the cause, and I enjoyed getting to know some of
CVCA’s students better. Keep an eye on Ombusdman‘s
Xanga site for his thoughts of the trip, but here are some of my
incoherent thoughts. I’ll try to spare you an exhaustive account, but I
will try to mention what I did on the trip. We were a big enough group
that we were split up each day, so I can not speak to what everyone
experienced.

Getting There
Washington, PA is only about 2 to 2 1/2 hours away, but we did manage
to make a sight-seeing detour that cost us about 45 minutes to an hour.
That turned out okay – the country around us was pretty, and we still
waited about 10-15 minutes to get let into the church we were staying
at, even though Nate’s van had been there some time (Nate did not get
lost – he kept going when the rest of us stopped for a bathroom stop).

The Actual Work
Oddly enough, we did very little work on Habitat houses. We, as a
group, spent most of our time working on projects that would help
Habitat, but in a background sort of way. It was still work that needed
to be done, and the Habitat director was very grateful, and
complimented us on the amount of work we got done. He claimed we had
exceeded what he thought we would do by Wednesday, and we still did two
more days of work.

Monday:
I
started Monday’s work off by being sent with two students to dig pipe
(drainage) ditches. (As an aside, I will refrain from using the names
of students, just to be safe about internet privacy and all.) We had
to lay some drainage pipe to tie into the downspouts so that the
rainwater would get carried to the street, away from the foundation. I
got to spend some time getting familiar with a pick – the ground was
full of clay, so our spades did not work well. I was reminded how
much work is involved in using a pick – I was sore from this for two
days. The two students I was working with did great, and we did get all
the pipe laid down. We spent most of the day at this site, although we
did join some of the other students for lunch at another job site. This
site (where we trenched), was one of the rare times we were able to
work on a house that Habitat was building for a family. The family was
going to move into the house in just a few days from when we were there.

Tuesday:
Tuesday
was the hardest day for me. I was sore from my pick-axe fun from the
day before, and we were on three different job sites this day. It felt
hard to get into a groove with so much moving around, so this was the
only day that dragged for me. We started the day off by going to
another Habitat home to do some landscaping. The original topsoil had
been put on too thick, so we needed to rake it out and spread it
around. Then we needed to seed the soil, and spread hay over it. This
crew consisted of me and four students (we were later joined by a
fifth who had finshed up a quick job at another site). Once we got the soil spread around and seeded, we switched to
moving the extra building materials out of the home’s existing garage
and onto a trailer. It started to rain just as we finished loading the
trailer, so we covered it with a tarp and had lunch on the porch of
the home. This home was actually occupied, so we did get to meet the
owners briefly. Two of the students were able to spend some time
talking with one of the owners and looking at wedding photos. I was
proud of them for taking the time to interact with the owner- it was a
great way to show the love of Jesus to another person.

We then moved to the main headquarters of Habitat in town, where they
were trying to organize a store to sell construction items (like a
thrift store, but for windows and doors and the like). It is called a
“restore” by Habitat. We went to the restore and moved some long and
heavy planking around to clear up some space for other things. I was
not too helpful here – the students did most of the work. I guess I
supervised…

We then finished the day at the Franklin Street house. This is a duplex
that Habitat is restoring for their own use. Half of the duplex will
be used for cheap housing for Americore volunteers that work with
Habitat, and the other half will be used to house volunteers that come
in to help Habitat. Our crews were working here mostly on mudding and
sanding drywall, but we did hang some drywall as well. I spent some
time taking pictures, until I was finally given a job tearing down some
old plaster in what will be the kitchen.

Wednesday:
Wednesday
was a great day. I was not as sore, and we were sent to one jobsite for
the entire day (the Franklin Street duplex). I was put in the kitchen to
put up some custom pieces of drywall, which sounds more impressive than
it is. It was basically patching the places where I had torn down the
plaster the day before. It was careful,
slow work, and it suited me very well. It was like custom fitting a
giant puzzle. Although I worked in the kitchen mostly by myself, I was
at the house with 7 students and Mr. Thomas (a parent chaperone). We,
as a crew, continued to work on mudding and sanding, but did more
drywall hanging on this day. I did get the kitchen done, and the crew
as a whole did a lot of work on the house. It was a great day. It was
topped off by my coming out of the house at the end of the day to see
four students practicing the 4-hand reel, an Irish dance that I had
taught to the students on Tuesday night. That made me smile.

Thursday:
Thursday
I got to join the group that had spent much of the week moving
furniture. Habitat had been given a lot of furniture by a man who used
to own a store, but had retired and just had all of this furniture in
his warehouse for 20 years. He wanted the space, so he donated the
furniture to Habitat. The moving crew had worked
hard at moving the furniture from the warehouse to a garage that the
director of Habitat owned. I went to the garage and helped unload the
truck with a group of about 9 students and Nate (another chaperone).
The amount of stuff the moving crew had gotten into the garage was
impressive. Once we got the truck unloaded, we went back to the
furniture warehouse and loaded the truck with another load of furniture
that was going to go to the restore. Once that was loaded we started
tearing down the warehouse mezzanine. The owner wanted the warehouse
empty, including the old wooden storage racks and the mezzanine. So, we
had some working on unscrewing the racks, and others of us worked on
taking the particle board and the plywood up from the mezzanine. The
particle board was taken up by hitting it really hard with an iron bar
from below, then the nails were removed once the board was up. This
method did not work for the plywood – the bar just bounced off the
plywood, so we got some cat’s paws (tools used to remove nails) after
lunch, and set to removing all the nails from the plywood. By the end
of the day, we had all the flooring up from the mezzanine.

Friday:
Friday we went back to the warehouse with about 10 students and Craig
(another chaperone and the organizer of the whole trip). I worked
mostly by myself at the back of the warehouse, working on tearing apart
several 15 foot platforms – they were high enough that I did not want
students on them. The students worked on removing nails from boards,
tearing the support boards of the mezzanine down, and tearing apart
more of the storage racks. We called it quits early this day (about
2:30) so we could go meet two Habitat families, which we were reluctant
to do at first (we wanted to keep working), but was a huge blessing to
see the people we were indirectly helping. It helped put the trip in
perspective.

I’ll post more over the next couple of days – I’d like to mention what
we did in the evenings and the lessons Craig taught from the Bible at
evening worship. Stay tuned!

The female mriordan is in Florida enjoying a well-deserved vacation, and visiting her parents. Since I decided to go on the Diakonos trip (see Ombudsman’s blog), I get to be a bachelor for 2 days. I don’t do so well on my own anymore. I miss Meredith quickly, and I try to stay busy, which usually means shopping for things I think we could use. In slightly over 24 hours, I have managed to buy about $300 worth of DVDs, tools, supplies, etc., all of which we will use, but it is funny how I get these things when Meredith is away.  It is definitely not good that this man be alone…

I’ve been thinking about this poem a lot today. I don’t understand all of it, but I love the idea of the (mathematical) compass, where the two arms are seperate but joined. I wish I could write like this:

AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,

“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”

So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.

Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears ;

Men reckon what it did, and meant;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.

Dull sublunary lovers’ love
—Whose soul is sense—cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.

But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assurèd of the mind,

Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.

Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.

If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.

And though it in the centre sit,

Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.

Such wilt thou be to me, who must,

Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,

And makes me end where I begun.