Our Final Push

It's almost impossible to believe that we're already done with our week together.  We feel like we just arrived yesterday.  But the week has come and gone, and today we wrapped up our work week with Hosanna in a big way.  

Our group split into two groups for work today, because we had multiple work sites to get done.  One group went to do interior painting and work on a retaining wall, while the other group went to do flooring. Once you get to this part of the week, it begins to feel like the work is completing you even more than you are completing the work.  Everyone starts to naturally feel the flow of the day, and we all better understand how to work together.  It's a testament to Hosanna that in 4 days we can go from having no idea what we're doing, much less how to do it together, to having zero hiccups in a day long project - working like a well-oiled machine. It never ceases to amaze how much God can do through people who are willing to be open to serving others.

We got to grill out tonight with some of the Hosanna crew after our work day, and it was great to spend some time with them away from a worksite. After dinner we had our last small group meetings and then worship together, followed by two testimonies by our seniors, Rachel and Palmer. Of course, Stacey had to tell the legend of the cheese danish and cheese burrito, which have been passed down for 23+ and 12+ years respectively.  Last year's recipient of the burrito was Kate, so this year she got to bestow it on someone else. This year's lucky winner...Lainey!!!  She has been an amazing piece of our group this week, and now she get's to remember it all year by an absolutely disgusting food item in the back of her freezer.

Tomorrow we'll be up early so that we can get this place cleaned up before getting off to the zoo and aquarium. Please pray for safe travels.  We're looking forward to a much drier return trip than we had on our way out here.  Below are some pictures from today!

How tall is that ladder again?

Today we went out to meet Harold.  He's a Vietnam War vet who lives in downtown Pittsburgh, and he just recently lost his homeowner's insurance due to the state of the exterior of his house.  Problem is, Harold has rheumatoid arthritis and has no business working on the outside of his house.  Did I mention the plot of land and size?  If you're not familiar with Pittsburgh, here's what we're talking about.

Yep, those are 30 foot ladders.  And we're siding Harold's house for him.  For free.

Just in case that first shot doesn't give you the whole impression:

This is what Harold's house looked like before we started.

We left Hosanna today at 8 a.m. and returned back to campus at 6 p.m.  This was a long drive, and a long day.  And totally worth it.  We had groups of people on ladders working on placing and nailing siding.  We had a group measuring and cutting the siding pieces to go up.  We had a group bending metal fascia to be nailed up on the rake of the house.  We had a group painting all of the woodwork and trim around the base of the house.  It was busy, and crazy, and absolutely wonderful work. 

By the time we finshed and loaded the van, we were all exhausted.  But guess what? I don't think Harold will have any trouble getting his homeowner's insurance back. Check out what we left behind.

(Note: Hosanna staff and ladder not actually left behind.)

We are really proud of the work we did today and, although tired, we're so ready to jump right into our final work day tomorrow.  Sounds like we're going to be splitting up into smaller groups to accomplish three separate projects throughout the day tomorrow.  We'll be sure to keep you informed, check back in tomorrow evening!

Training Into Action

Today was a full and exciting day!  We drove out to the other side of Pittsburgh to do a bunch of work for an amazing woman named Pat. Her husband (of a number of decades) passed away six weeks ago and she is trying to keep up on her house all by herself at age 88. She's quite spritely, but obviously there are just somethings a person of that age cannot do.  One of those things is a roof.  That's where we came in!

We spent all day out at Pat's house (with another volunteer group from local church St. Ferdinand) putting a new layer of shingles on her roof.  While some of the group was busy doing that, others were taking care of her yard.  Still others were painting the foundation of her house to match the rest of the building.  A final group ended up painting her utility shed that sits near the driveway, even though that was never part of the plan!  When we show up, we make things happen.

As you can see, our group had a terrible time at the jobsite.  We spent much of the day making sure that Becca and Sara Twining's selfie stick worked properly (we'll surely do more testing tomorrow).

Finally we got a big group picture at the end of the day in front of the house before we went back to campus for a wonderful night of food, fellowship and worship together.  

Tomorrow we are going downtown to help someone with brand new siding on their house.  It should be a blast, so stay tuned!

Week Two Training Day!

Day one is in the books here at Hosanna for week two!

After a long (and extremely wet) drive yesterday afternoon, we arrived at Hosanna around 8:30 p.m. and got unpacked and moved into the dorm. We got acclimated to our surroundings and talked about what was going to happen this week with the group, and then we met for a few minutes with our small groups to start getting to know each other.  

This morning we started our training for the week. The Hosanna staff was quick to tell us about all we were planning to accomplish in our projects this week, including siding, roofing, flooring, and painting. They even said we might get to do some masonry work!  Knowing that we'd have a huge variety of projects to work on this week, today was especially important so that we could all become familiar with the tools and terminology that we'll need to use throughout the week in our work. 

Amy and Emily were awesome, as usual, with keeping us engaged in a long and focused learning day on campus.  We learned about everything from how to attach and nail siding, to how to lay allure flooring, to how to hold a paintbrush properly.  The students don't truly understand yet, but starting tomorrow they'll be extremely glad we went through so much together today.

After our training was over, we helped the Hosanna staff unload the truck from today's jobs and re-load it for tomorrow's work with us.  Sounds like we'll be doing some roofing. We had a delicious taco dinner together and then had some time in small group meetings, following all of this with worship to end our night. Now it's off to bed to be well rested for our first day in the field tomorrow! 

Our last day at Hosanna

Hard to believe that we just wrapped up our final day at Hosanna. It feels like we just got here!

Today we split into two groups.  The first group went back to the same house we were at yesterday to finish Mrs. Slaughter's roof.  We spent from about 9:30 am to 1 pm up on the roof and it looked amazing after we finished.  Meanwhile, the second group of students went to build a deck and access ramp.  Both groups arrived back on campus by around 2 pm and we joined back together to finish our work day by helping Hosanna with their new garden.  They grow all sorts of vegetables that they use to can and give to their partners as gifts every year during the holidays. 

After our final work day was done, we celebrated our time and week together with Hosanna and even had some of their staff join us for dinner.  We have been blessed to work with the staff members at Hosanna this week and we'll be sad to leave them and head home tomorrow.  However, we've had a full and wonderful week together and will carry our memories of this trip for the rest of our lives.  After dinner, we had worship together in the chapel like we have every night this week. The backdrop tonight was particularly pretty.

After worship and cookies with Ken, it came time for the moment of truth: the cheese danish.  For those of you who don't know, ask your student - but the legend of the danish has been passed down for years (literally, over 20 of them). It typically is passed on to a student that has shown a specific spirit during the course of the week that has been noticed by others in the group.  There's no official qualifications, but the winner must bring the danish back on next year's trip so that they might bestow it upon someone else. This year, our winner was Graham! Next time you see him, congratulate him on an excellent week of service and mission. 

Well, that's all for the blog. Thanks for following along and praying with us during our travels this week. We can't do it without all of your support from afar. We'll be back next week with week two!

Goodbye, old shingles. Hello, new roof!

Today's recap can probably be summed up best with a picture from the aftermath:

That would be Gretchen, with her newfound "tan", brought to you by the aftermath of ripping shingles off of a house.  Mrs. Slaughter lives on the near southeast side of Pittsburgh, and Hosanna and our crew drove down this morning just berfore 8 a.m. so that we could provide her with a brand new leak-free roof that she so desperately needed.

Our crew was joined by about 10 others from a local church, including 7 kids between 9-11 years old. We started the day by removing the old roof to prep the surface for replacement. When a roof needs repair, and there are only one layer of shingles, new shingles can simply be placed over the old ones as a fix for a while.  But Mrs. Slaughter already had two layers of shingles on her roof, which meant we needed to tear off both layers down to the original plywood and start from scratch.  

After removing the old shingles, sweeping the roof clean, applying a new underlayment, and moving an entire pallet of shingles up to the roof, we started our process of laying new shingles.  The students had been trained on Monday in the learning center at Hosanna how to lay shingles, so they were quick pros when the occasion arose this afternoon for the real thing. 

We set up a line where we had our students placing shingles that were fed down to them from the peak of the roof by our young cohorts. We managed to tear off all the shingles and replace an entire half of the house with new roof all in one day today.  

Tomorrow, we will send part of our team back to the house to finish the other half of Mrs. Slaughter's roof.  We will also send a group to rebuild the retaining wall that we demolished yesterday.  Yet ANOTHER group will head to build a small deck and ramp system for a person who needs it. We may only have 14 people in our group this week, but we're doing amazing things. Stay tuned!

Hosanna, round two.

How awesome was today?!  You don't know, because you weren't here, but it was great...that's why we're here to tell you about it. 

This morning we jumped (slowly, for some) out of bed to get on the road at 8 a.m.  We drove about half an hour out to Ted's house.  Ted is a great guy with an awesome house and amazingly gorgeous backyard view, and he was around back when Hosanna started.  Ted used to work for a heating and cooling company, and he was instrumental in helping get some donations to Hosanna when they had poeple in need.  Now, Ted is living with MS, and in the not-too-distant future will be bound to a wheelchair.  So we went out with Hosanna to build a deck at his house that connected both the front and side doors with wheelchair access, so when that time comes, he'll be ready and taken care of. He spent years helping to take care of others, and now it's his turn to be taken care of.  Unreal story of true neighbors.

After spending the morning framing and finishing Ted's deck, we split into two groups for some projects in the afternoon.  One group went to pick up a donation that Hosanna received of a nice kitchen cabinet set that will eventually go to someone who needs it.  The other group went to do demolition on a retaining wall that was crumbling to pieces.  We'll send a group back on Thursday to rebuild the wall now that the demo is done. 

We returned to campus exhuasted (and already a bit slap happy) and emotionally energzied from our day's work.  After a delicious dinner and worship together, we're off to bed to prepare for tomorrow's project: a new roof.  

First Day at Hosanna!

We made it through our first full day together! 

After driving six hours yesterday (with NO STOPS!) to get to Hosanna, we arrived safe and sound last night and got a great night's rest to prep for our week. This morning, we met Emily and Amy - two Hosanna staff members - in the chapel to start our work week.  They did a morning devotion with our group and then Amy gave us a tour of the campus along with some history and background of Hosanna as an organization. 

We then spent much of the day with Amy and Emily in Hosanna's learning center, where they trained our group on how to use many of the tools that we'll be needing in the field this week.  Everyone got a try on the circular saw, and we got to practice hammering nails for our decking project tomorrow.  Then the group was taught how to lay shingles on the simulated roof that Hosanna had in the learning center.  We'll be getting to that roof project later this week!

After our morning and early afternoon training, we helped the staff move some lumber and odds and ends around campus, and then helped unload the truck at the warehouse and re-load it for our work tomorrow. We had a delicious taco dinner followed by small groups and worship together.  It was an awesome day.  We're all looking forward to tomorrow when we can get out in the field and put everything we learned to good use!  

WYSIWYG - 2015 BOS

The BOS (Burger of Service) originated in 2009 in Elkhart, Indiana after an interesting adult grilling experience. Since it has been awarded each year, and subsequently lived in the respective winner's freezer for a year.  Tonight the 2014 BOS, Mary Stafford, awarded the new BOS with this sought after title. The seventh holder of this title takes home the actual original burger to its fifth home...for the second time the BOS has been awarded to the younger sibling of a previous BOS. We congratulate, and celebrate, Tiggins, aka Nathan Higgins, as the 2015 BOS! 

The BOS Family Tree

2009 - Claudia Benz - Elkhart

2010 - Zak Aker - Louisville 

2011 - Ben Higgins - Indiana University

2012 - Olivia Benz - Hanover

2013 - Alex Reese - Indianapolis 

2014 - Mary Stafford - University of Illinois

2015 - Nathan Higgins - Olney 

WYSIWYG Day 3

Today was another amazing, but long day. The group was up and to our worksite at 7AM to prepare for the visitors to The Master's Hands food pantry. Students did a variety of jobs to prepare and then serve the families and individuals who came in for food and other services. After a brief lunch break the group helped to quickly unload a truck load of food items for their pantry. They, once again, worked extremely hard and without question or complaint. 

After getting cleaned up we set out in search of the famous white squirrels! We did have success in finding a couple of the squirrels, everyone was very excited! Following a delicious pizza buffet at a local pizza place we were treated to swimming and boat rides at the home of a congregation member! This was an awesome way to spend our last evening together. Students swam in the pool, say by the bonfire, rode on the pontoon boat, and some even took a twilight swim in the lake! A good time was had by all. 

Our evening drew to a close with our final, and wonderful, student led devotion. While we are sad our trip is coming to an end, we are eager to return home and share our stories with all of you. 

WYSIWYG Day 2 - Paint. Lots of paint!

Today the students began the day with delicious homemade cinnamon rolls from a member of the congregation. (Have we mentioned how they're spoiling us?) Our first project of the day was helping to paint stage sets of the local theater group at the community college. Next we taped, and taped, and taped.  The. Painted, and painted, and painted the child care room at our host church. The students worked extremely hard all day long and no one complained at all! They were truly amazing. 

Each student is recognizing the work of God in our group and those we encounter. It has been a great day. We are eager for what tomorrow brings...even with a VERY early wake up call! We can't wait to share more.