There were 10 in the van...

The group from Warren has come and gone. In one day we:

Replaced the service door, removed the plaster (where the water used to leak), found out that the studs were still good, replaced it with drywall, and mudded at Lori Calery's.


Cut up the tree that had fallen into firewood and piled the brush on the curb at Maureen Sherd's.

Replaced some missing facia, caulked some cracks between the porch and house, trimmed around a door, and primed and painted the porch ceiling at Sandy Bassett's.


Replaced some missing deck boards for a handicapped boy at Peggy Hutton's.

Not a bad task list for a day's work. My thanks go out to the boys from Warren!

Now, if anyone asks you where Greg is the rest of the weekend...you don't know, right!?!

Take the Bad with the Good

I thought about titling this entry as "the good, the bad, and the ugly" but remembered I had already used that one.

In the mail today I received the first bill, and it was a whopper: $5732.09! That's all building materials, and went 100% onto the houses we worked on. I am always pleased to see so much of our budget end up directly on the work site. Still, that's a big bill!

But, as if to soften the blow, came a note from Maureen in the mail as well. She said: "Dear Friends, I would like to thank you again for choosing to take a chance on me and my home. It is such a special feeling to be chosen. THe plaque you gave me is placed in my hallway between the kitchen and hallway where there used to be a leak. I thought that was a proper place for it. I have thought up a hare brained scheme that appears to work in replacing my plastic front door shutters with wood ones made from a free bifold door I was given. Take it apart, sand it, prime it, paint them, and hook them up. Will add to the look of my Super Servant beautiful roof. Would love to know of something I can do towards next years event. Would love to be able to drop a card personally to those who were at my house. Is this possible? Told Kyle I would love to buy a dvd of the presentation from him. I hope he remembers. Many thanks for your help and your company. Maureen"

I guess I'll take the bad with the good-in the end it's all good!

P.S. Stay posted as I will share pictures of the Servant work that will be done today. Two will be follow-up to the Fixin' Up The Thumb Servant Event, and two will be new sites.

Result of the Storm

I just got a call from Maureen that I thought I needed to share:

Last night we had a storm roll through that was pretty severe in nature. It knocked a tree over at Maureen's...thankfully away from the house and not towards the house so it didn't damage the new roof. And two days of rain and no leaks!

She said that all the time she had spent worrying, now she just says a prayer of thanks instead!

The Servant Event Is Over???

Everyone has arrived back home safe and sound. Everyone has finally had a HOT shower. Everyone has slept in their own bed. The building materials are all stored in the church attic till next summer.

But, I got an interesting call from a youth group in Warren, MI. They were headed to a music festival in Pennsylvania and it got cancelled. They had heard about our Servant Event and wondered if there was something that could keep their group busy for part of their week that they now had free. With a little bit of scrambling it looks like we're going to do some of those back-up sites after all. We're also going to go over to Lori's and finish off the drywall and replace her garage service door that was damaged by the leaking roof.

I did take yesterday off and got some much-needed rest.

Now, if I could just get my back to normal! ...Maybe next week...

The Number One Reason

By two this afternoon the worksites were all done! Two complete roof jobs, one house vinyl sided, plus plumbing and a drop ceiling were finished in another.

But that is not the number one reason that we do the Servant Event.

The number one reason we do Fixin' Up The Thumb is for the spiritual growth of the high school youth. Now, the physical labor is easier to measure...either the roof is done or it is not. Spiritual growth is a little harder to measure.

Here is what I know. Each evening we met for Bible study. We started right after dinner and would do about 2 hours of Bible study. We studied the 7 Greek words in the Bible that are translated "servant" in our English Bibles. We studied what it meant to be a waiter, liturgist, worshiper, underrower, slave, and like Christ.

We spent a lot of our time singing praises to our God.

As a group we experienced a deep sense of fellowship and together grew in our sense of servanthood.

Our theme this year was Super Servant. We learned that even though we are not super on our own, Christ is the epitome of a Super Servant and that he has chosen to work through us.

Now we desire to take our servanthood back to our homes and continue the growth!

Back to Work! Shingles, scrapes, and scratches.

After a hard day of playing at Splash Village, the rains cleared, and we were back to work! Today there was no sleeping in, so that we could make up the time we lost because of rain. Work began around 8am with everyone gearing back into working mode. The remaining sections of roofs at Maureen's and Lori's sites were stripped revealing a friendly nest of hornets and some damaged sections of the sheathing below.

A walk across the roof for inspection came up knee deep in the attic below. Luckily "Jeremiah the Inspector" pulled himslef out with only a few scrapes and scratches. The damaged areas were repaired and preped for shingling. Throuhgout the afternoon the compressors pumped and the nails flew as we shingled over the hips and valleys. At the Harper's we sided around the back of the house. Stripping the siding off the south side revealed another family of hornets not happy about the disruption of their home. But we manaaged and removed the remaining siding and will be ready to finish the siding tomorrow. We also installed one of the two new doors for thier home. The weather was humid but the breeze kept working pleasant; with only a few drops of rain, just enough to cool us down and make everthing wet.

Three days of hard work is starting to take its toll on everyone. Stiff backs, sore muscles, sunburns, and scratches have become the dinnertime laments. Each day though the bonds grow stronger in each other and in Christ. New friends have been made and old friends have caught up like they've never missed a beat.

Taken from this morning's devotion, John 13:15 "I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you," everyone has truely found the call of a servant for Christ.
Bloggin' out- 6.22.06 10:45pm.

That's A Lot Of Water

Today was beach day.

But alas...

It rained, and then rained some more.

Dennis and I were assigned to make the decision before 6:30 what we were doing about our scheduled 1/2 day of work. That was so two of our other adult leaders (who will remain nameless, but their initials are Sarah Isenberg and Susan Hinderer) could continue to sleep in if we were not going to the worksites.

As Dennis put it: "I guess the weather makes our decision pretty easy."

Please do not fret for our loss of our beach day, we treated the group to an artificial "beach day" in Frankenmuth at Splash Village. So our day was filled with water slides,

hot tubs,

squirting each other,

and lots and lots of water.

So, although we couldn't work hard today...we played hard!

Tonight instead of having a Bible study during the sunset, we will have a special sharing time in the church sanctuary!

Take It Away, Maureen!

Tonight I am going to let Maureen fill the blog. You see each morning we find a zip-lock bag taped to the dumpster for us to find. On Monday we found snacks and today we found some hand-made soap with this note included:


Todays Treat-

Heart soaps because you have a lot of it-all of you.

If you have been told ou are appreciated before-great! If not-rest assured you are indeed appreciated. If you're not into heart soaps, share it with someone who has a lot fo heart you know.

I met a gorgeous person 10 yr old yesterday with Downs Syndrome. The amazing thing is, while she is limited, she knows three languages-English, Persian & Sign. I know only English and little Swedish from being an Exch. Student 34 yrs ago.

Just when you think the world is cloudy-ya gotta look just a bit further for sun.

You are appreciated! You are amazing!

My next goodie box will be from you guys and I-will be on its way to Iraq as soon as I can get a bulk rate box-as I sold 2 books last night on-line to cover the postage. It's a great day!

I'm to convey my daughters thanks-she's at Fort Benning GA, with her husband who redeployed to Iraq in October. (Doggonit-trip #2) My lesson here-I do not wear her shoes-combat boots-so I keep my crarey thougts form them & pray long & hard.

Your grateful friend-

Maureen

*********************************************************************************************
The good feelings are mutual between all the Servants and all the families we are working for!

Here's a few pictures from our day...

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

The Good:
We were able to get Lori Calerys house exactly where we wanted to by the end of the day. That is that 1/2 the house is stripped and then tar papered and ready to start shingling tomorrow! Due to one of the bads (coming later) some of Maureen Sherds crew got to work on Loris house as well.

The high part of Maureen Sherds was stripped by 10:25! Yes, we did check our watches.


We found that two sections of roof did not have wood shingles under them!

The crew at Carol Scotts finished today! Even slightly early. They installed a drop ceiling and fixed the drains under two sinks.

The old siding at the Harper house came off very easy! They were also able to get the vinyl siding started…a good start!

The Bad:
I really only know of one today. After getting such a quick start on the Sherd house, we ended up waiting about 3 hours for our OSB to arrive. That left us ending the day there without reaching where we wanted to be at the end of Monday. We still won t have any problem getting it done, it was just such a shame to have wasted time.

The Ugly:
Okay, that really was just a good title. There s nobody ugly here!

The Sabbath

This morning in the services a good point was made about today, and the week ahead. There is no question that there is a lot of work ahead of us. Some very physical work. But it can't/shouldn't be just work, work, work, work... There needs to be a Sabbath rest as well.

Today was indeed a Sabbath. Today we:

Started out the day with a wonderful worship service together, along with our commissioning!

Studied the Greek word Diakonos which means "waiter" and describes one facet of who we are as God's servants!

Played hard out at Darbe park!

Soaked our Community Life Leader!

Figured out how to work together on a team!



Met the families we will be working for tomorrow!

I think we look ready! Don't you?

And So It Begins...

The groups have all arrived safe and sound. We are now 26 servants strong, and ready for a busy week. The hot weather kept us from the sand volleyball court but it didn’t stop some from playing b-ball outside. All the youth got down to business on their secret servant bags and nametags. They are on their way to becoming a great community of servants.



Before dinner, something awesome happened. I (Sarah Isenberg) was sitting in the fellowship hall with the other adults. We were having a nice conversation and enjoying ourselves. As we talked, I suddenly realized that I hadn’t seen any youth around in a while. Now, speaking as a leader who was once a youth at this church this could be a concern. I continued to sit and chat when Greg asked if anyone noticed anything. I quickly said, “Yes, the church is quiet and they youth aren’t in sight! I noticed too.” We continued sitting and chatting when later Greg asked the same question. I felt that maybe I should go and check on the youth to make sure that nothing was going on behind our backs. I headed off in the direction of the pavilion because often times on the first Saturday of the Servant Event kids are outside hanging around playing volleyball or basketball. I saw four youth in the library but no one was outside. My next bet was on the youth room in the basement of the church. I opened the door expecting to hear the radio blasting, ping pong, carpetball, and foosball games in action but instead, I heard talking. Not loud shouting over each other talking, but conversation. I got downstairs and looked in the youth room and sure enough all the kids were sitting in a circle talking.



As the community life leader it is my job to make sure that the youth grow together as a group, that they make a community where everyone is included and feels welcome. This group of teens were doing it all on their own. I was so impressed. Now, a few of us (Susan and I) feel that sometimes we’re too old to be in the youth room (again, I think it has to do with the fact that both of us used to be youth participants in the servant event). So I was cautious as I entered the youth room. I didn’t want to infringe on their time talking but, they welcomed me and asked me to have a seat. It was great, we all were talking and getting comfortable with each other and learning about the places that we called home. For me, it made me realize that this was going to be a great group of kids. God calls us to be servants and He has specifically called all the youth and adults that are participating this week to be here. I can see already that good things are happening! Stay tuned – Sarah Beth

10-10-16-11

Yesterday we had our preparatory meeting for the Servant Event and studied a passage from Revelation. It comes from Revelation 22 and says: "No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him".

There are many old things that will pass away, and many new things that will take their place when we get to heaven. However, one of the things that will continue from here to there is us being servants and our serving (latreo-which is the Greek word used here and conveys a deep sense of humility and worship). That's our place here on earth-to be humble servants of our God, and it's our place in heaven as well!

New and old. I'm intrigued that our Servant Event this year will be made up of new and old as well. (No jokes about the adult leaders' ages) Of the youth attending the Servant Event we have exactly 10 who this is their first time, and 10 who have done it before. I always say "I don't believe in a god of chance." God has a purpose for who he's bringing to this year's Servant Event. I can't wait to see it all unfold before our eyes.

16 & 11? Well, that's the Male to Female ratio. Just in case you're keeping track.

6 days!

Something's Going On Here!

Something is most definitely going on here...

E-mails are zipping back and forth across state lines about it... (I got one that said: "I can't wait to get up there and have a great time.")

People are talking about it...

Counting down toward it... (I had a girl say "13 days left," to me before church on Sunday with this kind of wild look in her eyes.)

More and more people are coming forth to volunteer...

Matresses are mysteriously appearing in the Sunday School building...

I'm opening envelopes with large checks in them from Thrivent and LCMS World Relief...

This is kind of weird, there's like an electricity. Many don't get it, why would a teenager want to PAY money to come work on houses? They don't get it because they don't know what's going on here!

For those of you who get it, all I'll say is 12 days.

For those of you who don't get it, I'll send you to http://www.stpaulcaro.org/servantevent/index.html