Our Strong Tower: May 2013

Monday, May 27, 2013

Work Week 46

Saturday morning we arrived to see that the framing crew we hired had been out and worked on two more houses.

Evelyn's house lot 12

Andres and Luisa's house lot 13

Leticia's house lot 14

View from the round about where we usually have our morning meetings.

Facio was back from his vacation. It was good to have him back. We started out with our safety meeting. Facio started to assign jobs for the day. He would like to do a shear inspection soon, so we can get the plumber and a/c guys out. After they do their work, we start roofing. YEAH! Debbie, Deena, and I were assigned shear. Patricia and Lupe to fix the blocking on lot 8. Tony, Luisa, and her sister to shear the trusses on lot 8. Brandon, Pat, Carlos, Paul, David, and Jacob were to dig so we can the electricity to the houses. Leticia, Jackie, and Maria worked on back filling and door trim. John, Andres, Michael, and Steve had to go add a bolt on Deena's garage. Evelyn, Delilah, and Naty continued painting. Alfredo worked on nailing off the shear on his house. Before anyone could get started the guys needed to load the trusses on lot 16 Debbie's house. YEAH!

Debbie's house getting trusses.

Trusses going up on Debbie's house.

Debbie and I working on shear. Deena's house garage gable end.

Lunch time with had a BBQ. Everyone came to my house (lot). It was great. A lot of good food. We had a great time visiting and getting to know our neighbors better. Thanks Leticia for having the idea. Thanks Debbie for bring out her BBQ for us to use.

Debbie's house

Next the framers moved to Jackie and Carlos' house. Our guys loading the trusses.

Debbie's house

After we finished putting shear on Deena's garage Toby pulled us off and had us go work on Lupe's house.

Me waiting for the first shear board, we are putting on Lupe's house.

Sunday we started at 8 am. We did clean up for two hours. Boy can the framers make a mess. After clean up, we all went back to where we were working the day before. View from Lupe's house.

Jackie and Carlos' house

Debbie's house

The guys loading trusses on Robert and Maria's house.

The framers rolling the trusses on lot 17 (Robert and Maria's house)

View from roof of lot 8 (Lupe's)

Robert and Maria's (lot) 17) house with trusses

Jackie and Carlos' (lot 15) house with trusses.

Debbie's house.

Our neighborhood looks so different with all the trusses on the houses. It is so exciting to see how far we have come and that our houses are getting closer to being done. I can hardly believe this is our home. We are going to live in an amazing house. God has blessed us with a beautiful home and good neighbors. My heart is overflowing with praise for all that God is doing in our lives.

Psalm 33

Praise to the Creator and Preserver.

33 Sing for joy in the Lord, O you righteous ones;
Praise is becoming to the upright.
²Give thanks to the Lord with the lyre;
Sing praises to Him with a harp of ten strings.
³Sing to Him a new song;
Play skillfully with a shout of joy.
⁴For the word of the Lord is upright,
And all His work is done in faithfulness.
⁵He loves righteousness and justice;
The earth is full of the lovingkindness of the Lord.

⁶By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
And by the breath of His mouth all their host.
⁷He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap;
He lays up the deeps in storehouses.
⁸Let all the earth fear the Lord;
Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him.
⁹For He spoke, and it was done;
He commanded, and it stood fast.
¹⁰The Lord nullifies the counsel of the nations;
He frustrates the plans of the peoples.
¹¹The counsel of the Lord stands forever,
The plans of His heart from generation to generation.
¹²Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord,
The people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance.

¹³The Lord looks from heaven;
He sees all the sons of men;
¹⁴From His dwelling place He looks out
On all the inhabitants of the earth,
¹⁵He who fashions he hearts of them all,
He who understands all their works.
¹⁶The king is not saved by a mighty army;
A warrior is not delivered by great strength.
¹⁷A horse is a false hope for victory;
Nor does it deliver anyone by its great strength.

¹⁸Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear Him,
On those who hope for His lovingkindness,
¹⁹To deliver their soul from death
And to keep them alive in famine.
²⁰Our soul waits for the Lord;
He is our help and our shield.
²¹For our heart rejoices in Him,
Because we trust in His holy name.
²²Let Your lovingkindness, O Lord, be upon us,
According as we have hoped in You.

Prayer Requests:
1) Wisdom for Facio and Toby on work assignments and training us on new jobs
2) The subcontractor will come out in a timely manner and get their work done.
3) Safety has we move to roofing.
4) We pass the upcoming inspections

Monday, May 20, 2013

Work Week 45

Saturday morning we started with our safety meeting. Toby then divided us into work groups. This week our projects were finishing shear on the houses, garage headers, porch beams, digging for utilities, painting lookouts, blocking, and pick up.

Debbie and I on my roof.

Us walking to other side of the house.

Lynda help moving the nail gun.

Debbie and Deena moving the hose for the nail gun.

Debbie and I after nailing the shear on the gable ends.

Lupe and Maria cutting lookouts .

The framers working on Deena's house and garage.

Carlos and Jackie's porch with beams in.

Debbie's utilities trench.

Dave cutting lookouts.

Delilah painting the lookouts in Steve and Maria garage.

Naty painting the lookouts.

Trusses on Andres and Luisa's house.

Deena, Lupe, Toby, and I working on plumbing the front truss on Lupe's house.

Sunday morning we started at 8 am. We had a meeting where we discussed the upcoming Memorial Day weekend and decided to have a BBQ. We all signed up to bring food and drinks to share during lunch. Dave and Naty will get the food ready. The plan was to roll trusses on Leticia's house in the cool of the morning. We did not end up rolling trusses. Everyone continued where they left off.

Carlos and Andres working on Carlos and Jackie's porch.

Brandon and Eric working on Robert and Maria's porch.

Evelyn's house with her trusses up.

John and Evelyn's helper working on Robert and Maria's garage header.

The guys carrying a beam down to Robert and Maria's house.

Robert and Maria's house.

As we were ending our lunch group 2 came over and gave us some boxes of 50/50 ice creams. Thank you group 2 it was a great surprise. It helped in the heat.

Lupe, Michael, Lynda working on shearing the trusses on Lupe's house.

Lupe nail of shear board.

Evelyn's house with shear being on.

John checking something out on Debbie's garage header.

Toby did a great job supervising us these last two weeks. It will be great to have Facio back next weekend, hopefully with both of them out there we can make a lot progress.

One side benefit from building our house is that I have become more flexible and am in better shape. I never thought I could walk on 1 1/2" boards 8 ft in the air with confidence, let alone go from the standing on the truss shear to climbing into the trusses squatting down to walk under shear board, climb over truss boards to then climb back up the trusses to get back on top of the shear. This is what we did Sunday.

One of thing I struggle with right now is wanting to get in our house NOW. Most of the group wants to get into our homes by January of next year, yet we have so many hard things that still that needs to be done. I just have to keep reminding myself that God is sovereign over this too. He has given us supervisors to guide and teach us and I need to just listen to them and work hard at whatever task they assign me. The house will be finished. It probably won't be done when I want it done, but it will be done the day God has planned.

Jeremiah 29:11

¹¹For I know the plans that I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Trust in the Lord with all your heart And do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.

Proverbs 16:9

⁹The mind of man plans his way,
But the Lord directs his steps.

Prayer Requests:

1) Wisdom for Facio and Toby on supervising us: assign jobs and how to teach us
2) We learn our new jobs and do this accurately and complete them.
3) Safety as more of us our working up high on the roofs.

Home Ownership Program

We are doing a program through a organization that has been building homes in our area for 40 years. The program is designed to help lower income families buy homes. There will be a total of 24 homes built. The homes are divided into two groups. We are in the first group of twelve families. We work together to build all twelve families' homes. By the end of the process we will know our new neighbors very well. We are required to work 40 hours a week, split between two people. We do most of our work on the weekends. There is a contractor working with us to teach us how to build a home. We can not move in until all twelve homes are complete. It usually take one year to build twelve homes. We don't do plumbing, electrical, drywall, or stucco. We are the labor. The labor is our down payment down, sweat equity.

Deena and the Boys

Hi, I am Deena. I have four awesome young men (21, 19, 17, and 12). We have always wanted a home of our own. The place we are in was supposed to be temporary housing sixteen years ago. Now God is giving us a new adventure. We are going to build our own home and eleven others with our new neighbors. And God blesses us with neighbors who we already know! Jacob is my co-builder and my two teenagers will be helping as much as they can. God is always providing
for me when I least expect it. He is so amazing.

Where did this journey start?

For me, Tricia, this journey began with me wanting to own a home and God using this desire to grow my faith and dependence on Him. I have been trying to buy a home for 6 years with my husband, John. We tried many times to buy a home, but God always said no. A year ago, we finally decided to stop our search and learn to be content where God has us. God had different plans for us. In August, we applied for a self-help housing project. In October, we were accepted. I then told our neighbor (for 7 years) and friend Debbie. She applied and was accepted. In January, I told Deena a friend from church. She applied and was accepted. These homes are such a blessing. We sit in awe of what God has given us. We are excited to get started on the homes. God is our strong tower. He will give us the strength to build these homes.