Welcome to "I have good news and I have bad news" Friday!

Most people want the bad news first to get it out of the way and end on a positive note, soooo, here we go.

First, to give you an overall status check on the project after a week, all the prep work is complete and we are ready to begin siding. It has taken us longer than anticipated, but I guess that always happens. The crews each day have worked hard and I'm thankful for their enduring the weather... wet, wet, wet at the beginning and hot, hot, hot here the past several days! Y'all are the best!

O.k., you will notice from one of the photos that our work was 'disapproved' today by the building inspector. Seems like he didn't like our nailing pattern on one portion of one side of the house. It wasn't a big deal to us, all we needed to do was to pick up the nail gun and add some nails, which honestly we had forgotten. While we are to submit to our governmental authorities, it was frustrating that a small section forces us now to wait until Monday to have it reinspected to make sure we added enough nails! He did allow us to work on the front of the house and to begin putting up the lap siding; and we will tomorrow! We move on..........

Russell and Joan rejoined the 5 amigos of Ed, Mark, Byron, Ron, and me so we had a good group working today. Carol's Catering, Deli and Grille provided sloppy joes for lunch; with drinks and chips and gooey fudge brownies for dessert!

Take a look at the photos and you can tell how hot it was today. Mark discovered that pouring the cold water from the cooler over our heads felt tremendous, and was effective at cooling us off. We might have to have 2 coolers tomorrow; one to drink from and one to 'shower' with! You'll also notice that I found a job I liked... it was in the shade and I could wield the nail gun while lying down. Neat! Too bad there's no more of that to do!

Our superintendent, Ed, made a very un-superintendent-like mistake today. As he was changing blades on his table saw, getting ready to cut the Hardi boards, Russell said, "Is that the way that blade turns or are you going to cut it with the blade on backwards?" Ummm, Ed, how 'bout it? Which is better?!!!

Now for the good news. Byron asked to share a word of testimony regarding our work this past week. It was better when he said it but I'm going to try and share his good sentiments with you. As a real estate broker in these economic times, his work has been, should we say, challenging. He had been working with a client since April and everything had fallen through and it looked as if they were at the end of the road and had parted ways, from an agreement perspective. He put it away, and then this past Wednesday he got a call (while working with us on the house). (And speaking of getting a call, Byron lives with his Bluetooth ear piece in his ear and this post's photo of him in the trailer pointing to his ear is him indicating to me that he was on the phone. At least the trailer was shady and he was sort of away from all the noise we were making.) 'Out of the blue' both of these parties that were involved got together with a positive outcome. The same thing happened again the next day (which was just yesterday) with a client with whom he had been working since January! Byron's testimony was that maybe God was telling him that when he/we put our focus on others, we in turn are blessed... sometimes in tangible ways like these business successes and other times at later dates and in less tangible ways. We are told to be obedient and to 'feed my sheep' and not worry about tomorrow or from where our sustenance will come. God will provide. God is good!

Well, tomorrow is the last scheduled day for our ministry project. We obviously aren't finished but we will have to schedule from week to week from here on. If you are still able to help and would like to know when we will be working, please let us know and offer to let us call or e-mail you with dates and times. Keep checking in here and I'll give the blow-by-blow report.

'When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?' "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' --Matthew 25:39-40