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!