Baton Rouge, Monday April 23

Terry, Chris and I arrived in Baton Rouge last night, right on time. There is, however, a 2 hour time change between here and Chico, so it was 10 pm when we arrived, 11 or 11:30 pm before we met Marcia after her flight arrived, we got the rental car, and found our way to the motel. The car has a GPS device, but it took a bit to figure out how to use it, and even a bit longer to learn to trust it.

We were to be at the work site by 7:15 am (Baton Rouge time, 5:15 am my time), so was up at 6 am. The motel has breakfast for us so went down to see what it was. Met Dr. Roy Medley, Executive Secretary of the ABC/USA in the lobby. He’s here for a day or two to participate in the build.

We drove to the job site, and I was struck by the confusion. There are people here from 16 states plus Canada to build, or at least get started building 12 houses. 7 of the houses are located just of the freeway. This is where we all gathered, most of us not exactly sure what we were to do or where we were to go. I suppose my reaction was similar to others: “We’re going to build houses in 2 weeks?”

After breakfast was served, (eggs, sausage and orange juice, but no coffee) we gathered together for a short service. Dr. Medley gave an invocation, the owner’s-to-be were introduced, and we had a hand washing ceremony where the executive director of the Cooperative Baptists poured water on our hands, and Marcia Patton and Dr. Medley dried them. I’m sure that some felt this was a waster of time, because we went through one at a time and there are a lot of us here to work, but I felt it was well worth the time. This wasn’t a job-job. This is a labor of love and it was good to recognize that.

From the opening ceremony, we went to our specific sites and ...chaos. The foundation slab had been poured, and chalk lines snapped, but things were a bit disorganized – not all that surprising for the first day. Tools were on one palate. Pre-built walls were at the back of the site. Tree limbs hung over the slab interfering with walking down the slab, let alone putting up walls. I found myself cutting the limbs down with a small hand saw – the only saw available at the time. What I wouldn’t have given for my pruning saw. But the job got done.

That’s rather the motto, I think, of the build, “but the job got done.” There is a gentleman in charge, and he knows what he’s doing, but there are a lot of other “chiefs” on the site as well, men and women who are professional builders, even an architect. They talk amongst themselves, mutter about how it’s being done, grumble that they’d have done it differently, but then to it the way they’re asked to do it, “and the job get’s done.”

Today we got most of the outer walls up, and most of the inner walls up as well. Some of the other 6 sites around us are further along, but the 7 houses are different sizes, and the crews are of different sizes as well. And to be honest, some crews are younger.

Chris made his presence felt by providing muscle all day long. He was much appreciated by our whole crew. Terry jumped in whenever and where ever, and was her positive self – a blessing to any work crew. We all were very tired by 3 pm when we started the clean-up. When I first heard that we were going to quit by 3 pm, I thought we should work longer. Now, having worked until 3, I’m very thankful we stop when we do.

Tomorrow, we go directly to our site. We’ll finish the walls, put up gable, and start insulating. Oh and the roofing materials showed up today as well. It will be a busy day tomorrow, as I’m sure all of them will be. It is a blessing to be here, however.

Baton Rouge, Tuesday, April 24

Day 2 began with 15 minutes extra sleep. Because we knew where we were going, and new “the ropes” a bit, we left a bit later this morning. Was nice to have the extra few minutes of sleep.

Things were more organized when we got to the work sites as well. After the mandatory safety talk, which featured the well-founded advice, “Don’t jump off the roof,” we divided into groups. Terry and Chris finished the walls, while I went in search of a tool that I think is called a “ram set.” Using a 22 shell, it drives nails through a 2 x 4 into the concrete to anchor a wall, for example, to the floor. After searching for 25 minutes, I finally managed to track down the ram set and preceded to anchor a wall that come to find out, hadn’t been set yet – even though I had been told it was ready to go. But no problem. As I learned when I worked for the phone company, if the hammer you have doesn’t do the job, get a bigger hammer. Such was the case with the wall being anchored to the concrete. Big hammers take care of small problems.

We worked pretty much straight through the morning, accomplishing a great deal. The walls were not only all set up, but plumbed and straightened. Over lunch, I helped mark the walls for trusses which we began putting in place in the afternoon.

On professional job sites, I’m pretty sure that the trusses are lifted into place with a crane. Habitat uses people. We lifted the trusses up to the top of the walls where the were slid into place, and toe-nailed. We got 15 or so of the trusses up today. Tomorrow’s task is to finish putting up the trusses, floor the attic, and who knows what else.

The consensus between Marcia, Terry, Chris and I is that we’re not as tired this evening as we were yesterday evening. We decided that moving the pre-built walls onto the slabs was much harder work than even lifting the trusses into place.

The weather has been good – warm and a bit muggy, but nice. Tomorrow’s focus is for rain in the afternoon, but we’ll se what happens.

I’m looking forward to tomorrow, at least to the work. The breakfast and lunch that they provide for us both included biscuit gravy. I thought about having country fried steak for dinner tonight because it’s one of my favorite meals, but couldn’t stand the thought of the same gravy for all three meals. I wouldn’t be surprised to have the gravy tomorrow as well.

Baton Rouge, Wednesday, April 25

As I write this, it’s raining and we’re under a tornado watch, i.e. conditions are right for a tornado. Haven’t heard of any damage being done anywhere, and the rain is actually nice.

The threat of rain caused us to stop a few minutes early this afternoon. Actually, it didn’t start raining until everything was closed up and put away for the night. This is always something of a pain. All materials and all the tools have to be gathered together and placed in one of Habitat’s trucks each night. They unload them into secure trailers, and then return stuff to us in the morning. The process takes time in the afternoon, but is even more of a pain in the morning because it means we have to wait for the truck to arrive at our house.

I again took pictures of what we completed in today’s work. Only a couple pictures today. As I looked at them, it didn’t really look like we did much. We got the rest of the trusses up, put up the overhang on each end and the gutter boards on the side. At the end of our work day, we started putting board on the roof. Doesn’t sound like much, but it was a lot of work, and even more work getting everything right.

I find that I have a new appreciation for builders. Oh, not that they don’t make mistakes, because we all do, and I sometimes complain about those who built my house. But wood is a difficult medium to work with. It twists and turns and racks and moves. It’s not living, but in lots of ways, it’s not truly dead, either. It takes great skill to get the wood to do what one wants it to do without breaking it, or messing the whole thing up.

The second lesson is one we all know but forget, details are oh so important. In setting the trusses, there’s a big difference between 23 ½ inch and 24 inches. There’s a difference between “almost on,” and “on.” And little differences at one end can lead to big differences at the other.

Tomorrow the electricians should do their thing in our house – they worked in the others today. Also the furnace should go in and the plumbing. Plus the roof should go on and the windows be put in. While the house resembles a house today, it should look much more like a house by tomorrow evening. I hope so at least. Only 2 days left.

Baton Rouge, Thursday, April 26

So last night we were under a tornado watch. No tornado, just heavy rain. No flooding, just mud. Not just a little mud. A whole dirt yard of mud.

When they sent out the information about the build, Habitat told us they worked rain or shine. I don’t know if we would’ve worked through the down pours of last night, but we did work through the mud. Which meant walking through slippery mud all day. I hoped that the areas around the buildings would dry some, and they did, but not enough. Many areas were very slick which made carrying the roofing sheets difficult.

Even given the mud, it was a good day. It began with the inside water being swept out and board sidewalks being made. We continued sheeting the roof outside, and inside, after the floor dried, the floor was swept clean and roofing paper was laid down as a moisture barrier. I don’t know what kind of floors the houses will have. We probably won’t be here to see either. That’s one of the disappointing things with being here only one week of a two week build. We won’t see the finished project. But I’m not sure that everything will get finished by next week either from a comment someone made at the first of the week. I think the Baton Rouge Habitat expects to be working on these houses for a while after we all leave.

The weather was nice, but warm. One of the older gentleman got overheated and had to be taken to an air conditioned room to cool down. I haven’t heard how he’s doing.

We finished getting the roof on, and towards the end of the day, decided to put in the doors and windows. That was accomplished with a little “overtime.”

About an hour before we stopped work, the plumbers began work as well as the electricians. Their work will be done when we show up tomorrow. In fact, the bath/shower unit went in before we left.

We’re still behind most of the other houses. One has siding up on half of a wall. Still, I thought we did a good job today. If it was to rain tonight, the inside would still get wet because we don’t have paper on the roof yet, but it wouldn’t be anything like it was last night. And with doors and windows – except two small windows that weren’t delivered– it looks like a house. You can see for yourself if you look at today’s final pictures.

Tomorrow we finish our part, but that’s for tomorrow.

Baton Rouge, Friday, April 27

The Baptist Blitz is over – at least for me, Terry and Chris. Others who were here this week will work tomorrow. Some will come in next Monday and work until Friday or Saturday. A few who worked this week will stay and work next week too. They’ll have the joy of seeing open slabs turned into finished, or nearly finished houses. I do envy them.

On the other hand, I’m thankful to have been a part of “raising” the house, going from slab to walls to roof to windows to siding. At least the siding should be started tomorrow. We did the heavy work – carrying the pre-fab walls, lifting the trusses into place, lifting the roofing sheets up to those on the roof. Much remains to be done, but that will be mostly detail and finish work. We did the lifting.

We did prep work today to get ready for putting on the siding. We probably would’ve been able to do the siding if we hadn’t “loaned” a number of our most knowledgeable workers to the house going up next door to ours. I find it very interesting to feel a bit of regret that we had to “share” our workers this way. I say this because I know that our task is not to be the first house done, or even to keep from being the last house done. Our task is to build a dozen houses. Still, having put sweat into “our” house, I would have liked to have seen the house on which I’ve been working further along. But so it goes.

I did see something of what “our” house will look like, because some of the houses being built on the next block are further along. In fact, the house the Marcia is working on had sheet rock being installed as we left the site this afternoon. I walked through it and thought about the people whose lives will hopefully be changed for the better because of the house they now will be able to live in. The houses aren’t big, but they will be nice. They’ll have two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room or family room, a living room, 3 or 4 bedrooms depending on the size of the house, and air conditioning. They’ll be good places to turn into homes.

As for me, I leave with a few bruises, a few scrapes, more than a few sore muscles, and a great appreciation for those who were here in Baton Rouge to build these houses. There were people from Canada. There was a guy, Don, I really enjoyed working with who drove down by himself from West Virginia to work for the whole two weeks. I met a great guy from Georgia, wonderful people from Louisville, KY including the architect I mentioned earlier in the week. The young woman who is receiving the house was there working every day, doing all kinds of jobs from sweeping up to pounding nails.

This was a great week. This was a wonderful experience. Now all I have to do is pack my suitcase, finish a sermon, and get to the airport tomorrow.