Finally, What We Actually Did!

Here's the week in quick review. Now in HD!

Monday morning, bright and early, we got our breakfast, our assignment, and our tools: 18 shovels, 4 post hole diggers, 2 pick axes, 2 wheelbarrows, and 1 sledgehammer. After laying out the lot and picking where the house was actually going to go, our boss-man (also named Andrew) set us to digging. After a morning of digging a trench, a back hoe showed up with a two foot auger attached, and while we were away for lunch, he drilled 'pilots' for all of our holes. After lunch, more trenches were dug, some by hand, some by back hoe, a pump and water tank were temporarily rerouted, mud was thrown, moved, and some people got to know the holes quite well. We left with a profound sense of accomplishment: all the holes were ready to carve out to size (from a 2-foot diameter to 2.5 x 2.5 x 4), and we were working well as a team.

Then Monday night happened. The torrential rain that came through, as one might expect, turned our lovely foundation into a mud slick dotted with rain filled holes. But, we took to it. Wheelbarrowing was more like gliding and drifting, post hole diggers were wielded like spears, and everyone left much more in touch with 'terra firma' than when we got there. Some did arts and crafts (tying rebar 'sculptures' that looked like some twisted antenna from Alpha Centauri), and they were ridiculed at great length by us 'real workers.' After much manpower, mud, and mockery, we packed up for the day, leaving footprints of mud wherever we stepped.

Wednesday was a waiting game. We touched up some holes and took care of some odds and ends, and by 10:00, we were all set to wait until about 11:00, maybe 11:30 for the concrete to arrive and for us to fill the holes, skip lunch, and be done with the day around 2:00. As it turns out, 2:00 is about when the concrete arrived. So for almost 4 hours, the attitude on the work site resembled a siesta with a profound identity crisis. People napped in wheelbarrows, on platters of 16" block, or just on the ground. Frisbees came out, bearded gnomes were chased around the site, and sighs abounded. Initially, at any sound even closely resembling a concrete mixer, all heads would perk up and turn toward the sound, making the muddy construction site resemble the African plains (we looked like meerkats, is what I'm saying). But, as the hours passed, we no longer expended the effort to even turn our heads. Finally the truck arrived, the concrete got poured, and we went back to the church.

That night we went to a local seafood joint for dinner. I don't remember the name, but it was awesome. They had craw fish for $2.99 a pound, and we went to town on those bad boys. It was awesome. That's all I have to say about that.

Thursday was bittersweet. The concrete had set up, so we spent the day mixing mortar, raising columns of 16" block, and ultimately tidying up the site for the next crew. By the end of the day, each of the 28 columns was ready to have concrete poured in and around it, and according to our site boss, we did, in four days, the amount of work that usually takes three weeks. A point of pride? Maybe. I think our numbers probably had something to do with it, not to mention the fact that Josh Clark was a hero at pushing a loaded wheelbarrow through mud, John Miller got good experience as a Construction Management major, and Jacob Hall is a natural at laying block.

I just checked the blog from Lagniappe Church, and University of South Carolina students poured concrete into the columns recently (they look a little higher than when we finished them, but i guess that's what the group after us did). In the unlikely event that any of them ever see this, I just want to say that we're glad to have been able to participate in the restoration of the gulf with others. Even if we never meet on the site, or at all (summer conference?), it is our efforts together that impact lives. Columns can't be built without a foundation, and even the best foundation (ours, I'm sure, is not) is wasted unless someone else comes to build on it.

Above all, even though my tendency is toward pride in the work NC State did in the gulf, I must remind myself that God is the one at work. In us, through us, and overwhelmingly in spite of us. If God does not bless the work of our hands, of Spring Break trips to the Gulf Coast, of Lagniappe Church, of anything, then it will, in spite of all apparent success or prosperity, fall astronomically short of our own goals. But, if we approach work with reliance on God and deference to His plan, we can rejoice in the fact that our infinite God chooses to bless sinners in a fallen world through other sinners. How great is our God!

That seems like enough for now. The ride back is a story in itself, but hopefully it'll show up here before too long.