How to Build a Fence

I talked about how to find a work site in my last post. Our work projects is one of the main ways that we as staff use to teach Leadership principles. This also requires us to be able to train students in the skills that they need to complete the work projects. This is the reason that my Summit class took a week out of the fall to learn how to build a deck together (check it out HERE!)

However, there is not enough time in the office to teach us all construction skills that we might possibly need. Therefore there is some learning on the job. For last week's trip with Faith Bible Church (from Edmond, OK), one of our projects was building a privacy fence - a task I'd never done before. So my assistant leader explained each step to me as we bought the supplies, but it was going to be up to me to explain that to the students.

However, I'm of the honest opinion that experience is better than just head knowledge, so I polled the youth pastor and discovered that not only had he built a fence before, there were two students on the trip who had worked for a metal fencing company.

So in true LeaderTreks fashion, I passed off leadership of the project to the two students and stuck around as "foreman" to guard safety, excellence, and learn a little bit more about building a fence.

Here was our process.

Step One: Dig Hole

The students were very thankful for the Memphis  Dirt
A little softer to dig into.

Place post in hole, level and
pour in cement mix & water

Micah (l) and Anna (r) by the post they
completed on their own.

Matt is super excited about Step Two

The nailing up of stringers. Team work was important on this step
to make sure each stringer was level, and then hold the post to
minimize bouncing to make it easy to hammer the nail in.

After all the stringers are up, you put on the facing boards.
This is also a task where leveling is important.

It took the whole team to start the corner

Corner completed

We hit a snag or two closer to the end of this project, but ALL of the students responded fantastically when we had to pull out some boards to make sure the fence looked its best. Anna was so strong she broke a board in half.

Final Fence Team

So proud of you guys!
Thanks for teaching me how to build my first fence!!

How to Find A Work Site

So part of my job entails a lot of what I'll call the "behind the scenes" work.

Hours spent in the office making phone calls to youth pastors,

digging through our work shed

making meal plans, recipe guides, and shopping lists

Then the long drives to our sites and set-up. 

Not only do we buy ridiculousness amounts of food -

feeding 15-25 people takes "a lot of bread" (as the patient woman behind us in the check-out line put it)

But we also must find enough manual labor (that is at the right challenge level) for a team - or in our case this weekend, two teams (one with 15 members and one with 25).

Julie and I were both excited and very hopeful as we headed drove the 9 hours down to Memphis, TN. Julie had spent all of last summer at this site and was chopping at the bit to see old friends and continue to deepen relationships. She'd spent the past several weeks making phone calls and connections to find possible work sites and maybe even some ministry outreach. She'd gotten several positive replies and all we had to do was check them out to ensure they fit our program.
We arrived Thursday night and spent most of Friday relaxing thinking there was plenty of time and everything was pretty much planned.

Unfortunately God decided to send us a big wake-up call this morning. Julie awoke to several text messages relaying the big news to her...

We could not use any work project we had initially been planning on.

8AM and we were starting from scratch. 

All throughout the day God continually brought my mind to the story of His feeding the 5,000. This story was so important that it is included in all four of the gospels, but I especially love John's version found in chapter six.

Why do I love this version?

Because of verse 5-6

"When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, 'Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?' He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do."

I feel like God is testing us right now. I feel like he is asking me,

"Heather, where do you think you can find a work site for 15 people (and then 25 for the next week)?" 

And I've looked at my physical capabilities just like Philip did when he commented that it would take too much money to buy bread for all the people. Our physical capabilities say we've exhausted all of our contacts and there are no BIG work projects to be found.

With the help of our missionary partners we met two people today who are in need of some "minor" help. To me, it looks a little like 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes. A backyard clean up here, a tilling of a garden there, a trash clean up down the road... Not enough to keep a whole team occupied for a week.

But God promises something BIG through this story -

HE PROVIDES! 

The disciples had everyone sit down and they began to pass out their meager amount of food - and they continued to pass it out - and they continued... "until everyone had had enough to eat"
And then what happens? Jesus has the disciples go around and pick up the excess and there were
12 baskets of leftovers.

So here I sit in Memphis, TN, with a pretty meager list of possible jobs we can do this week,
and all I can do right now is pray.

Pray with the knowledge that God is faithful. 

Pray with the knowledge that if he feed over 5,000 people with that meager meal, that he will fill the hands of 35 people with work that will build his Kingdom from a meager work site list.

Pray that through his provision lives will be changed and Kingdom work will be accomplished.

And pray that even in the "behind the scenes" work that his Name is GLORIFIED!

How to Tear Up A Floor

On the Road! Finally!! 

Myself and two fellow staff members crammed all of our work supplies, luggage and ourselves into one of our trusty LeaderTreks vans and pulled away from the office before the sun came up on February 16th. 15 hours and 6 states later we found ourselves in West Sayville, Long Island, New York.
The following 3 days were full of introductions, delicious New York meals, an NHL game, lots of laughter and of course - TRIP PREP. On Saturday we went to tour a couple of the houses that we would be working on for the week. One family, the Thomas', had plenty of work for us to do, including retiling their kitchen, hallway, bathroom, and upstairs landing - comparatively small spaces, but we knew it would be a project that lasted the whole week for several of our students.

So STEP ONE in putting down new sticky tile is to get rid of the old tile. Monday the students worked with all their hearts and hammers and chisels. The first layer of tile came up quite easily, but SURPRISE, there was another layer of tile and this one came up in two parts. Therefore the next three days my hardworking students endured many a splinter and sore knees as they scraped and pulled up what was stuck to the floor.

About the middle of Day 3 after checking on students in other parts of the work site I returned to the kitchen to find them singing this quaint little tune:

As exhausted and frustrated as they were at the task, they encouraged me with their silly song.

 What a great picture of how to keep spirits high and 

continue working with all your heart as working for the Lord (Col 3:23).

I pray that the Lord teaches students on future trips the importance of a joyful heart while working.

And hopefully He'll allow me to be around with a camera to catch their creative songs as well.

Check back later for pictures and video of the finished project.

How To Build A Deck

If you are a follower of my newsletters you know that in the past two months of my job I've spent a lot of time in the office with fellow new staff members in a "class format" learning about principles and processes of Trip and LTE (Leadership Training Event). We also got a week to head out to our mission site in Houck, AZ (Navajo Nation) and apply some of those principles and processes on work projects out there which included dry-walling, painting, and re-tiling floors.

However, a large majority of our stateside projects consist of building decks... and it just so happens that the Executive Director of LeaderTreks needed a new deck, so Summit Year One staff members took a week out of the office to learn and practice the very specific details of

DECK BUILDING!

Before ~

I promise this is an old deck behind these massive trees. The first morning we demolished the deck and that afternoon two team members took our van full of wood to the dump to dispose of it while myself and Brandon headed for Menard's to buy all of the new wood and supplies needed.

That evening John took out the trees himself.

 Figuring out how to best remove the old railing. Saw? Hammer? Sledge Hammer?

We ended up mostly kicking it down.

John's (boss & home owner) kids were around throughout the week to help out and provide encouragement.

 Robbie took charge of taking down the old awning that was falling apart.

After lots of blood sweat and tears we got to this point

  We decided to leave two of the base pieces from the old deck because they were still in good enough condition. On other decks that I will build though we will have to dig holes for new posts and fill in concrete.

Abby and Brandon are figuring how to attach a third base piece to the side out of the house for final support.

*Note: Even though it seems wise to start from the back of the deck because that is where you already have something in place. Don't. Start from the house and make everything level from there. This small fact will save you some time ;)

Level is the key!

We all worked together to make sure this base was perfect.

Once we had those three planks in and level we started attaching 2x6 planks across them.

This takes the skill of toe-nailing the screw in.

The technique of driving a nail at an angle to join two pieces of lumber
Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/toenailing#ixzz1buZ7u9eG

Once those are all attached it is necessary with this set up to brace these boards so once we get the planking boards attached the whole deck doesn't wobble.

 I measured the appropriate lenghts and passed that info on to Brandon who skillfully cut more 2x6s into the right lenght so that...

Abby & Robbie could attach them.

No toe-nailing needed here!

Once those were all attached we all began attaching the planking boards that are the face of the deck.

 This takes the work of the whole crew. Brandon (yellow shirt) was in charge of making sure the boards on his end lined up and were perfectly level. We each were in charge of making sure that the board was the right distance apart on the section in front of us. We used a nail to determine distance.

 Abby challenged herself during this process by using a corded drill. This was a difficult task because it does not have the automatic stop that a cordless drill has, but she stuck with it and will have the ability to challenge students with finishing what you start.

Our very straight edged deck.

Tuesday, Wednesday, & Thursday were bitterly cold

But we pressed through the weather to complete our tasks!

Once the planking was done we began figuring out how to attach our posts.

Because we added the posts after planking we had to chisel out the

spots to attach to our deck. I warred with this one because it had

several nasty knots. But we got through it.

After cutting holes we then had to attach them.

Which required some dirty work under the deck.

But it was quickly over.

Once the posts are attached, the railing and steps are the last thing you do.

The railing takes a lot of planning because they have to be evenly spaced along the whole deck.

This is a lot of detail work.

But so worth it when done correctly.

Steps are the final step ;D

 This also takes some leveling and toe-nailing skills.

We surrounded the the base of the deck with planking cut to size so that animals can't get underneath it.

So here is our finished deck.

You can see the finished steps and Abby entering through our gate.

It looks so much more open after removing those trees and leaving the side open to the rest of the backyard.

And the finished deck with most of our building team.

 Brandon, Myself, John & Abby

(Robbie took the day off for his birthday)

I hope you enjoyed getting to see us do a little hard work.
If you ever need a deck built just give me a call.