Foundation Pour--Boot Camp for Mission Work

My boys won't need to go to boot camp for the army, air force, navy, or TLC.

They were in boot camp the last week and a half.

 

But especially Thursday after our help had all left the day before to go back home.

Wednesday the boys and Jonathan put up bracing until the heat drove us indoors. 

We took advantage of the lull in work to drive to Mission to get showers and then drive 45 minutes further to Winner to attend an SIM event which I will blog about later.

The bank on the way registered the heat at 107 degrees!

The next day, Thursday, Jonathan had managed to talk the manager of the nearby concrete company into bringing concrete for our foundation after their other jobs had been poured that day. So it would happen that evening. 

All morning they worked, thankful for the little miracle of cool weather until 10 in the morning. 

But then the sun beat down.

Jonathan and the boys kept hopping through weather in the upper nineties to get the foundation forms braced. They really needed more time, but had to make do.

About five or six o'clock, the pumper truck arrived.

Jonathan and the boys were already beat. Tim was hobbling with raw redness on his feet from either heat or poison ivy or friction, and Danny had been hobbling earlier with a pricker in his heel.

But those boys worked like troopers right alongside their father. 

 It was boot camp for mission work.

Overcoming challenges and pain and weariness.  

There were still hours of work ahead of us.

The work was too heavy for me, so I was taking pictures, doing dishes, researching the value of comfrey for poison ivy itches, texting my children at home while watching the guys, and hoping not to get too many chigger bites while walking in the tall grass. (No particular trophies for me that evening!)

A construction man from church, Joe, arrived to help with the pouring for a couple of hours. 

I don't know how we could have done it without him.

The boys were so beat and had never done that before.   

But then Joe left, the concrete trucks dumped the last bunch of extra concrete in a not-so-great spot, and  the pumper truck folded up its long hydraulic arms and drove away.

But one wall was slightly leaning out of level, and the bone-weary Jonathan had to get the boys' help to brace it and level it, besides smoothing the top of the foundation walls and try to clean up the piles of concrete where there had been small blowouts due to a broken form that had been glued, or other issues. 

By this time, I was able to help some, too, gathering up tools and shovels after dark,

and scrubbing the concrete off them by the light of head lamps or a camp lamp.

Jonathan had thought we'd be up half the night, but we made it back to the trailer by 11:30. I still had to wake up Tim who had fallen into bed,

so that I could wash his raw feet and plaster them with comfrey ointment.

And I plastered Jonathan's chigger bites with the same ointment, too, before we all fell into bed.

It had been one of the longest, hardest, hottest, most challenging days of our lives.

Foam Forms--and Strong Rebar

 "I couldn't imagine how those foam forms could hold up 80 tons of concrete," my brother Fain admitted.

But they did.

They were kept in place by plastic frames and yards and yards of strong rebar inside them. 

It wasn't too hard to saw foam.

 The foam foundation forms stacked a little like legos--only they had rebar inside them. 

 Lots and lots of rebar.

This scene is the back corner of our house,

 

and this is the front corner, with the garage to the left. 

The excavator kept leaking hydraulic fluid so badly that we gave up purchasing $50 a gallon fluid for it and took it back to the rental. So the garage still needs to be excavated. 

But those forms were almost all done when the cousins and my brother Fain left last Wednesday morning. The trench along the basement walk-out was half-dug, too, thanks to Ezra and Samuel and Danny and Tim who all took turns shoveling and picking just as the sun was setting and the air cooled enough to resume harder work without collapsing of a heat stroke.

Those boys kept swinging and digging while the others kept stacking forms and bending and tying rebar--until it was too dark to see.  

Weak foam forms made strong by frames, sturdy rebar, and skilled hands.

Just as in our weakness, God's rebar of grace strengthens us to do more than we are able without Him.

"Help us not just rely on our own strength," Tim prayed before breakfast the next morning,

"but help us to rely on You."

Little did he know how much we would have to rely on God that day, 

but read on in the next post to find out.  

Sunday Combs, River Baptisms, and Native Noses

I just had to capture this scene Sunday morning in South Dakota--no fewer than four boys trying to use the same mirror at the same time to comb their hair before church!

The boys had stayed overnight at the vacant Rosebud parsonage where they could shower and find Sunday clothes. Then we all met up there to go with Larry and Ruth Siegel to Spring Creek Camp. We'd never been there before. Jonathan Troyer was the evangelist, and Chris Grillo was camp president. I failed to get a picture of the camp way back under the trees by Little White River, the same river that runs near our land.

But I did get pictures of heading for the baptismal service at the river. Keith Lavery said that he was baptized himself here a few years ago, and thought the water smelled rather bad--only to discover that about 50 feet upriver was a dead deer in the river!

Well, this year there wasn't a dead deer--just a barbed wire fence to cross over and under. 

I'm always proud of my strong hubby stepping up (or down) to help with whatever needs done, such as holding one wire down and the other up until all the people have passed through.

And so, one by one, we crossed over the bottom wire and under the top one, just as we have to overcome hindrances and obstructions and become lowly enough

to enter the narrow and low gate into the kingdom of God.

 

There must have been nearly a hundred people who came for the baptism.

I really like a baptismal service for the Sunday afternoon service--it keeps us all awake!

My brother Fain and I found the shade under one of the trees up ahead.

John Smith was the first one baptized--a missionary son.

Then a missionary daughter and a native American girl named Lovely were baptized.

After that service, we traveled back to Mission for the evening service there.

It was athrob with life and youngsters as usual.

 

Including this little native foster boy who suddenly appeared out of nowhere and wanted to climb up on my lap.

"I like your nosie!" he declared over and over to this middle-aged mom who has never liked her own  nose. 

"I like your nosie!"

And the middle-aged lady who didn't like the nose God had given her 

had to sit up and take notice.

It was Jonathan's turn next, with the little boy climbing up on him, too, and touching noses!

"I love your nosie!" he kept saying, the little boy who didn't have his own father to love him, and who kept yearning for attention and love.

But the missionary-to-be on whose lap the little child had first sat ended up sitting there with a deeper thought than how she could keep this little boy from rubbing noses with her.

She was getting ready to come serve and minister to the native American people of the Rosebud reservation of South Dakota.

But what if, first, God wanted to let one of the native children teach her a lesson instead of the other way around?
What if God wanted the missionary mother to be more okay with the nose God had given her--

and all the other discrepancies and circumstances she did not like but that she had been given?

What if the God who had given her that nose--and her set of circumstances--liked her nose--and her circumstances?

What if, even if that nose was long and sharp, it could belong to a face that loved others,

to a countenance that smiled with acceptance and joy,

and a person whom God could use more 

because she wasn't thinking so much about her discrepancies and her weaknesses and her not-so-pretty, getting-old face?

"I love your nosie!" warbled the little boy with the beautiful brown face.

And he became a missionary message of love and acceptance to the missionary mom from Colorado.

 

First Week in South Dakota--Footer and Foundation

This is what our land looked like Tuesday afternoon when we arrived in South Dakota.

This is the spot where we had decided to build our home. 

Didn't look like much.

The cows had even knocked over the stakes that Jonathan had pounded in a few weeks earlier.

Just not much there.

Just a dream--a hope--and a calling.

That's all.

But that was before a very determined father and husband and missionary arrived on the scene,

along with a friend from Ohio named Larry Siegel, who, despite being 80 years old

had called SIM president Keith Lavery to ask if there was any need for his experience in excavating this summer.

Keith directed him to Jonathan--and Larry and his wife Ruth arrived Tuesday night as well.

We put them up in Sweet Spot of America hotel one mile up the road, and Larry excavated day after day with this rented mini excavator.

When Ruth and Crystal and I arrived back from cleaning cupboards and organizing some of our belongings and cookware and groceries at the Rosebud parsonage 45 minutes away, we discovered that the basement of our house had begun! 

Three days later, it was looking like this!

By that time, my brother Fain and nephews Samuel, David, and Ezra had arrived and were beginning to help frame the footer forms.  

 

Crystal and I kept busy trying to keep meals made up from scratch in our travel trailer, doing dishes in dishpans on a folding table in the morning shade. One morning was cool enough that I wore a jacket, but most of the mornings were just beautiful--unlike the rest of the days which went up to the high 80's and 90's, and even above 100 degrees! 

 The guys used the forklift to unload lumber and the big water tank. 

We ladies had to fill myriad water jugs, jars, and igloos nearly every day or two and keep ice bought to keep up with the workers.

The blessing of roughing it outdoors was that you could enjoy the birdsongs, the insect world, and the sunshine and breeze.

You could actually be out in nature instead of just looking at it through a window. 

Finally the footers were ready and the concrete truck arrived.  

Everyone took time off to watch. This was the second major feat--pouring the footer after digging the basement. By this time our Sam, Carrie, Rose, and Hannah had arrived to help for a couple days. 

Even 80-year-old Larry Siegel jumped right in to help.  What a blessing he was! No wonder he stays spry and slender!

But right alongside him worked the young men in their teens and twenties. 

Praise God for young men willing to give of their time and energy to work in the miserable heat to build a house for future missionaries. 

A home with a firm foundation to withstand the storms, 

the heat,

the cold, 

and the winds of wild and wooly South Dakota.

All Hands on Deck--Our House Is on the Market!

Three weeks ago we got all hands on deck to do the last minute fixings before the house went on the market two weeks ago.

Some doors still had to be replaced, and then they turned out to be slightly longer than the doorway, so had to be planed down and then morticed... 

Crystal dug up the flower bed and planted lilies, and then we spread wood chips.

The boys helped their dad fix the diesel fuel tank for the trip to South Dakota where we were going to be needing diesel on the property to run the rented excavator.

One Sunday morning the boys made omelets!

And here are the foam foundation framing pieces ready to haul to South Dakota.

We headed off on a Monday evening, after being put on notice that the first showing for our house would be 3 that afternoon! We didn't quite make it, so pulled out with our loaded trailers and waited out of sight of the house for an hour while a realtor arrived with a family. Then we went back to get a higher hitch for one trailer and other last minute things. We set off with me driving the first hour since I was nervous about the load behind and didn't want to be hollering anxiously at my kids! 

Sure enough, we had a couple issues with forms or lumber starting to fall out, but Tim fixed the issues, and we fueled up in Bennett, and Tim drove on to Julesberg where we crashed for the night.

The next morning we picked up 10 rolls of barbed wire for fencing

at Menards in North Platte, and continued on our way to SD.