A Fun and Busy Saturday!!

Well, around here our Saturdays are anything but lazy and this one was no different. Saturdays are usually and big work day for us because that is when a lot of local volunteers come and help. Yesterday we finished tearing out all of the damaged drywall and bleached all of the mold in Ms. Cheryl's house. Cheryl is one of the sweetest people you will ever meet. She has been right there working with us the past two Saturdays and it has really been a joy getting to know her!! She now lives in Los Angeles, but we are working to get her old home into a state where it can be clean and ready to sell (or rebuild if she chooses to come back.)

The volunteers I worked with yesterday were great!! They really made it easy for me as the crew leader. I'm still getting used to telling others what to do. There's a fine line between being a strong, in-control leader and being an arrogant leader. I'm still learning but what I'm realizing is that I must always keep my ears open and be listening to the feedback from my crew. Oftentimes they have ideas of how to do something better than I thought of, and being a good leader requires listening to those suggestions and not just doing things my way because I'm the boss. Sometimes there are multiple people telling you what you should do, and the most difficult thing I've found so far is just making a firm decision. For those of you who know me well, you know that decisions can be difficult for me. Being a crew leader is helping me to get over that; there's really no other option if I want to be a good crew leader!!



Last night was my housemate Luke's birthday celebration. We went to the Mosquito Cafe just down the street where our household is considered regulars. We enjoyed a delicious dinner and wine (from Paso Robles of all places!!). Afterword, we went to the Strand (old downtown area) and checked out some art at the "Art Walk" festival that was going on. Some of that stuff was expensive!! It was like 100 bucks for a bowl carved out of wood!! They were pretty neat though . . . a lot of the art was carved out of trees that were killed during Hurricane Ike. The salt water that flooded the island killed most of their old oak trees. Apparently, Galveston used to have tree-lined streets, but now its bear. There is an organization that is going around and re-planting trees. It's a sign of hope I believe. A lot of people left after the storm and didn't want to come back . . . didn't want to have to go through all of the rebuilding with the chance of another hurricane wiping them out. So they left, they gave up on Galveston. The people that decided to stay though . . . they are a tight-knit community. I believe that when you go through something as devastating as Hurricane Ike with your community, you can't help but be drawn closer to them as you help each other get through the struggles. It's been really cool to see how the people have responded to help each other. That's what it's all about!! The sermon today in church was about Jesus telling Peter to "Feed my sheep." That's what God is calling us to do, to love and take care of each other and the Galveston community is a great example of that!

This is a picture of Grace Episcopal Church in Galveston. Gotta love the red doors, true to the Episcopal tradition! It's been a very welcoming place and I immediately felt at home there. I met an old fella named Chris last week and I sat with him today. He is a native Galvestonian but is actually a big Husker fan!! (He got his master's degree from UNL).



This is a picture of all of the housemates (minus Maggie because she is in Maryland right now.) A pretty stylish group wouldn't you say? haha

We took this in an antique shop we visited last night. Needless to say, we had a lot of fun dressing up in those old clothes!

A little more about the people I work with

So last night we had a little dinner party with all the coworkers and our fearless leader Maggie's parents at our house. They are from Wisconsin and cooked us some delicious fish!

Alison is on the far left of the top picture. She is one of the construction interns (like me) and has a been to several countries. She is Colombian and can speak Spanish fluently. She went to school in Columbia and served in Africa for two years in the Peace Corps.

Maggie's mom is in the chair. She is a very sweet woman and one heck of a cook!

Playing the guitar is Carolyn. She works in the office as a disaster preparedness coordinator so that people are ready for storms like Hurricane Ike before they actually hit.

Luke, on the right of the second picture, is our volunteer coordinator (schedules the volunteers to come in). He is a Baylor graduate and an avid sports fan. He has done some freelance writing and covered the Baylor woman's basketball team.






On the bottom picture:
To the very far left on the couch is the "boss" Gary. He's the one I feel like I've got to earn his respect . . . He's a good guy and I feel like I know him a lot better after last nights party. He's a good guitarist and he writes songs for pretty much every volunteer group that comes in.

Next to Gary on the couch is Jim a.k.a. Jimbobwae. He is a volunteer and has quite a sense of humor (as does pretty much the whole group, we had quite a few laughs last night.)

The young woman in the blue shirt is Nikki. She is also a construction intern. She is a graduate from North Carolina in English but is very interested in being a city planner.

Somehow Maggie didn't make it into any of these pictures. She is kind of the leader of the whole operation. She is very knowledgeable in relief work and did a lot of it in New Orleans. She works in the office and corresponds with all of us and the Diocese of Texas. She also chooses which houses we work on and corresponds with the homeowners.

A little more about Galveston

So this is the house I live in. It's an old Victorian style home. It's huge!! Two stories and a walk in crawl space underneath where we store all of our tools. Yes, I live on Winnie St. Like Winnie the Pooh!! There are a lot of homes like ours on the island.

Below is more homes and buildings on the island. Interesting fact, Galveston was actually the largest city in Texas before the big hurricane in 1900.

The church picture is an ELCA Lutheran Church on our street. Galveston has a ton of churches!! There are three Episcopal churches alone on the island!

The picture of the brick building shows the water level during Hurricane Ike. It was a devastating storm not so much because of the magnitude of the winds (only a level 2 out of 5) but because it was so large. The storm surge was very large and actually flooded Galveston from the bay side and not the gulf side (where there is a sea wall).

Criticism a good thing?

Thank God for answered prayers!! This week has been a complete turnaround from last week!! I don't think much has changed except the way I'm approaching my work and coworkers. I'm relying on God more to keep me humble when dealing with the very opinionated and critical people I am working with. Criticism has always been very difficult for me to take, but when I realize that it's not so much about me and glorifying myself, but rather glorifying God, criticism is really not so bad. It's actually been good! I'll explain . . .

The past couple of days I've been working with a master carpenter named Terry, helping him to build a landing with steps outside of his door (all of the houses are on raised foundations down here because of the tendency for flooding during hurricanes). Terry is a very gifted and experienced finish carpenter but has all kinds of skills including: being a civil engineer (oh yeah!), a great motorcycle rider, and a professional harmonica player!! Sadly, Hurricane Ike not only severely damaged Terry's home but also took one of his legs (due to gangrene). Unfortunately, the poor man's wife just passed away about a week ago as well. Please keep him in your prayers. So a little more about Terry: He's the biggest perfectionist you'll ever meet! Where most people talk in feet and inches, this guy talks in 32th's of an inch!! So here I am, with a just a little bit of carpentry experience trying to build something for a perfectionist carpenter with 30-plus years of experience. It was humbling to say the least. I've probably had what I did criticized more the past 2 days working with him than in my whole life!

So why is this good you ask? Well, I've also probably learned more about carpentry the past two days working with him than I have in my whole life. The whole way he goes about his work amazes me! The attention to detail, the way he plans out the project, etc. was completely different than the way I was used to doing things. So once I shelved my pride and fear of criticism, I discovered that criticism maybe wasn't such a bad thing . . . if nothing else it made me tougher-skinned. There will always be criticism out there, as much as one may try to avoid it. I think I learned that if you don't take it quite so personally, you can learn a lot from it!! Sometimes its good to have a reminder that I'm not perfect and don't have it all figured out. How boring would life be if that was true?

Here's the progression. I will post more pictures when it is completely finished, which should be by tomorrow. Note that those aren't the actual steps in the picture on the right, just temporary ones. This is one well-built little landing area. I'm proud to say that I helped with it! :-)

What a week!

Wow, my first full week working here in Galveston has been an eventful one! A group from a town near Seattle, Washington came in for the week. They were a friendly, hardworking group. I enjoyed getting to know all of them, especially Mike, Darrell, Jack and Galen. Jack and Galen had been all over the world doing volunteer and missionary work so I was trying to be like a sponge to soak in everything they were telling me. Jack spent some time in Bolivia which is where I'm heading in June with the Methodist college group from San Luis Obispo. I'm really looking forward to that!

I really learned a lot about myself this week. Being in a totally new place has been a more difficult adjustment than I anticipated. To put it simply, I learned that sometimes people don't respect you . . . initially at least. Sometimes you have to earn people's respect and I guess I'm just not used to that. I've always felt that my input is respected, that's just the way I've been raised. I came to Galveston on the heels of one of my biggest accomplishments, graduating with a civil engineering degree from Cal Poly. I gotta admit, I was a little puffed up, thinking I'm Mr. College Grad know-it-all. Well, I've learned this week that the people I'm working with don't really care about that . . . and that I've got a lot to learn. I learned this week that I've got to earn that respect from my boss and coworkers.

So here I am, ready to start the new week, but with a totally different perspective that I had at the start of last week. It's been humbling but I definitely needed it! Thanks be to God for situations like this! It really reminded me of what my purpose is here. It's not to show off how much I know, it's not about me at all!! It's about humbly serving God however I can. It's about sharing the joy that Christ gives me with others. Sometimes it takes situations like this past week for me to remember that.

I finally made it to Texas!

I made it to Texas and had my first day of work on Thursday. It's been a jam-packed week. After driving over 1500 miles by myself and living out of my car for 3 days I was very thankful to have a comfortable bed to sleep in . . . oh and taking a shower was really nice too! This week has definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone which I believe is a good thing. I found myself relying on God more, praying for guidance and that I might make it safely across the vast state of Texas! Random fact: The speed limit over here on some roads is 80 mph!!

After having a great lunch with some of my relatives in Houston on Wednesday, I arrived in Galveston on Wednesday evening and was greeted by my new roommates and coworkers: Maggie, Luke, Alison, Nikki and Carolyn. They are a tight-knit bunch, and I feel like I have been welcome into their community very graciously. I am so thankful for that! I will keep you updated with more soon!