yesterday…

So – normally we try to get out picture updates throughout the day and a summary out at the end of the day for work trips. But yesterday took “work trip” to a whole new level. We got as far as taking pictures – but to actually get them out to Facebook or to the blog was just one step too many.

We had three main projects going on:

Dan Klein & his son Kevin worked on replacing a window with a door (to help The Fallout building meet fire code). They were successful – though there was a touchy moment there when the door might have been hung to swing the wrong way. Crisis averted, all is well, and folks can now easily egress via the back of the building thanks to a ton of hard work from Lori and others to clear out the hallway.

The Source has a new once-foreclosed-upon house that will be joining to their transitional housing network – it’s pink and is decorated with dolphins, flamingoes and cranes, so another group worked at “The Crane House”. Ryan and Sara worked on drywalling inside, while Jeremiah, Christy, Mike, Messiah, Alyssa, Myster, and Nate worked on hauling, making and pouring cement for a sidewalk and digging post holes. They made it! By the end of the day the cement was covered to protect it from the coming frost and the posts were mounted and aligned and ready for the next stage of a storage shed project.

A third large-ish group worked on building a wheelchair ramp into the Art Coop building. That may not sound like a big deal, but the ramp needed to loop through a deep alley so needed a significant support structure in order to be set up correctly. Todd was crew boss for that project with a great deal of help from Tom – and they were joined by Lori, Jake, Ramiro, Antonio, Nick, Ryan, Alyssa, Myster, Messiah and Angela. A bunch of folks circled around and helped with additional projects here and there, pitching in where ever it was needed. Mike’s nephew Walker joined in as well – he’s been on other trips with us so it was neat to see and work with him again. After an 11-ish hour work day, (added to all the setup work from Friday), the ramp was installed! It still needs a railing and finishing, but all things considered it was quite an accomplishment.

The exhausted group packed up the trailer and headed to the Y for showers, followed by supper at Pancho Villa – a restaurant near The Source that has become a favorite. At around 10:30 we headed back to The Fallout where Peter shared a bit about the history of The Source, as well as the story of how they came to acquire the Crane House. Then it was back to the church and it wasn’t long before the building was dark and quiet.

Thursday

You may or may not be surprised to hear this, but we’re all pretty stinkin’ tired at this point. We’ll probably work on creating more updates from multiple folks on the drive home tomorrow, but for now I’ll just say that we’re all doing very well, we’ve had an incredible week, and I think we’re all also looking forward to getting home! Tutoring wrapped up well this morning, with many of our kids saying they were sad that we were leaving and some even crying when they hugged us goodbye. Awww! So sweet. We wrapped up work projects this afternoon, and went out for Indian (hooray) for supper. Then it was back to New City where we had conversation about the week and what we had learned and would take away – lots of good stuff. And then everyone “got” to pitch in and help clean out the trailer (it was a complete disaster after a week’s worth of taking games in and out, tools in and out, woodworking projects in and out, popcorn and slushy stuff in and out… you get the idea). Then there was time to hang out with kids from the other groups and relax before heading off to bed. Hopefully we’ll have an early start in the morning – it’s always good to hope, right?!

The Third Tuesday of the Month (Sara and Alyssa)

Hello all!
Yesterday was our second full day of tutoring and work. We were grouped together along with Myster, Mike Z., and Josh Chappeau to do yard work such as mowing and weeding. We set off with Josh in his huge, red, A/C-less van in search of our assigned house for the afternoon. Our unexpectedly long quest began when our Google Maps seemed to have failed us as some streets matched up to where we were supposed to be and other streets were no where to be found. We drove around in circles for a long time, asking random people if they knew how to find the street we were looking for (not to mention all the one way streets that were not going in the correct direction for us), but to no avail. After 45 minutes of driving and circling (and bonding), Mike Z. examined the map closer only to discover that we had made a left turn where we should have made a right. Finally, after discovering our mistake, we found the house. We parked and prepared to unload. Then we looked up at a road sign that read "No Parking on the Third Tuesday of the Month." Alyssa laughed and read the sign out loud to us and said "wouldn't it be funny if it was the third Tuesday of the month?" Then as we thought about that it slowly came to our attention that it just might be the third Tuesday of the month. After checking Josh's cell phone calendar, we discovered that that was true in fact. It was indeed the third Tuesday of the month. Just our luck! We found a spot across the street to park and finally continued on with our scheduled work assignment. It was an interesting afternoon to say the least, but we bonded!

The kids (Myster's update)

Hi name myster me and this boy named Calvin was going to give out free slushes and you would think that all the little kids would be good


but they waz bad little kids they would Make you give them one and one little girl toke like 3 of them and then came back


for more
So thats my story don't let kids tell you what to do from Myster