This morning I woke up and wanted to make the absolute most out of my day today. My last day at the Sicangu Nations Landscaping Enterprise is tomorrow, so I was so excited with what God was going to do with my day today.
I ate breakfast-- a peanut butter sandwich-- and started my devotions. Since I finished Acts yesterday and enjoyed reading about Paul so much, I decided I would start Romans today. I read the first chapter, then headed out to work.
When I got to work, the first thing I noticed was Percy walking into the office. That was pretty crazy. I wasn't very confident that he would be coming back into work after 4 days of absence. It's cool though, because he does really good work and he's a hard worker, so it was nice having him back in the office building picnic tables and whatnot.
I sat down in the office, and as people started to show up, Nixon started going over the jobs we needed to get started on and where he wanted our crews today. Our two big focuses were still the Rosebud Pow-Wow Grounds and the fence job in Mission. So it was decided that David would go out to the Pow-Wow grounds to finish tilling the arena; Ernie and Kels would go to do an estimate; Marky would take some youth workers to mow; and R.J., Fergie, and I would go to Mission to finish up that fence.
We left almost immediately for the fence project, but when we got out there, we realized we left a lot of stuff in the other truck, when we switched trucks with Ernie. This was really unfortunate. Ultimately, we legitimately couldn't continue work on the project because we didn't have a string line to make sure everything was being set up straight. We called Nixon to ask him a couple questions and he said he needed us to come back, so we did.
When we got back, we picked him up and grabbed all of the tools we needed, except for the string line. That was still in the other truck. Since we really needed that string line, we met up with Ernie and Kels to grab the line. Nixon needed to go with Ernie to get gas for David at the Pow-Wow grounds and go to RBP, while RJ, Fegie, and I went out to the fence, so Kels jumped in with us to help us out. Oh and we couldn't find the string line.
Again, since the string line was integral to our project, we too had to stop at RBP too, but we got there way before Nixon did. We found string line and fence pliers (we needed those too), but I knew we had a pair of fence plier, because I was there when they were purchased. We called Nixon to see if he could check around the truck for the pliers, and he told us that he had found the string line, but couldn't find the pliers. We bought the pliers then waited at RBP for Nixon to show up.
It took a while, but Nixon finally showed up. He had some bad news about an accident that had happened on one of our projects and he said that the bosses were angry. They almost called a mandatory meeting for us, but since there was admin leave for the day so everyone could go vote, they left it alone until tomorrow.
We ended up discussing the bad news for a while, then we got the string and headed out. When I got back to the fence site, Jonny and Greg were they to check out what kind of work I had been doing, because they had never seen one of my fence projects before. It was good to see them. We chatted for a few minutes then they took off.
Since we had some pretty crazy delays, we only ended up working on the fence for a couple hours that afternoon. We strung the line, dug the last two corner post holes, put in the smaller wall posts (these alternated between steel and wood), then we leveled everything off, filled them in and called it a day.
We got back to the office around 3pm, and most everyone was ready to take off for admin leave, but Nixon was worried about the Pow-Wow grounds. He didn't want to have the work we did tilling wasted by waiting too long to lay the seed, so we loaded up equipment and headed out there.
When we got there, we realized we should probably get a landscaping rake attachment for our tractor that we were renting, because raking the entire arena by hand would not be very enjoyable. Plus it would a waste of the little time we had left in the day. We tried to call Ernie and David and have them go pick up the other attachment, but the trailer we were using had a flat and Nixon didn't think it would be too big of a deal to wait until tomorrow to finish this up.
We all met back at the office and talked about a game plan for tomorrow. We wanted to get out to the grounds as early as possible, so Ernie said we should all get to the office by 7, then we can pick up the new attachment and get out to the grounds by 8ish. Nixon agreed, so that was that.
I got back to the house around 5:30pm, ate something for dinner, then decided to try to get some more of my blog written. I knew I had to wake up super early and I was super exhausted already, so I ended up going to bed around 11pm. That is the earliest I have been to bed in a very long time. I guess all this landscaping has finally caught up to me.
Thank you for taking the time to read through this blog and support me in my ministry!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Kels loves to dig holes. He hates carpentry.
2. If you're going to till the ground to get ready for seeding, you need to seed within 24hrs of the tilling.
3. Romans 1
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Let's Dig Some Holes/ Day 52
Today was going to be a good day. I wasn't entirely sure how my day was going to go today, but I did know (for sure this time) that I was not going back to the shed. We were done. And it was a wonderful feeling. Now we can finally get moving on the other projects we have fallen behind on.
I woke up, ate breakfast, did my devos, and was at the office by 8am. When I got there, we sat around for a while discussing the jobs we needed to do and how Nixon wanted to split us up for the day. We had two major jobs that needed to be started. First we needed to work on the pow wow grounds to get them ready for new grass, and second we had a fence project that needed to get started in Mission.
Nixon decided to split us up into a couple different groups today. Some of us were to focus on the pow wow grounds for the first half of the day, then go out to Mission to start that fence, and the other half of us were going to the new jail.
Marky, some youth workers, and I were on the crew that was supposed to go to the pow wow grounds then start that fence, so we loaded up and headed out there. This time around, we had a tiller that we were going to use for the patches of weeds, which were still going to be difficult to pick out from the grass, but at least we had a machine instead of hoes and shovels.
We spent a couple hours out at the pow wow grounds. I primarily mowed the entire arena so that the tiller wouldn't get tangled up in weeds and such, while David worked the tiller and the other two youth workers switched off on the other lawn mower.
At 11am, we had finished mowing and finished two patches with the tiller, so we decided to head back and talk to Nixon about getting some equipment to start those fences. Last week he had talked about renting a Bob Cat and an auger attachment that we could use to dig those fence post holes really quickly. When we got back I talked to him about that, and he said to give him until 12pm and he would let us know what we were able to do.
We ran an errand, then Nixon told us to just go out to the fence with the manual tools and start the project. I really didn't have a problem starting the project by hand. I was actually looking forward to digging a couple holes and building a fence again. Back to the basics.
After we got into Mission, we stopped at RBP quick to grab an extra post hole digger, and a tape measure. I had fallen asleep somewhere in between the office and RBP, so I remember I was rudely awakened by a youth worker at this point. That was funny.
We finally made it out to the fence site around 1:30pm or so, and we started work on the fence. Yesterday, we had already dropped off the materials, but nothing else had been done up to this point. Most importantly for today, we needed to get the corner posts put up around the yard. We needed to dig 10 holes altogether for these posts, but we only made it through a couple posts before we had to leave again.
One of the youth workers that was working with us today had to go to some sort of meeting this morning, so he needed to be picked up from the office again around 2pm. We had just gotten started on the fence and we had to leave again, but I was pretty confident that we would be able to finish all of the corner posts by the end of the day.
When we got back to the site, after picking up the youth worker, we hammered out 8 fence posts before the end of the day. We had to dig a 2 1/2 ft hole with a post hole digger, put the post in, level the post, and fill it with dirt to make it solid, so it was actually pretty impressive that Marky and I were able to almost completely finish that up in the little time that we had left in the day.
We all got off around 5, and I headed home because we had a team dinner and team discussion tonight. When I got home, Laura was just starting dinner. We were having tacos, which was pretty exciting, because that is one of my favorite foods!
After dinner, we had our final discussion as an intern community about a reading that had to do with the upward mobility of our society, and the downward mobility focus of Christ. It was a super interesting reading and a great last discussion together!
When we had finished our discussion, Jonny headed out to SF, and I stayed behind to catch up on my blogs. I actually made it through three blog posts, which was super impressive for me because I get really bored of writing really quickly. I was pretty happy with my progress!
As soon I was finished with my blog posts, I decided it was time to hit the hay.
Thank you, again, for reading these posts and supporting me in my ministry out here!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. I would build a fence over a shed any day. I appreciate jobs that don't require angles and constant chopping to complete.
2. I really, really admire Jonny for his love for the children of SF and his ability to spend every spare second with them. What an awesome guy!
3. Acts 28 (I finished Acts today!)
Thursday, July 26, 2012
I Hope I Never See This Shed Again/ Day 51
For a while, it was pretty cool that I was helping in the construction of a 16 x 16 ft shed. Despite the frustrations and random issues we had, I was still hoping that I was learning something. Unfortunately, those feelings slowly wore off after 2 1/2 weeks on the job. I hope I never see this shed again.
I woke up and went through my morning routine. I got to work and was on the verge of praying that we wouldn't get sent out to that shed again. Percy didn't show up to work for the third day in a row now, so that left us to continue to screw around with these doors.
The entire process was frustrating, and the facts that led up to us having to put the doors on ourselves was even more frustrating. And the worst part was the fact that we were getting more and more behind on other projects while we continued to run into issues with this one.
I don't remember what time we actually got out to the shed today, but when we got there, we really didn't know where to start. The home owner came out while we were trying to figure out what to do with those doors, and started questioning us asking where Percy was and whether or not we knew what we were doing. We really didn't know, but we assured him that we would take care of his doors, since Percy neglected to show up for the past couple days.
He left us feeling satisfied, I think. Then we spent the next couple hours working on getting the doors to fit together. We stripped everything and focused on the frames of the doors, but there was too much uncertainty and not enough motivation to make this work. We were feeling pretty hopeless.
We decided we needed to head back to the office to talk to Nixon about those doors and tell him that we needed more material and we needed percy, because we really didn't understand Percy's vision for those doors.
When we got to the office, Nixon wasn't there, so Ernie encouraged us to grab what we needed and get back out there to finish the job. I really respected him for that, because he was just as lost as I was, but he was still willing to jump back on his feet and try to figure this thing out!
After we got back out to the shed, I knew there was going to be an easy way to do this and a hard way to do this. Most of my time on the shed job had consisted of doing something one way, hoping it worked, then starting from square one again if it didn't work. I didn't have the patience to work that way anymore, so I started talking to Ernie about what needed to happen and how we should go about making those things happen.
At first this was super difficult, because we were coming from two different points of view and it was really hard for me to get him to understand what I was trying to say. More importantly it was hard for me to get him to do what I knew would be the most efficient thing possible at this point.
It was slow going, but I was able to explain all of the reasons we needed to do everything in a particular way, and we were finally able to see eye to eye. Towards the end of our building the doors, I would just say we needed to do so and so next and he would say "Okay cool. What's next after that?" This was pretty sweet for me. It was cool that we had communicated so well, and that my ideas were working so well that he respected me enough to listen to my opinion towards the end of that construction process.
After we were done with those doors, it was almost 4pm and since it was so hot outside, we just went back to the office about to call it a day. It had been a good day after all. We had finished building both doors, gotten them to fit, and hung both doors. Pretty awesome.
When I got home, Emily J. and the interns were just about to the leave for our friend Melony's house because she had invited us over for dinner and a movie. I changed quick then went with them, and I'm glad I did! Melony went all out on our dinner. We had pork and chicken, noodle salad, fruit salad, chips, vegetables, and some sort of juice and she prepared all of this for us! It was absolutely delicious!!
I wanted to be able to stay for the movie that night, but I ended up going back to Mission with Greg and Kelly because I had to be up early the next morning, I didn't want to sleep through my alarm again, and I really had some stuff that needed to get done before the morning.
I got back and started working through everything I had to get done, Jonny put in Rambo, and I ended up making it to bed at a decent time. The rest of the interns got back around midnight, so I was really happy that I made the decision to come back before we had started the movie.
That's about it! Thank you so much for all of your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Communicating with somebody to the point where they can respect your thoughts on a particular subject is super hard, but entirely worth while if you can do it correctly.
2. Melony is a super good cook!
3. Acts 26-27
I woke up and went through my morning routine. I got to work and was on the verge of praying that we wouldn't get sent out to that shed again. Percy didn't show up to work for the third day in a row now, so that left us to continue to screw around with these doors.
The entire process was frustrating, and the facts that led up to us having to put the doors on ourselves was even more frustrating. And the worst part was the fact that we were getting more and more behind on other projects while we continued to run into issues with this one.
I don't remember what time we actually got out to the shed today, but when we got there, we really didn't know where to start. The home owner came out while we were trying to figure out what to do with those doors, and started questioning us asking where Percy was and whether or not we knew what we were doing. We really didn't know, but we assured him that we would take care of his doors, since Percy neglected to show up for the past couple days.
He left us feeling satisfied, I think. Then we spent the next couple hours working on getting the doors to fit together. We stripped everything and focused on the frames of the doors, but there was too much uncertainty and not enough motivation to make this work. We were feeling pretty hopeless.
We decided we needed to head back to the office to talk to Nixon about those doors and tell him that we needed more material and we needed percy, because we really didn't understand Percy's vision for those doors.
When we got to the office, Nixon wasn't there, so Ernie encouraged us to grab what we needed and get back out there to finish the job. I really respected him for that, because he was just as lost as I was, but he was still willing to jump back on his feet and try to figure this thing out!
After we got back out to the shed, I knew there was going to be an easy way to do this and a hard way to do this. Most of my time on the shed job had consisted of doing something one way, hoping it worked, then starting from square one again if it didn't work. I didn't have the patience to work that way anymore, so I started talking to Ernie about what needed to happen and how we should go about making those things happen.
At first this was super difficult, because we were coming from two different points of view and it was really hard for me to get him to understand what I was trying to say. More importantly it was hard for me to get him to do what I knew would be the most efficient thing possible at this point.
It was slow going, but I was able to explain all of the reasons we needed to do everything in a particular way, and we were finally able to see eye to eye. Towards the end of our building the doors, I would just say we needed to do so and so next and he would say "Okay cool. What's next after that?" This was pretty sweet for me. It was cool that we had communicated so well, and that my ideas were working so well that he respected me enough to listen to my opinion towards the end of that construction process.
After we were done with those doors, it was almost 4pm and since it was so hot outside, we just went back to the office about to call it a day. It had been a good day after all. We had finished building both doors, gotten them to fit, and hung both doors. Pretty awesome.
When I got home, Emily J. and the interns were just about to the leave for our friend Melony's house because she had invited us over for dinner and a movie. I changed quick then went with them, and I'm glad I did! Melony went all out on our dinner. We had pork and chicken, noodle salad, fruit salad, chips, vegetables, and some sort of juice and she prepared all of this for us! It was absolutely delicious!!
I wanted to be able to stay for the movie that night, but I ended up going back to Mission with Greg and Kelly because I had to be up early the next morning, I didn't want to sleep through my alarm again, and I really had some stuff that needed to get done before the morning.
I got back and started working through everything I had to get done, Jonny put in Rambo, and I ended up making it to bed at a decent time. The rest of the interns got back around midnight, so I was really happy that I made the decision to come back before we had started the movie.
That's about it! Thank you so much for all of your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Communicating with somebody to the point where they can respect your thoughts on a particular subject is super hard, but entirely worth while if you can do it correctly.
2. Melony is a super good cook!
3. Acts 26-27
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Building Doors/ Day 50
I woke up this morning wishing I had more time to sleep. That's not unusual these days, but it's kind of a weird feeling to have, because I remember being super excited last night when I was thinking about getting up and going to work with my crew.
Despite the fact that I longed for more sleep, I didn't wake up late. I was up, done with breakfast and my devotions, and at work by a little after 8am. The funny thing about this morning was that the parking lot was almost empty when I pulled in. Not a single guy from my crew had showed up, aside from a youth worker, David and my boss Nixon. The rest of the admin staff wasn't even there. Weirdest thing.
Since Nixson was there, he got us working right away on moving some wood and reorganizing some of the wood we had because it was pretty badly warped. We probably did that for about an hour, before some other guys from the crew started showing up.
The other funny thing about today was the fact that I thought our shed project was done, and that Percy would go out there to touch up whatever needed to be touched up. Well it turns out that Percy didn't even show up to work that morning and he still had all of our tools in his car. This meant we had to go find him and get our tools back.
We spent probably a good hour and a half looking for Percy, loading up our tools, and getting back to the office, which was kind of annoying, because we had better things to be doing, than driving out to Spring Creek when he should have been at work with our tools. After we got back, our day got a little more annoying.
Since Percy wasn't coming in to work and that shed still needed doors, it was now our job to get out there and put those doors up. I really didn't want to deal with this, because on Friday, the crew had tried to hang the doors but the frame wasn't exactly square so the two doors Percy had made wouldn't even fit. Now it was our turn to try to measure out and cut door frames to match the crooked shed frame. I really wasn't sure if I could handle all of this.
The nice thing about our day at the shed was that some other little things needed to be done to the shed to make it look nicer, so while the boys worked on the shed doors, I got to work on the other stuff. I had to pull down the flashing that we had put up the week before and replace it with wider cuts to cover up the soffits, then I had to replace some of the trim on one of the corners because two different lengths had been cut and it didn't look good.
It actually took me a while to finish all of those things, and it was getting hot out, so by the time I was done, we were just about ready to head back to the office. The boys had worked on the doors all day long, but they just couldn't figure out what the problem was or how to fix the doors to make them fit. I guess we'll have to look at it tomorrow!
After work, I came back to work on my blog a little bit, and have some dinner. Then Jonny and I went out to SF to see Susie, Echo, and Keoni. When we got there, we stopped at Susie's house first, which was so cool because I haven't seen her for a while and I really have missed talking with her! She was super excited to see us and the first thing she said was "I missed you guys!" Super cute.
We stood outside her house and talked for about an hour or so, then a couple guys came up and started talking to Jonny about how much they wanted to start a basketball or softball tournament. The conversation was a little less awkward than I made it sound, but I came in in the middle of them talking. He seemed like a pretty cool guy and he seemed to really care about his community and their involvement in activities going on the SF. I respect that.
Jonny and this guy talked for a while, then they asked if they could get a ride down the street to Out West. I didn't care and Jonny was cool with driving out there so we took them out there real quick. It turned out they wanted us to pick up one of the buddies, which I didn't realize, but I was totally cool with because on the way back into town, Jonny and I had the opportunity to talk to these guys about why we're out here doing what we're doing. We live for Jesus, and that's basically what we told them. I didn't get a lot of feed back from them, but they thought we were cool enough to shake our hands after we drove them around.
We were going to stay in town at this point, but we hadn't realized how late it had gotten so we decided to go check out Out West before it got too much later. When we got Out West we stopped at Eric and Romero's house, before heading over to Echo and Keoni's place.
Jonny and I had a ton of fun Out West. Romero was pretty chill, but Echo and Keoni were all wired up! I don't know what it was, but they never stopped running and Jonny and I could barely keep up. It was so good though. I love those kids!
When we got back, I sat down to try to work on my blog some more, but I ended up falling asleep where I was sitting, and trying to get back up to move to my bed was absolutely miserable. I wouldn't recommend falling asleep in anything other than your bed.
That's that! Thank you so much for all of your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Sometimes you have to fix a problem that somebody else caused, and it is in those moments that it is so important to remember to be Christ like.
2. Pretending to drive to Chicago can be a blast when you're with Echo and Keoni.
3. Acts 25
Adventures/ Day 48-49
This is going to be a two-day post, because Jonny, Greg, and I spent the weekend together doing a bunch of crazy stuff, so it really doesn't make sense to split these blog posts up. Here we go.
Since we already had inner tubes and we had already spent money to patch the tubes and do other general maintenance, Greg, Jonny, and I decided that it was absolutely necessary that we tube on the Niobrara again.
I was going to wake up early that morning to do some dishes that I promised Laura I would do the night before, but I ended up waking up only a half hour before I was supposed to be ready to leave Mission. Greg got here at 10am, but I didn't get done with the dishes until around 10:30am.
When I was finally done with the dishes, we rushed to get some water and snacks together before we headed for Valentine. We got into Valentine, and we decided to hit up McDonalds for lunch. I know it's gross to some people, but I love McDonalds so much. It was already a good day for me!
While we were at McDonalds, Greg opened a door and Jonny was looking back at me and giving me attitude, so he ended up running straight into the door. That was pretty entertaining. Also a random elderly lady stopped Jonny and told him that he reminded her of her grandson from back home. That was kind of sad because she said she gets homesick sometimes, but it was kind of funny because Jonny always seems to get stopped by random people in Valentine. Random side notes, but they make wonderful memories.
After McDonalds, we ran across the street to fill up the inner tubes with air from Casey's, and get gas. Then we headed out to the river! I was following Jonny and Greg on the way out, and between the two of them, they decided to try to take a short cut. It wasn't a short cut, and we had to turn around.
We got on the right road to head out to the river, but instead of going to Berry Bridge where we usually go, we decided to go to Fort Niobrara and start our trip there. By looking at the map, we figured our trip from Fort Niobrara to Berry Bridge would be about the same length as our past trips that started at Berry Bridge. It was uncharted territory, but we were ready for the challenge!
When we got on the river, everything was sweet! We got on right after the dam, so the current was solid and the depth of the river was pretty decent. Overall we really enjoyed our time on the river! It turned out that our estimates were a little off, and we ended up spending about 5 or 6hrs on the river.
Despite the unexpected length of time we had to spend on the river to reach our end point, we spent the day having conversations about a million different things, laughing together, and watching a fire that had started in the Niobrara Canyon (which was miles away from us but we could see the smoke). Basically we had a blast!
After getting off the river, we decided we wanted to do something crazy. A lot of debate ensued regarding what kind of crazy things we should do, but we finally settled on making a trip up to Rapid for the weekend. This will probably go down in the books as one of the most spur of the moment things I've ever done. I'm stoked.
Jonny and I stopped by our house quick to change and pack some clothes and water and stuff, then we headed up to Greg's to unpack the tubes and repack his stuff. We had water, a tent, sleeping bags, our Bibles, and that was just about it. Time to head to Rapid!
It was probably around 9pm when we left for Rapid, so we were planning on driving through part of the night and getting there around midnight, hopefully sooner. What was cool was that we had forgotten about the time difference in Rapid, so we actually got there an hour ahead of time! Boom.
When we got there, we hit up Applebees for half priced apps. Unfortunately, they don't do that on the weekends, but food was super satisfying nonetheless! We hadn't really eaten since McDonalds and it was midnight our time.
After Applebees, we needed a place to sleep. We half-heartedly considered a hotel, but we decided against that and hit up a KOA. We set up our tent in like 10min flat (like rockstars), and we were in bed and sleeping in the next five. We wanted to be up early so that we could make the most of our day in Rapid.
We ended up getting out of bed around 6:45am Mountain Time, and we quickly packed up our tent so we could get a start on our day! After a quick stop for gas, we started driving straight for Mount Rushmore. I've been to SD, specifically on the rez (like two and a half hours away from Mount Rushmore) at least once a year for the past five years and I haven't once seen Mt. Rushmore. Needless to say, I was SO excited to actually see this national monument for the first time in my life!
When we got there, the monument was even cooler than the pictures make it out to be! It was pretty majestic driving around the monument and seeing the faces turn as we drove the curve around the mountain. So fantastic!
After we stood in awe of the monument for a while, we decided to go hiking for a little bit! Hiking was a lot of fun, especially because there were opportunities to leave the trails at different point in time and climb up rocks and stuff.
We hiked for about an hour, then we decided to go find the Crazy Horse monument. When we got there, we didn't have enough cash to get through the gates, but we were able to see the monument and the markings of the planned work from where we were, so that was pretty sweet!
On the way back from the Crazy Horse monument, we saw a antiques shop on the side of the road, so we stopped to check it out for a little bit. We met the owner-- a very crazy old man, who isn't afraid to say what's on his mind-- so that was interesting. We found a couple cool little things, and Greg found a free golf ball collector, but other than that we didn't leave with anything more than we came with.
Instead of going back through Mt. Rushmore to get back to Rapid, we decided to try to go swimming at a lake we had seen a sign for on the way to the Crazy Horse Monument. Unfortunately, after about 15min of driving down a winding road, we found out that the lake was in the middle of a State Park, and we really didn't have the cash for a day pass. Lame.
Although we didn't have enough cash for the pass, we talked to a sweet old lady who let us drive through the Park in order to get back to Rapid city. Driving through the park was incredible. Not only was it a beautiful drive, but we got to a point where there were close to a hundred buffalo crossing the road causing a traffic jam! It sucked because it was hot, but it was amazing to be driving down the road right next to a buffalo!
We made it out after probably an hour, and pulled into Rapid pretty ready to be back in the city. Now that we were back in the city, we wanted to check out Art Alley, which is an Alley in the city where it's actually legal to graffiti and it is absolutely full of spray paint! There was some pretty wicked stuff in there, so it was cool checking that out. And Greg, Jonny, and I left tags of our own before we left. That was a ton of fun!
After our trip to Art Alley, we made our way back towards the highway stopping at Wendy's quick to get something to eat. We hit the highway and made really good time coming back towards the rez. Before we got back to the rez, we stopped in the badlands and had a ton of fun climbing those hills. Then we finished the last half of our trip home.
When we got back, we dropped Greg off at his place, then Jonny and I got back home pretty exhausted from the day. Time for bed.
Thank you so much for reading my blog!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Fort Niobrara to Berry Bridge is quite a bit longer than Berry Bridge to Brewer's Bridge.
2. Tubing down the Niobrara with Greg and Jonny is an absolute blast. So much craziness.
3. No plan? No problem! Sometimes doing something completely rash and spur of the moment is one of the best decisions you can make in life.
4. Mt. Rushmore is so much more beautiful in person, than it is in the pictures.
5. Acts 22-24
Since we already had inner tubes and we had already spent money to patch the tubes and do other general maintenance, Greg, Jonny, and I decided that it was absolutely necessary that we tube on the Niobrara again.
I was going to wake up early that morning to do some dishes that I promised Laura I would do the night before, but I ended up waking up only a half hour before I was supposed to be ready to leave Mission. Greg got here at 10am, but I didn't get done with the dishes until around 10:30am.
When I was finally done with the dishes, we rushed to get some water and snacks together before we headed for Valentine. We got into Valentine, and we decided to hit up McDonalds for lunch. I know it's gross to some people, but I love McDonalds so much. It was already a good day for me!
While we were at McDonalds, Greg opened a door and Jonny was looking back at me and giving me attitude, so he ended up running straight into the door. That was pretty entertaining. Also a random elderly lady stopped Jonny and told him that he reminded her of her grandson from back home. That was kind of sad because she said she gets homesick sometimes, but it was kind of funny because Jonny always seems to get stopped by random people in Valentine. Random side notes, but they make wonderful memories.
After McDonalds, we ran across the street to fill up the inner tubes with air from Casey's, and get gas. Then we headed out to the river! I was following Jonny and Greg on the way out, and between the two of them, they decided to try to take a short cut. It wasn't a short cut, and we had to turn around.
We got on the right road to head out to the river, but instead of going to Berry Bridge where we usually go, we decided to go to Fort Niobrara and start our trip there. By looking at the map, we figured our trip from Fort Niobrara to Berry Bridge would be about the same length as our past trips that started at Berry Bridge. It was uncharted territory, but we were ready for the challenge!
When we got on the river, everything was sweet! We got on right after the dam, so the current was solid and the depth of the river was pretty decent. Overall we really enjoyed our time on the river! It turned out that our estimates were a little off, and we ended up spending about 5 or 6hrs on the river.
Despite the unexpected length of time we had to spend on the river to reach our end point, we spent the day having conversations about a million different things, laughing together, and watching a fire that had started in the Niobrara Canyon (which was miles away from us but we could see the smoke). Basically we had a blast!
After getting off the river, we decided we wanted to do something crazy. A lot of debate ensued regarding what kind of crazy things we should do, but we finally settled on making a trip up to Rapid for the weekend. This will probably go down in the books as one of the most spur of the moment things I've ever done. I'm stoked.
Jonny and I stopped by our house quick to change and pack some clothes and water and stuff, then we headed up to Greg's to unpack the tubes and repack his stuff. We had water, a tent, sleeping bags, our Bibles, and that was just about it. Time to head to Rapid!
It was probably around 9pm when we left for Rapid, so we were planning on driving through part of the night and getting there around midnight, hopefully sooner. What was cool was that we had forgotten about the time difference in Rapid, so we actually got there an hour ahead of time! Boom.
When we got there, we hit up Applebees for half priced apps. Unfortunately, they don't do that on the weekends, but food was super satisfying nonetheless! We hadn't really eaten since McDonalds and it was midnight our time.
After Applebees, we needed a place to sleep. We half-heartedly considered a hotel, but we decided against that and hit up a KOA. We set up our tent in like 10min flat (like rockstars), and we were in bed and sleeping in the next five. We wanted to be up early so that we could make the most of our day in Rapid.
We ended up getting out of bed around 6:45am Mountain Time, and we quickly packed up our tent so we could get a start on our day! After a quick stop for gas, we started driving straight for Mount Rushmore. I've been to SD, specifically on the rez (like two and a half hours away from Mount Rushmore) at least once a year for the past five years and I haven't once seen Mt. Rushmore. Needless to say, I was SO excited to actually see this national monument for the first time in my life!
When we got there, the monument was even cooler than the pictures make it out to be! It was pretty majestic driving around the monument and seeing the faces turn as we drove the curve around the mountain. So fantastic!
After we stood in awe of the monument for a while, we decided to go hiking for a little bit! Hiking was a lot of fun, especially because there were opportunities to leave the trails at different point in time and climb up rocks and stuff.
We hiked for about an hour, then we decided to go find the Crazy Horse monument. When we got there, we didn't have enough cash to get through the gates, but we were able to see the monument and the markings of the planned work from where we were, so that was pretty sweet!
On the way back from the Crazy Horse monument, we saw a antiques shop on the side of the road, so we stopped to check it out for a little bit. We met the owner-- a very crazy old man, who isn't afraid to say what's on his mind-- so that was interesting. We found a couple cool little things, and Greg found a free golf ball collector, but other than that we didn't leave with anything more than we came with.
Instead of going back through Mt. Rushmore to get back to Rapid, we decided to try to go swimming at a lake we had seen a sign for on the way to the Crazy Horse Monument. Unfortunately, after about 15min of driving down a winding road, we found out that the lake was in the middle of a State Park, and we really didn't have the cash for a day pass. Lame.
Although we didn't have enough cash for the pass, we talked to a sweet old lady who let us drive through the Park in order to get back to Rapid city. Driving through the park was incredible. Not only was it a beautiful drive, but we got to a point where there were close to a hundred buffalo crossing the road causing a traffic jam! It sucked because it was hot, but it was amazing to be driving down the road right next to a buffalo!
We made it out after probably an hour, and pulled into Rapid pretty ready to be back in the city. Now that we were back in the city, we wanted to check out Art Alley, which is an Alley in the city where it's actually legal to graffiti and it is absolutely full of spray paint! There was some pretty wicked stuff in there, so it was cool checking that out. And Greg, Jonny, and I left tags of our own before we left. That was a ton of fun!
After our trip to Art Alley, we made our way back towards the highway stopping at Wendy's quick to get something to eat. We hit the highway and made really good time coming back towards the rez. Before we got back to the rez, we stopped in the badlands and had a ton of fun climbing those hills. Then we finished the last half of our trip home.
When we got back, we dropped Greg off at his place, then Jonny and I got back home pretty exhausted from the day. Time for bed.
Thank you so much for reading my blog!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Fort Niobrara to Berry Bridge is quite a bit longer than Berry Bridge to Brewer's Bridge.
2. Tubing down the Niobrara with Greg and Jonny is an absolute blast. So much craziness.
3. No plan? No problem! Sometimes doing something completely rash and spur of the moment is one of the best decisions you can make in life.
4. Mt. Rushmore is so much more beautiful in person, than it is in the pictures.
5. Acts 22-24
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Finally Finished/ Day 47
Today is Friday and I am very ready for the weekend. I woke up late again, which was unfortunate. Though this time around I actually made it to work by 8am. I walked in and Nixson told us that half of us were going to the new jail and the other half were going out to the shed again to get as much done as possible. It was supposed to be another scorcher so we weren't sure how long we were going to be able to work today.
Nixson, RJ, and I were basically the crew for the morning at the shed. RJ and I were supposed to work on the roof, Nixson was supposed to work on the trim/ flashing, and Percy was supposed to work on the doors to the shed. Nothing really ever goes as planned with Percy though.
When we got out there, Nixson jumped right on to the trim/ flashing, and RJ jumped on the roof, but instead of letting RJ and I shingle the roof, Percy jumped on the roof and insisted on doing it himself. This was kind of frustrating to me, because I know how to shingle, but instead of letting me take on the job, Percy was sacrificing efficiency just so he could be a part of every aspect of the shed.
I made myself useful nonetheless. Nixon was working on the flashing and he needed help holding some things in place while he balanced precariously on the ladder trying to screw everything into place. I worked with him on that for a couple hours before it got super windy and they needed an extra pair of hands on the roof. For the rest of our time out there, I was helping put a roof on the shed.
When we got done around 3 or 4pm, I looked back at the shed and felt a pretty incredible sense of accomplishment. I didn't do all of the work myself and it wasn't even that I did a majority of the work myself, but we had finally finished a 16X16 foot shed, and I was so excited to be done. We headed back to the office in pretty good spirits.
On the way back, the guys invited me to a poker game they were having that night. I was pretty excited to get an invite like that, because that meant I wasn't just their professional acquaintance, they actually wanted to hang out with me. Now they very well could have had ulterior motives for inviting me, but I still wanted to check it out and be able to spend more time building my relationships with them, especially outside of work.
When I got home, I had dinner quick and I left to try to get cash for the buy in and meet the guys at Nixson's house. Now one of the really cool things about living for Jesus is that when you try to do something that doesn't fit into His plans, He'll just shut the door. I love these moments, because I can completely see how God is speaking to me during a time when He might be shutting a door for reasons I don't understand.
So I guess God didn't want me to go to the poker game with the guys, because I couldn't get cash out of an ATM for the life of me. My card and the ATM just were not cooperating. I knew this was God speaking to me, so I decided to just call it a night.
I spent the rest of my night chilling out and working on some stuff around the house for a couple hours, then I went to bed.
Thanks for all of your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. It feels pretty good to look at a 16X16 shed and know you're finally finished with the job.
2. I love the moments when I am asked to do something as a friend, not just as part of the crew.
3. God speaks in incredible ways.
Nixson, RJ, and I were basically the crew for the morning at the shed. RJ and I were supposed to work on the roof, Nixson was supposed to work on the trim/ flashing, and Percy was supposed to work on the doors to the shed. Nothing really ever goes as planned with Percy though.
When we got out there, Nixson jumped right on to the trim/ flashing, and RJ jumped on the roof, but instead of letting RJ and I shingle the roof, Percy jumped on the roof and insisted on doing it himself. This was kind of frustrating to me, because I know how to shingle, but instead of letting me take on the job, Percy was sacrificing efficiency just so he could be a part of every aspect of the shed.
I made myself useful nonetheless. Nixon was working on the flashing and he needed help holding some things in place while he balanced precariously on the ladder trying to screw everything into place. I worked with him on that for a couple hours before it got super windy and they needed an extra pair of hands on the roof. For the rest of our time out there, I was helping put a roof on the shed.
When we got done around 3 or 4pm, I looked back at the shed and felt a pretty incredible sense of accomplishment. I didn't do all of the work myself and it wasn't even that I did a majority of the work myself, but we had finally finished a 16X16 foot shed, and I was so excited to be done. We headed back to the office in pretty good spirits.
On the way back, the guys invited me to a poker game they were having that night. I was pretty excited to get an invite like that, because that meant I wasn't just their professional acquaintance, they actually wanted to hang out with me. Now they very well could have had ulterior motives for inviting me, but I still wanted to check it out and be able to spend more time building my relationships with them, especially outside of work.
When I got home, I had dinner quick and I left to try to get cash for the buy in and meet the guys at Nixson's house. Now one of the really cool things about living for Jesus is that when you try to do something that doesn't fit into His plans, He'll just shut the door. I love these moments, because I can completely see how God is speaking to me during a time when He might be shutting a door for reasons I don't understand.
So I guess God didn't want me to go to the poker game with the guys, because I couldn't get cash out of an ATM for the life of me. My card and the ATM just were not cooperating. I knew this was God speaking to me, so I decided to just call it a night.
I spent the rest of my night chilling out and working on some stuff around the house for a couple hours, then I went to bed.
Thanks for all of your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. It feels pretty good to look at a 16X16 shed and know you're finally finished with the job.
2. I love the moments when I am asked to do something as a friend, not just as part of the crew.
3. God speaks in incredible ways.
Monday, July 23, 2012
Do Not Love Sleep/ Day 46
This morning, I woke up right on time, but since I drove straight out to the shed site yesterday and my crew usually doesn't make it out that way until around 9am, I decided I could sleep for a little longer. I ended up sleeping way longer than I should have. I'm pretty sure it was around 8:45am which is late even if I'm driving straight out to the shed.
I got to the shed site around 9am, and I waited for about 15min for people to show. After 15min, there wasn't a car in site. Usually Percy is there earlier than the crew and even he wasn't there yet. I was starting to get worried.
I called into the office and asked if they boys had left yet, and the receptionist said that they had already left. But that still didn't mean they were coming out to the shed, so I texted Marky and asked him where they were at and he told me he was in Parm. Percy had locked his keys in the car so nobody was going out to the shed today. Well I screwed up.
I told Marky I would drive to the office, and he could pick me up when he was done in Parm. The other half of the my crew came back before Marky and Lowen, so they made fun of me a little bit for being late to work that morning.
Since Percy locked his keys in the car, and most of our tools were in his car because he was the lead carpenter on the shed, we didn't have any tools to work on anything with. We were left to sit around. A couple of the guys went to try to get Percy's car doors open but there wasn't enough room for me, so I spent more time sitting around.
While I was sitting around at the office, Marky and Lowen came back. Now that a truck was back at the office, we needed to go out to Rosebud Building Products to get some materials for some fences that needed to be started. Nixson told us that everything would be marked out so all we needed to do was start the 5in poles then we could come back.
We went out to RBP got the materials, dropped off some materials at the shed site, then drove to the fence site to check everything out and drop off our materials there. Of course, the spots for the holes had not actually been marked out for us, so we called Nixson and he said we'll just have to start that another day, but we did have all the materials we needed so that was good.
When we got back to the office, Nixson needed some people to start work on the Rosebud Pow-wow grounds. We had just sealed a deal to reseed the entire area and get it ready for the Rosebud Fair. Much to my dismay, the job he wanted us to do basically consisted of pulling weeds with sharp tools. The catch was that the grounds we were supposed to cover were 95% weeds. This was a nearly impossible job, and they left us out there without water or Powerade. I was none too pleased.
This was the point in time where I really started thinking about how much work effects my attitude and whether or not I am a good example of God when work gets frustrating. I even noticed this problem back in Best Buy while I was working in MN-- when work got stressful, I became very stoic and I would concentrate more on the problems at hand than the work I am doing for God. I never really found the answer or solved this problem, but God was really teaching me something today, and for that I am thankful.
We started walking back to the office after about half an hour of work, because I really didn't want to get heat exhaustion or heat stroke and nobody had come to get us or give us water since we had been out there. We met some of our crew half way and they brought us back to the office.
Afterwards, it was just about quitting time, so I headed back home. When I got home, I started working on some stuff around the house, then I had my second intern check-in with Emily. That went really well! I think we had a great conversation about my experience out here so far.
When I had finished my check-in with Emily, she told me my check-in time rivaled Jonny's by about 10min. We both took about an hour and a half to complete our check-in. I guess we both like to talk. Or something like that.
I finished my check-in then I went back to working on stuff around the house for the rest of the night. I fell asleep in front of my computer at one point, then I went to bed in my actual bed when I realized I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.
So that's my day! Thank you so much for reading and giving me your support!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. I need to be careful of how I'm acting when work gets stressful and unreasonable. It's very important for me to be constantly aware of the example I'm being for Christ.
2. Jonny and I love to talk.
3. Acts 21
I got to the shed site around 9am, and I waited for about 15min for people to show. After 15min, there wasn't a car in site. Usually Percy is there earlier than the crew and even he wasn't there yet. I was starting to get worried.
I called into the office and asked if they boys had left yet, and the receptionist said that they had already left. But that still didn't mean they were coming out to the shed, so I texted Marky and asked him where they were at and he told me he was in Parm. Percy had locked his keys in the car so nobody was going out to the shed today. Well I screwed up.
I told Marky I would drive to the office, and he could pick me up when he was done in Parm. The other half of the my crew came back before Marky and Lowen, so they made fun of me a little bit for being late to work that morning.
Since Percy locked his keys in the car, and most of our tools were in his car because he was the lead carpenter on the shed, we didn't have any tools to work on anything with. We were left to sit around. A couple of the guys went to try to get Percy's car doors open but there wasn't enough room for me, so I spent more time sitting around.
While I was sitting around at the office, Marky and Lowen came back. Now that a truck was back at the office, we needed to go out to Rosebud Building Products to get some materials for some fences that needed to be started. Nixson told us that everything would be marked out so all we needed to do was start the 5in poles then we could come back.
We went out to RBP got the materials, dropped off some materials at the shed site, then drove to the fence site to check everything out and drop off our materials there. Of course, the spots for the holes had not actually been marked out for us, so we called Nixson and he said we'll just have to start that another day, but we did have all the materials we needed so that was good.
When we got back to the office, Nixson needed some people to start work on the Rosebud Pow-wow grounds. We had just sealed a deal to reseed the entire area and get it ready for the Rosebud Fair. Much to my dismay, the job he wanted us to do basically consisted of pulling weeds with sharp tools. The catch was that the grounds we were supposed to cover were 95% weeds. This was a nearly impossible job, and they left us out there without water or Powerade. I was none too pleased.
This was the point in time where I really started thinking about how much work effects my attitude and whether or not I am a good example of God when work gets frustrating. I even noticed this problem back in Best Buy while I was working in MN-- when work got stressful, I became very stoic and I would concentrate more on the problems at hand than the work I am doing for God. I never really found the answer or solved this problem, but God was really teaching me something today, and for that I am thankful.
We started walking back to the office after about half an hour of work, because I really didn't want to get heat exhaustion or heat stroke and nobody had come to get us or give us water since we had been out there. We met some of our crew half way and they brought us back to the office.
Afterwards, it was just about quitting time, so I headed back home. When I got home, I started working on some stuff around the house, then I had my second intern check-in with Emily. That went really well! I think we had a great conversation about my experience out here so far.
When I had finished my check-in with Emily, she told me my check-in time rivaled Jonny's by about 10min. We both took about an hour and a half to complete our check-in. I guess we both like to talk. Or something like that.
I finished my check-in then I went back to working on stuff around the house for the rest of the night. I fell asleep in front of my computer at one point, then I went to bed in my actual bed when I realized I couldn't keep my eyes open any more.
So that's my day! Thank you so much for reading and giving me your support!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. I need to be careful of how I'm acting when work gets stressful and unreasonable. It's very important for me to be constantly aware of the example I'm being for Christ.
2. Jonny and I love to talk.
3. Acts 21
Sunday, July 22, 2012
God Is Here/ Day 45
Today I woke up and decided to go straight out to the shed instead of heading out to the office first, because the shed site is about 5min away from my house, whereas the office is about 15min away from my house. I figured I would save some gas and save some money.
We worked all day on the shed again, which was cool because the entire crew came out to the site, but it was also really hot and we didn't seem to make a lot of progress again. I don't know what it is about this job, but it is really taking forever.
One of the highlights of my day was when we were cleaning up the site, after most of the crew had let, and I ended up having a really good conversation with two guys I work with-- kels and david. I don't really remember how the conversation got started but one of the guys made a comment about how I was "with Jesus", and I told them that's true!
After I confirmed that statement, Kels started talking about how he was supposed to go to church every Sunday 'cause he promised his mom that he would, while David started talking about how his dad is Mormon and he grew up off the Rez. We continued to talk about religion, God, and Lakota spirituality as I gave them a ride back to the office, which was such a sweet time for me! God was completely in that, and it was so cool to see how he was working!
For the rest of the day after work, I basically sat around the house working on some stuff. I think I really needed the night to chill and just relax, so I was really glad I took that time for myself. Tomorrow I'll be back on my game, and I'll have the energy to do a bunch of sweet stuff, even after work!
Thanks for all your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. God is working in the lives of the people I've surrounded myself with since I've come out to the reservation.
2. Sometimes rest is necessary.
3. Acts 20
We worked all day on the shed again, which was cool because the entire crew came out to the site, but it was also really hot and we didn't seem to make a lot of progress again. I don't know what it is about this job, but it is really taking forever.
One of the highlights of my day was when we were cleaning up the site, after most of the crew had let, and I ended up having a really good conversation with two guys I work with-- kels and david. I don't really remember how the conversation got started but one of the guys made a comment about how I was "with Jesus", and I told them that's true!
After I confirmed that statement, Kels started talking about how he was supposed to go to church every Sunday 'cause he promised his mom that he would, while David started talking about how his dad is Mormon and he grew up off the Rez. We continued to talk about religion, God, and Lakota spirituality as I gave them a ride back to the office, which was such a sweet time for me! God was completely in that, and it was so cool to see how he was working!
For the rest of the day after work, I basically sat around the house working on some stuff. I think I really needed the night to chill and just relax, so I was really glad I took that time for myself. Tomorrow I'll be back on my game, and I'll have the energy to do a bunch of sweet stuff, even after work!
Thanks for all your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. God is working in the lives of the people I've surrounded myself with since I've come out to the reservation.
2. Sometimes rest is necessary.
3. Acts 20
"Do Either Of You Know How To Change A Tire?"/ Day 44
Today I woke up late. I don't know why I'm having such a hard time waking up in the morning, but it's not good at all. I ended up rushing through breakfast and I was still able to fit in devos and reading my Bible, before I had to be at work, which I thought was super necessary and very cool.
When I got to work, everyone was being told that we were all to go out to the shed with Percy so we could knock this thing out! We really needed to get done with the shed, because a majority of our tools were being used at that site so we were getting behind on other projects that needed to be started.
Since my entire crew was going out to the shed (including my boss, Nixon) I was really looking forward to the day. I hadn't worked with my crew for probably close to a week, because I had been stuck at the shed while they were at other projects. I was really beginning to miss them.
My day at the shed ended up being a blast. A few of the guys I work with are super funny, so I spent the day in better spirits, mostly do to their light-heartedness. We didn't actually finished the shed today. We spent hours working on it, but for some reason this shed is just taking forever. Oh well.
Since I fell asleep during the movie last night, and wasn't up for going to Greg's for another movie we had been planning, after work I was supposed to go over there for the dinner that we missed and a movie. I guess Greg and Kelly didn't eat the steaks I bought yesterday, so we were supposed to have those, which I was pretty stoked about.
When I got to Greg's, we just hung out and did a little cleaning around his house. We were waiting for Kelly to get home again, so we were mostly trying to stay busy. Kelly was supposed to roll in around 7:30pm, but she ended up getting a flat tire just about a mile away from her drive way.
She called Greg and Greg asked if either Jonny or I knew how to change a tire. We both said yes so he sent us both up to Kelly to change her tire, while he watched the steaks and made sure they were cooking (we had been having issues with the propane tank earlier in the day).
Jonny and I made quick work of the tire which I thought was super nice. I found the spot where the SUV was supposed to be jacked up (very peculiar), Jonny pulled the tire off, I put the new one on, and we were out of there! Jonny and I made such a good team that I was actually offended that Greg even asked if we knew how to change a tire. Hopefully he will have faith in us the next time somebody needs a tire changed on the side of the road, but hopefully that situation doesn't come about again.
When we all made it back safely to the house, it was time to eat. The steaks and potatoes were absolutely delicious. Greg is a pretty good cook when it comes to meat. We ate quickly then we started getting ready for Ong Bak.
I heard the movie was super good, but unfortunately I fell asleep through most of the movie. I don't know what's been with me but I have been super exhausted. Oh well. Jonny and Greg had a great time and I got a nap, so it was worth it!
After we got home, I hit the hay. Time to get ready for another day at work tomorrow!
Thank you for reading!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. I love working with my crew. Any job that we can all work on together is a blast!
2. Blazer jacks are very peculiar.
3. Acts 19
Friday, July 20, 2012
Starting the Count Down/ Day 43
Now that our friends from MN have come and gone, I have started thinking a lot about how much time we actually have on the Rez. It's about two and a half weeks. That's not a lot of time. In these last two weeks I want to really focus on God's plan for the rest of my time out here and I want to make sure I'm using my time wisely.
I started out my day with devos and breakfast, before I went out to the shed. I've been working on this shed for the past week and not a whole lot has changed except for the fact that we have made a little progress towards actually finishing this thing. Though the slow work is even frustrating to me, now.
I ended up getting off work early because it was 90+ degrees outside and we ran out of water and gatorade and such. When I got home I tried to work on my blog a little bit, but just as I sat down to start writing, Jonny called me and asked if I wanted to have dinner with Greg, Kelly, and him at Greg's place. They wanted me to pick up steaks and bring them over so we could grill.
Seldom do I choose to do something introverted when I could be with people, so I dropped what I was doing, stopped at Buche's to pick up some steaks, and I headed out to Greg's house. When I got there Jonny and him were working on covering up a water heater in his bathroom, so I jumped in and helped where I could.
We were waiting for Kelly to get home before we put the steaks on, so we just focused on our little project for a while, then Jonnny and I realized that it was getting pretty late, and we had to be home for a movie night with the interns. We had just barely started cooking the potatoes, so I decided we should probably head back before we got too far into cooking.
It was around 9pm when we got back to the intern house for a movie night. I think it was Stephen and Emily that wanted to watch the first two Batman movies before the new Batman came out this weekend. We had already watched Batman Begins, so tonight was The Dark Knight. Overall, I'm a pretty big fan of the movie, but I was absolutely exhausted for some reason, so I fell asleep about half way through.
When the movie finished, I woke up and Jonny asked if I wanted to go to Greg's for another movie. It sounds crazy but Greg was up for it and Jonny was pretty awake as well, so they figured they may as well, but I was absolutely not up for it. I have spent too much time awake these past couple days, so I told him I needed to sleep.
After that, I walked down to my room and went to bed.
Thanks for reading!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Movie nights are more fun when you can stay awake for them.
2. My crazy days are catching up to me. Somehow I have to figure out how to get more sleep.
3. Acts 18
I started out my day with devos and breakfast, before I went out to the shed. I've been working on this shed for the past week and not a whole lot has changed except for the fact that we have made a little progress towards actually finishing this thing. Though the slow work is even frustrating to me, now.
I ended up getting off work early because it was 90+ degrees outside and we ran out of water and gatorade and such. When I got home I tried to work on my blog a little bit, but just as I sat down to start writing, Jonny called me and asked if I wanted to have dinner with Greg, Kelly, and him at Greg's place. They wanted me to pick up steaks and bring them over so we could grill.
Seldom do I choose to do something introverted when I could be with people, so I dropped what I was doing, stopped at Buche's to pick up some steaks, and I headed out to Greg's house. When I got there Jonny and him were working on covering up a water heater in his bathroom, so I jumped in and helped where I could.
We were waiting for Kelly to get home before we put the steaks on, so we just focused on our little project for a while, then Jonnny and I realized that it was getting pretty late, and we had to be home for a movie night with the interns. We had just barely started cooking the potatoes, so I decided we should probably head back before we got too far into cooking.
It was around 9pm when we got back to the intern house for a movie night. I think it was Stephen and Emily that wanted to watch the first two Batman movies before the new Batman came out this weekend. We had already watched Batman Begins, so tonight was The Dark Knight. Overall, I'm a pretty big fan of the movie, but I was absolutely exhausted for some reason, so I fell asleep about half way through.
When the movie finished, I woke up and Jonny asked if I wanted to go to Greg's for another movie. It sounds crazy but Greg was up for it and Jonny was pretty awake as well, so they figured they may as well, but I was absolutely not up for it. I have spent too much time awake these past couple days, so I told him I needed to sleep.
After that, I walked down to my room and went to bed.
Thanks for reading!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Movie nights are more fun when you can stay awake for them.
2. My crazy days are catching up to me. Somehow I have to figure out how to get more sleep.
3. Acts 18
The Departure/ Day 42
Sunday morning was not happy morning. Sean wanted to get gong by 10am so everybody was up around 9-9:30am and stayed busy cleaning up Emily's place and packing up their things. We finished up around 10am and since I knew Sean wanted to get going, I asked to pray for everyone.
I prayed, then we finished moving the last couple things out to their vehicle and said our goodbyes. The cool thing about saying goodbye this time around was the fact that I knew I would see Brooke again in two weeks, as opposed to last time we said goodbye when I didnt think I would see her again for 9 weeks. Despite the bright side, our goodbye still wasn't very enjoyable.
Jonny and I waved as they drove off then we went back to the intern house. Between the two of us, we had decided we would go to night church in Parmalee and St. Francis but when we got home, we found a note reminding us that we had a team meeting that night. We knew we wouldn't have time to go to church after the meeting so we quickly got ready to go to the purple church in SF.
However, when we got into SF, Jonny decided we should go to the Holiness Chapel because he felt bad going to another church when he told them that he would be there each week. We walked in kind of late but it was really cool to see some of the kids from kids club in church that Sunday! I really enjoyed my time there and I might continue to go there for the next couple weeks.
After church, Jonny and I cleaned up the bathroom, the kitchen, and did the dishes. The rest of the interns came home and they started cleaning up as well. Then Jonny and I went over to Sarah and Emily's houses to grab some stuff.
We spent the rest of our afternoon helping Greg out at his place. Moving some stuff and just hanging out. Then we made our way back into Mission for our team dinner-- chicken salad, veggies, fruit, and lots goodness-- thanks to Laura. After dinner, we had a discussion about a very interesting excerpt regarding how Christianity was presented to Indians when the white people first came to the Americas. It was a really good discussion!
When we had finished our discussion, Jonny and I went out to SF to see Echo and Keoni. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them! While we were there, their uncle offered us fry bread which was awesome! I used to turn stuff down when it was offered to me but I've decided to start always excepting food or acts of hospitality out here cause it really makes the person offering the hospitality feel good.
We got back to Mission around 11pm and we were supposed to watch a movie with Greg, but he was really out of it when we stopped by. He told us to come back after we stopped home quick but after we stopped home and prayed with the interns, Kelly told us that he wasn't going to get back up. Bummer. Maybe tomorrow night.
Since Greg was out, Jonny and I didn't really feel like watching the movie by ourselves so we just called it a night. That's our Sunday! Thank you so much for reading and for supporting me during my time out here!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Sometimes I can learn more from a children's church service than an adult church service.
2. Jonny doesn't dance.
3. 2 Kings 21
I prayed, then we finished moving the last couple things out to their vehicle and said our goodbyes. The cool thing about saying goodbye this time around was the fact that I knew I would see Brooke again in two weeks, as opposed to last time we said goodbye when I didnt think I would see her again for 9 weeks. Despite the bright side, our goodbye still wasn't very enjoyable.
Jonny and I waved as they drove off then we went back to the intern house. Between the two of us, we had decided we would go to night church in Parmalee and St. Francis but when we got home, we found a note reminding us that we had a team meeting that night. We knew we wouldn't have time to go to church after the meeting so we quickly got ready to go to the purple church in SF.
However, when we got into SF, Jonny decided we should go to the Holiness Chapel because he felt bad going to another church when he told them that he would be there each week. We walked in kind of late but it was really cool to see some of the kids from kids club in church that Sunday! I really enjoyed my time there and I might continue to go there for the next couple weeks.
After church, Jonny and I cleaned up the bathroom, the kitchen, and did the dishes. The rest of the interns came home and they started cleaning up as well. Then Jonny and I went over to Sarah and Emily's houses to grab some stuff.
We spent the rest of our afternoon helping Greg out at his place. Moving some stuff and just hanging out. Then we made our way back into Mission for our team dinner-- chicken salad, veggies, fruit, and lots goodness-- thanks to Laura. After dinner, we had a discussion about a very interesting excerpt regarding how Christianity was presented to Indians when the white people first came to the Americas. It was a really good discussion!
When we had finished our discussion, Jonny and I went out to SF to see Echo and Keoni. We had a lot of fun hanging out with them! While we were there, their uncle offered us fry bread which was awesome! I used to turn stuff down when it was offered to me but I've decided to start always excepting food or acts of hospitality out here cause it really makes the person offering the hospitality feel good.
We got back to Mission around 11pm and we were supposed to watch a movie with Greg, but he was really out of it when we stopped by. He told us to come back after we stopped home quick but after we stopped home and prayed with the interns, Kelly told us that he wasn't going to get back up. Bummer. Maybe tomorrow night.
Since Greg was out, Jonny and I didn't really feel like watching the movie by ourselves so we just called it a night. That's our Sunday! Thank you so much for reading and for supporting me during my time out here!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Sometimes I can learn more from a children's church service than an adult church service.
2. Jonny doesn't dance.
3. 2 Kings 21
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
The Niobrara/ Day 41
I was supposed to wake up around 7am today to finish getting everything ready for our trip down the Niobrara today. However, Jonny was the only one to get up at 7am today. He woke me up, but I reasoned with myself that sleeping longer would be okay-- I was half asleep.
I woke up to Greg bursting through the door saying "Wake up!". That pretty much snapped me back to reality, and I immediately knew I had to get moving. I was about an hour behind "schedule", so I still had a lot to do in a very short amount of time.
Stumbling out the door, I had to get over to NAPA to check on the price of some valve stem adapters. When I got there, I found out that they were way over priced, so I did some running around Mission to try to find a better deal. Either the places I checked were closed or didn't carry what I was looking for, so I ended up giving in to NAPA's demands, then I was off to Greg's.
When I got to Greg's we spent quite a while filling up the last couple tubes, patching and reinforcing the holes we could find, and trying to figure out how to get everything down to Nebraska. I had to make a lot of phone calls trying to coordinate everybody's efforts, and Greg and I ended up sitting around for a while waiting for everybody to make it back to his house with the equipment/ vehicles we needed.
We shot a couple rounds of .22 while we were waiting, then they finally showed up! Jonny brought the Habitat truck and the cooler, so we could fill up on water and load most of the tubes into one truck. It took us a while to fit all of the tubes into the habitat truck, and we never actually got them all to fit, so a couple were stuck in my car, and we were on our way!
Once we got into town, we still had to pick up the girls, so we made a couple stops here and there. We filled up with water at the intern house, then we all caravaned down to Valentine. Most of our trip was pretty uneventful, but about 10mi out of Valentine we did have an incident.
Highway 83 has a speed limit of 65, but we weren't really sure how fast we should go with our truck loaded up with tubes. As we were approaching the state boarder, I started to notice that some of the tubes seemed to have moved themselves into a rather precarious position in the truck bed. Just as I started to notice that something was wrong, one of the tubes flew out of the back of the truck straight for our vehicles! I swerved and missed both of the tubes, but they hit Laura's car. No damage, but it was a pretty crazy ride.
We all pulled off to the side of the road to retie the tubes onto the truck bed, and we ended up making it in to Nebraska without another "incident". When we got to Valentine, we stopped at McDonalds, because some of us hadn't eaten yet, so we grabbed some food quick then we made our way out to Berry Bride to start our adventure!
Days of planning had come down to these last few moments before we officially got into the river, and it turned out that our plans were pretty accurately thought out! Everything went really smoothly! We strapped about 10 tubes together and we put an inflatable raft in the middle of our circle to carry the shoes, cooler, shirts, etc. then we rode the river for about 2hrs talking, joking around, laughing, and just having a good time! It was definitely one of the highlights of our weekend!
After we got off the river, we all went to Pizza Hut for dinner, which was fantastic! Then we headed back to Mission to call it a night. Brooke fell asleep pretty early, while Sean, Daniel, Jonny, and I talked into the early hours of the morning, just like we did back in MN.
That's about it. Thank you so much for your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Tubing down the Niobrara is so much sweeter when it doesn't cost $35.
2. I can trust the patch jobs Greg and I did on those inner tubes. We were both very skeptical.
3. It takes longer to cook a pizza without cheese than a pizza with cheese at the Pizza Hut in Valentine. Hmmm...
I woke up to Greg bursting through the door saying "Wake up!". That pretty much snapped me back to reality, and I immediately knew I had to get moving. I was about an hour behind "schedule", so I still had a lot to do in a very short amount of time.
Stumbling out the door, I had to get over to NAPA to check on the price of some valve stem adapters. When I got there, I found out that they were way over priced, so I did some running around Mission to try to find a better deal. Either the places I checked were closed or didn't carry what I was looking for, so I ended up giving in to NAPA's demands, then I was off to Greg's.
When I got to Greg's we spent quite a while filling up the last couple tubes, patching and reinforcing the holes we could find, and trying to figure out how to get everything down to Nebraska. I had to make a lot of phone calls trying to coordinate everybody's efforts, and Greg and I ended up sitting around for a while waiting for everybody to make it back to his house with the equipment/ vehicles we needed.
We shot a couple rounds of .22 while we were waiting, then they finally showed up! Jonny brought the Habitat truck and the cooler, so we could fill up on water and load most of the tubes into one truck. It took us a while to fit all of the tubes into the habitat truck, and we never actually got them all to fit, so a couple were stuck in my car, and we were on our way!
Once we got into town, we still had to pick up the girls, so we made a couple stops here and there. We filled up with water at the intern house, then we all caravaned down to Valentine. Most of our trip was pretty uneventful, but about 10mi out of Valentine we did have an incident.
Highway 83 has a speed limit of 65, but we weren't really sure how fast we should go with our truck loaded up with tubes. As we were approaching the state boarder, I started to notice that some of the tubes seemed to have moved themselves into a rather precarious position in the truck bed. Just as I started to notice that something was wrong, one of the tubes flew out of the back of the truck straight for our vehicles! I swerved and missed both of the tubes, but they hit Laura's car. No damage, but it was a pretty crazy ride.
We all pulled off to the side of the road to retie the tubes onto the truck bed, and we ended up making it in to Nebraska without another "incident". When we got to Valentine, we stopped at McDonalds, because some of us hadn't eaten yet, so we grabbed some food quick then we made our way out to Berry Bride to start our adventure!
Days of planning had come down to these last few moments before we officially got into the river, and it turned out that our plans were pretty accurately thought out! Everything went really smoothly! We strapped about 10 tubes together and we put an inflatable raft in the middle of our circle to carry the shoes, cooler, shirts, etc. then we rode the river for about 2hrs talking, joking around, laughing, and just having a good time! It was definitely one of the highlights of our weekend!
After we got off the river, we all went to Pizza Hut for dinner, which was fantastic! Then we headed back to Mission to call it a night. Brooke fell asleep pretty early, while Sean, Daniel, Jonny, and I talked into the early hours of the morning, just like we did back in MN.
That's about it. Thank you so much for your support!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Tubing down the Niobrara is so much sweeter when it doesn't cost $35.
2. I can trust the patch jobs Greg and I did on those inner tubes. We were both very skeptical.
3. It takes longer to cook a pizza without cheese than a pizza with cheese at the Pizza Hut in Valentine. Hmmm...
Monday, July 16, 2012
Off To See The Rez/ Day 40
Since my girlfriend surprised me yesterday, today was my day to spend with her. That was pretty incredible to think about, especially since I haven't had a day to spend with my girlfriend in about 7 weeks. I really wanted to spend the day seeing the rez, checking out the work I've been doing on the rez for the past month and a half, and visiting people that Brooke knew. We ended up having to prioritize what we wanted to do that day though, because I had woken up later than i wanted to, and she slept late as well.
After we were both up and ready for the day, we ran an errand, then went straight into Antelope. When we got there, Tayor's mom was outside just finishing up cleaning the pool they had, so we asked if Taylor was around. She said that Taylor had been in SF for Body, Mind and Soul (a sort of VBS from what I could gather), but she would be back around 3:30pm.
It was already 3pm by the time we got out there, so we decided to just wait around and hang out with Taylor's little sister Kayla. It wasn't long before half an hour had turned into two hours and although we were having fun playing in the water with Kayla, we were really wondering where Taylor was since that's who Brooke came to see.
Taylor ended up getting back to her house around 5pm, so Brooke was able to see her and take some pictures with her and stuff. It was pretty cool to see how happy Taylor was to see Brooke! She's been asking about Brooke since the middle of June, so it was so cool that they were able to spend some time together!
After Brooke and Taylor hung out for a bit, we left to pick up some patches for inner tubes that we were going to use for tubing down the Niobrara in Nebraska tomorrow. Greg had some inner tubes but he picked them up for free which meant they had holes or leaks in them somewhere, so we had some work to do.
We picked up the patches then headed out to Greg's house. When we got there, he offered to let us shoot a couple rounds of a .380 handgun before we started work on the tubes. Sweet! We both took a couple shots at a target, and although Brooke was scared to shoot the gun at first, she actually had a lot of fun!
When we were done shooting, we started work on the tubes. We patched a couple tubes before we decided it was getting too late to keep going without getting dinner, so we decided to go to Starlight with Greg and Kelly. Brooke was really impressed with the food, so I was happy that she enjoyed one of the two restaurant establishments in Mission.
After dinner, we went back to Greg and Kelly's to work on the tubes for a little bit longer. It was really cool of Brooke to help me out, because it wasn't the most enjoyable thing to be doing that night, but having her help made it go by much quicker! I was very thankful she was there!
To end the night, Greg, Jonny, Sean, Daniel, Brooke, and I watched a movie together. I ended up falling asleep because I was pretty exhausted from the day, but I heard it was a good one!
Tomorrow, we tube!
Thanks for all your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. I need to be more cognizant of Indian time.
2. How to patch a tire inner tube.
3 Acts 17
After we were both up and ready for the day, we ran an errand, then went straight into Antelope. When we got there, Tayor's mom was outside just finishing up cleaning the pool they had, so we asked if Taylor was around. She said that Taylor had been in SF for Body, Mind and Soul (a sort of VBS from what I could gather), but she would be back around 3:30pm.
It was already 3pm by the time we got out there, so we decided to just wait around and hang out with Taylor's little sister Kayla. It wasn't long before half an hour had turned into two hours and although we were having fun playing in the water with Kayla, we were really wondering where Taylor was since that's who Brooke came to see.
Taylor ended up getting back to her house around 5pm, so Brooke was able to see her and take some pictures with her and stuff. It was pretty cool to see how happy Taylor was to see Brooke! She's been asking about Brooke since the middle of June, so it was so cool that they were able to spend some time together!
After Brooke and Taylor hung out for a bit, we left to pick up some patches for inner tubes that we were going to use for tubing down the Niobrara in Nebraska tomorrow. Greg had some inner tubes but he picked them up for free which meant they had holes or leaks in them somewhere, so we had some work to do.
We picked up the patches then headed out to Greg's house. When we got there, he offered to let us shoot a couple rounds of a .380 handgun before we started work on the tubes. Sweet! We both took a couple shots at a target, and although Brooke was scared to shoot the gun at first, she actually had a lot of fun!
When we were done shooting, we started work on the tubes. We patched a couple tubes before we decided it was getting too late to keep going without getting dinner, so we decided to go to Starlight with Greg and Kelly. Brooke was really impressed with the food, so I was happy that she enjoyed one of the two restaurant establishments in Mission.
After dinner, we went back to Greg and Kelly's to work on the tubes for a little bit longer. It was really cool of Brooke to help me out, because it wasn't the most enjoyable thing to be doing that night, but having her help made it go by much quicker! I was very thankful she was there!
To end the night, Greg, Jonny, Sean, Daniel, Brooke, and I watched a movie together. I ended up falling asleep because I was pretty exhausted from the day, but I heard it was a good one!
Tomorrow, we tube!
Thanks for all your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. I need to be more cognizant of Indian time.
2. How to patch a tire inner tube.
3 Acts 17
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Can You Help Me Carry Something?/ Day 39
Oh my gosh. Today was a good day.
My day started out as a typical Thursday. Well, as typical as a Thursday can be since I've moved out to the Rosebud Reservation. I woke up, went through my morning routine, and got to work a little after 8am.
After I got to work, I ended up waiting around for a while because I wasn't able to drive one of the trucks anymore and all of the other crews were already using the trucks to go out to their sites. Between Nixon and I, we decided that I should wait for one of the youth workers to show up, then take my own car with a gas voucher and go out to the shed site. Sounded reasonable, but it turned out that Marky had a better idea.
He told me I should ride with him out to the deck site, then switch cars and he and Lowen would drop me off at the shed site. I jumped on that opportunity, because it had been way too long since I had been able to hang out with some of those guys.
On the way over, Marky and I had a pretty good convo about his life and some decisions he had made about where he wants to go and what he wants to do in the next year. I love that guy and I really enjoy being able to be real with him about his life and big decisions he's making right now.
We got to the deck site, dropped off some materials, then switched cars. Then Lowen and Marky drove me over to the shed site to start helping Percy out for the day. Richard never showed, so when I got there it was just me and Percy trying to finish up this shed.
We worked hard, but it was hot, and the difference bettwen two people and three people on a job is enormous, so the lack thereof really slowed us down. We tried our best but we really didn't make a whole lot of progress. Between the two of us, we ended up finishing up the rafters and putting up the cripple braces (as Percy called them), but that was about it. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have a bigger crew.
One of the cool things about working alone with Percy for the day was the fact that we had a lot of time to talk about life on the reservation, his life and past, and a little bit about Lakota spirituality. I got to share with him some of my opinions of some different topics, but overall it was just really sweet to be able to have a real conversation with him and be able to get to know him a little better.
I told Marky to come pick me back up before he was done for the day because I didn't think Percy was going to drive back to the office before he went home for the day and I didn't want to inconvenience him. Marky got there around 4pm and we left about half an hour later.
On the way back to the office, Marky and I talked about how we should do something after work sometimes. Jordan's in Valentine, NE has unlimited bbq ribs every Thursday for $10, so I think it would be really cool to go with Marky down to Valentine sometime! It turns out that Greg actually wanted to hit up Jordan's tonight, so I went back to my place, met Greg there, then we tried to get everybody together to go down to Valentine.
Sean and Daniel had pulled into town earlier this afternoon so I called them and got a hold of them telling them to come down to our house. Jonny left for gas, so we had to wait for him to double check that he didn't want to come with us, then we were waiting on a call from Kelly to make sure she didn't want to come either.It was a little bit of a fiasco trying to leave that night.
Somewhere in between Sean and Daniel getting to our house, and Jonny coming back from the gas station, I was given one of the best surprises I've received since I came out here. When Sean got to my place, he asked me to help him carry something in. He called Daniel too, but Daniel didn't seem as sketchy as Sean did. His eyes were shifting, he was talking pretty quietly. I had no idea what we were carrying in, so I really wasn't prepared for what I found!
When Sean was opening the trunk, I was in the middle of talking about his car with him. I'm pretty sure I stopped mid-sentence, though, because what I saw in the trunk was alive! I was kind of stunned, but then I realized it was my girlfriend! I was soooo excited to see her! Seven weeks is a long time to not see someone after 3yrs of spending most of our time together!
It turns out that Brooke had been keeping this secret from me since Sunday! She's obviously very clever because I have no idea if I could pull off keeping a secret for so long, and she did it wonderfully! What a beautiful surprise! She even told me she was staying home all day-- bored out of her mind -- but I guess that was only a half truth. The drive on the way here is pretty boring .
After I found Brooke in the trunk, we were able to make our way into Valentine. Finally! Jonny, Brooke, Greg, Sean, Daniel, and I all enjoyed some unlimited bbq ribs when we got there! It was absolutely wonderful!
By the time we got back, everything was getting kind of late, so we all just hung out at Emily's for a little while before we decided to start a movie. I'm didn't see the entire thing, because I fell asleep, then I made my way back to the intern house after the movie and crashed. I need my sleep for tomorrow! We are tubing down the niobrara on our own tubes. It's going to be pretty sweet! And cheap!
That's about it! Thank you so much for all of your support!
Love,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Full blooded Indians always have black or brown eyes.
2. Apparently my girlfriend can fit in the trunk of a Hundai
3. Acts 16
My day started out as a typical Thursday. Well, as typical as a Thursday can be since I've moved out to the Rosebud Reservation. I woke up, went through my morning routine, and got to work a little after 8am.
After I got to work, I ended up waiting around for a while because I wasn't able to drive one of the trucks anymore and all of the other crews were already using the trucks to go out to their sites. Between Nixon and I, we decided that I should wait for one of the youth workers to show up, then take my own car with a gas voucher and go out to the shed site. Sounded reasonable, but it turned out that Marky had a better idea.
He told me I should ride with him out to the deck site, then switch cars and he and Lowen would drop me off at the shed site. I jumped on that opportunity, because it had been way too long since I had been able to hang out with some of those guys.
On the way over, Marky and I had a pretty good convo about his life and some decisions he had made about where he wants to go and what he wants to do in the next year. I love that guy and I really enjoy being able to be real with him about his life and big decisions he's making right now.
We got to the deck site, dropped off some materials, then switched cars. Then Lowen and Marky drove me over to the shed site to start helping Percy out for the day. Richard never showed, so when I got there it was just me and Percy trying to finish up this shed.
We worked hard, but it was hot, and the difference bettwen two people and three people on a job is enormous, so the lack thereof really slowed us down. We tried our best but we really didn't make a whole lot of progress. Between the two of us, we ended up finishing up the rafters and putting up the cripple braces (as Percy called them), but that was about it. Oh well. Hopefully tomorrow we'll have a bigger crew.
One of the cool things about working alone with Percy for the day was the fact that we had a lot of time to talk about life on the reservation, his life and past, and a little bit about Lakota spirituality. I got to share with him some of my opinions of some different topics, but overall it was just really sweet to be able to have a real conversation with him and be able to get to know him a little better.
I told Marky to come pick me back up before he was done for the day because I didn't think Percy was going to drive back to the office before he went home for the day and I didn't want to inconvenience him. Marky got there around 4pm and we left about half an hour later.
On the way back to the office, Marky and I talked about how we should do something after work sometimes. Jordan's in Valentine, NE has unlimited bbq ribs every Thursday for $10, so I think it would be really cool to go with Marky down to Valentine sometime! It turns out that Greg actually wanted to hit up Jordan's tonight, so I went back to my place, met Greg there, then we tried to get everybody together to go down to Valentine.
Sean and Daniel had pulled into town earlier this afternoon so I called them and got a hold of them telling them to come down to our house. Jonny left for gas, so we had to wait for him to double check that he didn't want to come with us, then we were waiting on a call from Kelly to make sure she didn't want to come either.It was a little bit of a fiasco trying to leave that night.
Somewhere in between Sean and Daniel getting to our house, and Jonny coming back from the gas station, I was given one of the best surprises I've received since I came out here. When Sean got to my place, he asked me to help him carry something in. He called Daniel too, but Daniel didn't seem as sketchy as Sean did. His eyes were shifting, he was talking pretty quietly. I had no idea what we were carrying in, so I really wasn't prepared for what I found!
When Sean was opening the trunk, I was in the middle of talking about his car with him. I'm pretty sure I stopped mid-sentence, though, because what I saw in the trunk was alive! I was kind of stunned, but then I realized it was my girlfriend! I was soooo excited to see her! Seven weeks is a long time to not see someone after 3yrs of spending most of our time together!
It turns out that Brooke had been keeping this secret from me since Sunday! She's obviously very clever because I have no idea if I could pull off keeping a secret for so long, and she did it wonderfully! What a beautiful surprise! She even told me she was staying home all day-- bored out of her mind -- but I guess that was only a half truth. The drive on the way here is pretty boring .
After I found Brooke in the trunk, we were able to make our way into Valentine. Finally! Jonny, Brooke, Greg, Sean, Daniel, and I all enjoyed some unlimited bbq ribs when we got there! It was absolutely wonderful!
By the time we got back, everything was getting kind of late, so we all just hung out at Emily's for a little while before we decided to start a movie. I'm didn't see the entire thing, because I fell asleep, then I made my way back to the intern house after the movie and crashed. I need my sleep for tomorrow! We are tubing down the niobrara on our own tubes. It's going to be pretty sweet! And cheap!
That's about it! Thank you so much for all of your support!
Love,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Full blooded Indians always have black or brown eyes.
2. Apparently my girlfriend can fit in the trunk of a Hundai
3. Acts 16
Friday, July 13, 2012
Many Hands Make Light Work/ Day 38
For some reason this week seems to be dragging by. For most of this week I have been thinking it was a day later than it actually was, and I had a theory that it had something to do with the project I had been stuck on for 8hrs each day this week. The shed is being done really well, because Percy is an exceptional worker, but sometimes I just don't understand why we are doing things one way, when there is probably a more efficient and logical way to do it.
Nonetheless, the fact that I really wasn't enjoying working on the shed did not affect my motivation to wake up this morning. I woke up right on time, ate breakfast, did devos, and walked into work around 8am. When I walked in, I wasn't surprised to be put on the shed project again. I think Nixson is trying to see if I can make the work go any faster, but I don't think he understands what the process has looked like so far.
Before I went out to the site, I had to load up some more materials for Percy, but we didn't have everything we needed so that meant I had to run to Rosebud Building Products and maybe Ace Hardware to finish picking up what I needed. I was also set back by the fact that we didn't have any straps to strap down the materials I did have ready to take out to Percy, so I was stuck waiting for another crew to get back so I could get those from them.
Ernie and RJ were also with me stuck at the office waiting for another crew to get back, so after a while, Ernie decided we should go check on them and see what was taking so long. I got my straps from them, then I took one of the youth workers out to the shed site to help Percy while I picked up materials. Ernie and RJ went with the rest of the boys to another site.
I dropped Richard, the youth worker, off with Percy and double checked the materials he needed to finish up the shed. This was the list he gave me: a couple 12ft 2X4's, a couple drill bits, some tar paper, and 3/16in ply wood or vertical siding to finish up the walls.
Before I left to pick up the materials, I had a pretty cool conversation with Richard. He started asking me about why I was out here and where I was living, so I had the opportunity to tell him a little bit about my history with Rosebud and with Saint Francis and the fact that I really just wanted to come out to the Rez to learn more about the people, Lakota spirituality, and how that all coincided with what I believe as a Christian. I ask God every day for opportunities like these. Very cool.
When I got to RBP and finished ordering the stuff Percy had asked for, I pulled around back to start loading. The gentleman helping me picked out the 2X4's first, but I noticed some of them were warped pretty bad, so I was looking for straighter boards while he was loading up the ply wood I had asked for.
Much to my dismay, he had loaded up exactly what I asked for, but both Percy and Nixson had told me to pick up the wrong stuff. I didn't know the exact measurements of what I needed, but I did know the stuff that was loaded was not right. I called Nixson and he said he didn't really know the exact measurements, so I ended up unloading and returning the ply wood I had ordered, so I could go back to the site, get an exact measurement and come back to get the right stuff. What a waste of time.
I drove back to the site, and unloaded the materials I was able to pick up, and it turns out Nixson stopped by to take pictures of the work and see how everything was coming along. He brought Kelly and RJ with him, which was awesome for me because that meant I would get to work with a few of the guys I had grown to love, but also we could make our own crew and start working on finishing sheeting the walls, while Percy and the youth worker continued work on the roof. Efficiency. Yes.
After I got the measurements I needed for the ply wood, RJ and Kelly went back to RBP with me to pick up the ply wood. We also had to stop at First Stop Grocery to pick up some Powerade for the day. We got back to the site with 12 sheets of ply wood and we started sheeting the rest of the shed.
I don't know what it was about working with those guys, but we seemed to move much quicker than I did with Percy and the youth worker yesterday. I really enjoyed my time with them, and we were able to really see some progress, which is always encouraging.
Before we finished out the day, Percy wanted us to pick up his check for him at the office so he wouldn't have to drive back the office before he went home for the day. We needed gas as well, so we headed back to the office to grab those things.
When we got back to the office, we waited for a couple minutes for the checks to be finished and for the gas voucher to be filled out. At this point, we found out that I wasn't supposed to be driving the company trucks around. I wasn't on the insurance, so the boss lady and boss man told Nixson that I couldn't drive back out to the site to bring Percy his check.
That thought hadn't even crossed my mind a couple days ago when I asked about driving one of the trucks, but I still felt kind of bad about everything. Nobody seemed to care too much though, and we were able to get a voucher for Kelly so he could drive his personal truck out to the site.
After we made it back, we worked for a couple more hours and made more progress. We basically had the entire shed sheeted, except for the front of the shed where the doors were supposed to go and the spaces in the walls above and below the sheets of ply wood. What a satisfying day of work.
When we got back to the office, I chatted with Nixson about how he needed to be out there with us to really see how Percy works and encourage him to trust us to be working on one thing while he's working on another so we could get done with the project quicker. Nixson said he would come out tomorrow to check everything out.
I got back around 5:30pm and found Jonny and Stephen trying to make stir fry. The girls were busy so they left what seemed like one of the most difficult meals we had made this summer to us-- the guys who have little to no experience cooking anything more than a frozen pizza. I really wasn't sure it was a good idea, but it turns out Stephen is a natural! Everything turned out wonderfully and the meal was super good.
Afterwards, we had a group discussion about the readings we had for the week. They were pretty good readings. One was almost more abstract than the other, but both spurred good discussions that I think we all benefited from.
When we were done with the discussion, Jonny was going to go to Greg's for a bonfire with the Habitat volunteer group that was out here this week. I hadn't planned on going, but Greg invited me at the last minute, so I headed over with Jonny.
We got there and the group was no where to be seen. They called Jonny a couple times asking for directions so I figured they might be a while. I walked down the driveway to see if Greg and Kelly needed help cleaning up anything, while Jonny waited at the top of the drive way for the volunteer group to show.
I ended up spending my time inside the house helping Kelly clean up some stuff. By the time we were finished, I felt like I should head back to work on some stuff before work tomorrow, so I asked Kelly if I could get a ride back to Mission, because she was going into Mission for something anyways. I ended up watching the fire get started, then I went back to Mission with Kelly.
The fire was pretty crazy, because it ended up being huge and everything seemed pretty dry around it, but Greg had it under control with his hose and buckets of water. Most of us were pretty worried about the size of the bonfire, except for the volunteer group. They seemed to have the utmost faith in Greg and his ability to contain the fire. Interesting.
When I got back home, I worked on my blog for a little bit then I went to bed.
Thanks for reading! I really appreciate it!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. You have to be on the insurance to drive a company vehicle.
2. Sometimes huge bonfires are fun. Sometimes they can be really scary.
3. Acts 15
Inefficient and Stressful/ Day 37
I woke up this morning excited to go to the office again. I was hoping for the opportunity to work at other sites today, instead of with the shed, but also for the chance to drive that stick shift half-ton again. That was really fun to me.
I ate some breakfast and did my devotions then I headed into the office. When I got to the office, I was placed at the shed site. Even though I had wanted to check out the work being done at other sites, I knew I was going to get to drive the half-ton, so I was cool with being placed at the shed site.
We got out there kind of late, because of the usual random stuff that happens every morning. But when we finally got out there, we went straight to work. Percy and one of the youth workers were going to continue the work on the roof that we had started yesterday, and I was going to start sheeting the walls with 7/16in ply wood.
Unfortunately, instead of keeping the boards flush with the foundation of the building, Percy wanted me to hang them about six inches off the ground which would cover the actual wall frame of the building but left gaps at the top and bottom of the wall. This was unusual to me, and I was distraught by the utter inefficiency of the whole process-- a job that I could have done myself, by placing the sheets in a different way, now took three people to do.
Try as I might, I couldn't think of a more efficient way to hang the sheets the way Percy wanted, so I reluctantly started the process that I knew would be ridiculously time consuming. Percy and Richard would hold a sheet, then once they finished struggling with the heavy board to get it level and at the right height above the ground, I would tack it in. I started with a couple screws just to keep it in place, then I had to put a screw every 16in down the stud and across the board. 24 screws per board is what that added up to.
I spent the rest of the day on this process, as the sun beat down on us. I really did not have any energy left by the end of my shift. I was pretty discouraged by the inefficient process and the fact that I had spent so long working on those sheets but I had very little to show for it. Oh well. At least I get to rest and forget about how annoying sheeting a wall had been today.
When I got home, I ate some food and started working on my blog. I had kind of planned on just being home for the night, but the opportunity to go down to Greg's came up and I jumped on it. I hate sitting by myself, on the computer, writing my blog. It's not that I hate writing my blog, it's that writing a blog is very anti-social and I can't stand not being social. That's probably why I always fall behind on writing these things.
Anyway, I went down to Greg's to see what he was up to, and try to work on some of my blog while I was there. I ended up finishing a couple days, but while I was writing, Greg was building custom trim for his entry way and I really wanted to learn a little bit about that, so I asked if he needed any help. He said I could cut some boards for him, which was awesome, but at the same time, depressing, because I knew that if only the office had the tools that Greg had, my job would be so much easier. Especially the shed project.
Oh well. I learned a little bit about trim while I was there, which was awesome of Greg to take the time to show me, then all of a sudden it was almost midnight and I figured I should go home and sleep a little before work tomorrow.
When I got home, Jonny was up and he was very giggly for some reason, so we hung out for a little bit and he giggled a lot. At one point he started throwing bottles of lotion and tooth paste at me. I really don't know what that was about. But it was at that point that I decided I should go to bed, before I lost an eye to a bottle of lotion.
And that's that! Thank you all so much for your support!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to sheet a shed... The hard way.
2. Jonny likes to play dodge ball with bottles of toothpaste and lotion...
3. Acts 13.
I ate some breakfast and did my devotions then I headed into the office. When I got to the office, I was placed at the shed site. Even though I had wanted to check out the work being done at other sites, I knew I was going to get to drive the half-ton, so I was cool with being placed at the shed site.
We got out there kind of late, because of the usual random stuff that happens every morning. But when we finally got out there, we went straight to work. Percy and one of the youth workers were going to continue the work on the roof that we had started yesterday, and I was going to start sheeting the walls with 7/16in ply wood.
Unfortunately, instead of keeping the boards flush with the foundation of the building, Percy wanted me to hang them about six inches off the ground which would cover the actual wall frame of the building but left gaps at the top and bottom of the wall. This was unusual to me, and I was distraught by the utter inefficiency of the whole process-- a job that I could have done myself, by placing the sheets in a different way, now took three people to do.
Try as I might, I couldn't think of a more efficient way to hang the sheets the way Percy wanted, so I reluctantly started the process that I knew would be ridiculously time consuming. Percy and Richard would hold a sheet, then once they finished struggling with the heavy board to get it level and at the right height above the ground, I would tack it in. I started with a couple screws just to keep it in place, then I had to put a screw every 16in down the stud and across the board. 24 screws per board is what that added up to.
I spent the rest of the day on this process, as the sun beat down on us. I really did not have any energy left by the end of my shift. I was pretty discouraged by the inefficient process and the fact that I had spent so long working on those sheets but I had very little to show for it. Oh well. At least I get to rest and forget about how annoying sheeting a wall had been today.
When I got home, I ate some food and started working on my blog. I had kind of planned on just being home for the night, but the opportunity to go down to Greg's came up and I jumped on it. I hate sitting by myself, on the computer, writing my blog. It's not that I hate writing my blog, it's that writing a blog is very anti-social and I can't stand not being social. That's probably why I always fall behind on writing these things.
Anyway, I went down to Greg's to see what he was up to, and try to work on some of my blog while I was there. I ended up finishing a couple days, but while I was writing, Greg was building custom trim for his entry way and I really wanted to learn a little bit about that, so I asked if he needed any help. He said I could cut some boards for him, which was awesome, but at the same time, depressing, because I knew that if only the office had the tools that Greg had, my job would be so much easier. Especially the shed project.
Oh well. I learned a little bit about trim while I was there, which was awesome of Greg to take the time to show me, then all of a sudden it was almost midnight and I figured I should go home and sleep a little before work tomorrow.
When I got home, Jonny was up and he was very giggly for some reason, so we hung out for a little bit and he giggled a lot. At one point he started throwing bottles of lotion and tooth paste at me. I really don't know what that was about. But it was at that point that I decided I should go to bed, before I lost an eye to a bottle of lotion.
And that's that! Thank you all so much for your support!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to sheet a shed... The hard way.
2. Jonny likes to play dodge ball with bottles of toothpaste and lotion...
3. Acts 13.
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Back To Work/ Day 36
Today was my first day back to work since Tuesday afternoon. It's been almost a week-- that's weird to think about. Where does the time go?
Since I have had so much time off of work, I was super excited to be back to work with my crew. I've really grown to love spending time with them at work, since the beginning of the summer. It's incredible the way God works in such a short period of time! Hopefully I have been a blessing to my crew thus far.
I wasn't really sure what projects we were working on today or where I would be sent for the day, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. I was just hoping to spend more time with the guys. Unfortunately, when I got to the office, they needed help on a shed project that was taking way longer than my boss thought it should, so he sent me and two youth workers out to that site. It was kind of lame that I was getting sent out to a site with two new youth workers to work with a guy I've hardly worked with in the past, instead of working a project with the rest of the crew, but God uses everything for His glory.
First, I asked my boss if he wanted me to take one of the trucks out to the site so the youth workers could get back if they wanted to take a lunch, instead of having to call somebody to pick us up, and he said I could take the half-ton. I wasn't really anticipating this opportunity because the truck is huge and it's a stick shift. I knew, I knew how to drive a stick shift, but I hadn't had the time to perfect my skills in a manual car, much less a half-ton. Time to test myself!
I really debated getting in that truck and trying to drive it, but I decided that I just needed to go for it. The worst thing that could happen is I can't figure it out and I would have to switch trucks with Marky. I got in and pull the truck around nice and easy. I did it! I was pretty excited. Now to make it through the 16mi drive out to Mission to meet Percy. Here we go!
The drive out to meet Percy went pretty smoothly! I stalled twice, but it wasn't super bad, so that was pretty great! Although the coolest part of the drive was getting the chance to talk to some of the youth workers about who I was and why I was volunteering with the Employment Program. I'm so thankful for every opportunity God gives me to talk about why I'm out on the Rez for the summer. I hope that I left an impression on those boys.
When we got out to Percy's site, we started work immediately helping Percy start work on the rafters of this shed. It was interesting work to say the least. I was able to do half the work while Percy did the other half and the youth workers just took care of grabbing us materials and stuff we needed.
By the time we had finally called it quits, we had done a lot of solid work. The hardest part about it was that each piece of wood that we put up, especially the rafters, took suck a long time to completely level off and tack into the right spot. Very strenuous, tedious work.
After I got off of work, I ran home to get some food, then I went back out to my buddy's for the night to finish up a bunch of random stuff that was necessary to start getting the place back in order and ready to finish the painting. One of the rooms still needed paint on the trim, all of the windows needed to be cleaned of tape and paper, and most of the rooms needed caulk before the painting started. It was a pretty good night! Everything is slowly coming back together! I'm so excited for him!
I finished up the night by changing the brakes on my car. It took my a couple hours at least. I always think about working on my car and I kind of get excited to do some work with my hands, but every time I get down in there and start the work, so many things go wrong that I find more frustration than joy in my car. Maybe some day I'll be able to appreciate even the frustrations in my life.
Thank you so much for reading and supporting me in my ministry this summer!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to drive a manual!
2. Working on my car always sounds more exciting than it turns out to be...
3. Acts 13
Since I have had so much time off of work, I was super excited to be back to work with my crew. I've really grown to love spending time with them at work, since the beginning of the summer. It's incredible the way God works in such a short period of time! Hopefully I have been a blessing to my crew thus far.
I wasn't really sure what projects we were working on today or where I would be sent for the day, but that wasn't out of the ordinary. I was just hoping to spend more time with the guys. Unfortunately, when I got to the office, they needed help on a shed project that was taking way longer than my boss thought it should, so he sent me and two youth workers out to that site. It was kind of lame that I was getting sent out to a site with two new youth workers to work with a guy I've hardly worked with in the past, instead of working a project with the rest of the crew, but God uses everything for His glory.
First, I asked my boss if he wanted me to take one of the trucks out to the site so the youth workers could get back if they wanted to take a lunch, instead of having to call somebody to pick us up, and he said I could take the half-ton. I wasn't really anticipating this opportunity because the truck is huge and it's a stick shift. I knew, I knew how to drive a stick shift, but I hadn't had the time to perfect my skills in a manual car, much less a half-ton. Time to test myself!
I really debated getting in that truck and trying to drive it, but I decided that I just needed to go for it. The worst thing that could happen is I can't figure it out and I would have to switch trucks with Marky. I got in and pull the truck around nice and easy. I did it! I was pretty excited. Now to make it through the 16mi drive out to Mission to meet Percy. Here we go!
The drive out to meet Percy went pretty smoothly! I stalled twice, but it wasn't super bad, so that was pretty great! Although the coolest part of the drive was getting the chance to talk to some of the youth workers about who I was and why I was volunteering with the Employment Program. I'm so thankful for every opportunity God gives me to talk about why I'm out on the Rez for the summer. I hope that I left an impression on those boys.
When we got out to Percy's site, we started work immediately helping Percy start work on the rafters of this shed. It was interesting work to say the least. I was able to do half the work while Percy did the other half and the youth workers just took care of grabbing us materials and stuff we needed.
By the time we had finally called it quits, we had done a lot of solid work. The hardest part about it was that each piece of wood that we put up, especially the rafters, took suck a long time to completely level off and tack into the right spot. Very strenuous, tedious work.
After I got off of work, I ran home to get some food, then I went back out to my buddy's for the night to finish up a bunch of random stuff that was necessary to start getting the place back in order and ready to finish the painting. One of the rooms still needed paint on the trim, all of the windows needed to be cleaned of tape and paper, and most of the rooms needed caulk before the painting started. It was a pretty good night! Everything is slowly coming back together! I'm so excited for him!
I finished up the night by changing the brakes on my car. It took my a couple hours at least. I always think about working on my car and I kind of get excited to do some work with my hands, but every time I get down in there and start the work, so many things go wrong that I find more frustration than joy in my car. Maybe some day I'll be able to appreciate even the frustrations in my life.
Thank you so much for reading and supporting me in my ministry this summer!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to drive a manual!
2. Working on my car always sounds more exciting than it turns out to be...
3. Acts 13
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
A Textured Wall is a Happy Wall/ Day 35
It’s the third day of decontamination. The house is free of meth
residue, and the first couple coats of primer have been applied, so now it’s
time to prep for painting the house and getting it back to normal.
The pro left sometime yesterday afternoon, and most everyone else had
plans or needed a break, so that left my buddy and me. We had planned to be up
at 6am again, in fact we both were up at 6am, but the problem was we were both
exhausted and neither of us really wanted to be up that early. Another house of
sleep was in order. I went back to bed at 6:30am and ended up sleeping until
around 8:30am.
When I woke up, my buddy and I drove out to his place and we started
the work we had planned out for the day. Since almost all the priming was done,
it was time to paint. We didn’t have any of the paint for the house yet, but we
did have white paint for the trim, which was perfect because we realized we
could spray the trim and not have to worry about any of the over spray on the
walls or ceilings because they would be painted later. Brilliant. This will go
so much quicker now!
We also need to texture some of the walls in his house, so before we
started painting the trim, we masked off the trim and fixtures in the rooms
that he wanted textured. When we were done with the masking, I grabbed his
compressor and we started getting ready to texture his walls.
Unfortunately, at this point, we realized something was wrong with his
compressor. I grabbed a second compressor and tried it out. That one wasn’t
working either, and both we having the same problem. Very weird. Very annoying.
We decided we had no choice but to give
up on the texturing for the day.
We had a quick dinner of hot dogs in tortillas—they weren’t terrible—then
we had to start cleaning everything up because he had somewhere to be that night.
It was kind of depressing to have worked through the day and not be able to see
any progress at this point, but we really did get a lot done between the two of
us. Tomorrow we can start painting the walls, and hopefully start moving stuff
back into the house!
I hung out with him until around 11pm, then I headed back to the intern
house so we could talk about our week and what we had planned. It was a pretty
productive meeting, then it was time for bed. Another long day had just
finished up, and there were more long days ahead. I’m going back into the
office tomorrow for the first time since Tuesday, so I’m pretty excited about
that. Stay tuned to hear how my day went!
Thanks so much for reading!
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Three hours of sleep really is not enough.
2. Moving stuff with a three wheeler is way more fun than carrying it.
3. Acts 12
Time to Prime/ Day 34
Day 2 of decontamination. Day 2 of waking up at 6am. Day 2 of learning something new about the amount of work necessary to decontaminate a meth house. What a crazy day.
Since everybody had worked so hard yesterday finishing up the wipe down process before the day was over, we were able to start the process of priming the entire house as soon as we got there. I had no idea what the process of priming would look like, but I quickly found out that it would be another pretty long day.
Priming the house was actually going to be the easy part of the day because we had a paint sprayer, which was sweet cause I can't imagine priming by hand would be any fun. However, having a paint sprayer was almost like a catch 22, because instead of just taping off edges of trim and windows around the house, we had to completely cover the floor and windows with paper, plastic, and basically anything we could find. The over spray from the sprayer would have ruined the floors and windows if we hadn't masked everything, so it was definitely a necessary evil.
It took us a good majority of the morning to mask everything in the bedrooms, the living and dining room, and the kitchen, so we were able to start priming by early afternoon! This was the part of my day that I had the most mixed feelings about.
Basically two people were needed for the priming. One to actually spray the primer and one to hold the hose so it didn't get caught, tangled, or hit against the newly primed walls. I volunteered to be the one holding the hose since I didn't know how to prime, so that meant I had to get back in a ti-vac suit and put on gloves and a respirator.
This is where my feelings got mixed up. Being in the ti-vac suit yesterday was super hot and not necessarily the most enjoyable thing so the prospect of being in the suit again was not thrilling, but I was going to get to wear a respirator! Which was actually pretty cool, because I have never worn a respirator before and I think it's cool to something you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do in "regular" life. And I looked pretty cool in a respirator and ti-vac suit.
After we suited up, everything went pretty smoothly. It took a long time because we needed multiple coats and each coat took a while to dry, but we were out of their around 8pm after we masked and primed everything we could for the day. Long day, but it was pretty cool to learn about painting, masking, etc.
When we cleaned up, I met the other interns over at Greg's to shoot at some tannerite. The explosions I saw tonight were super legit. Greg blew up two old, portable tv's, but he set them on top of this run down shed on his property, so not only did the tv blow up, so did the roof of the shed. Awesome.
As we were leaving Greg's, Laura suggested we go to a bonfire with one of her friends, Andrew. It was still relatively early, so I didn't have a problem with it! We got there around 10:30pm and we bonfired it up until around 2am. That was a long bonfire. It was full of good conversation though, so I think the general consensus was that it was a good bonfire.
Sleep was well in order, when we got back, so I hit the hay as soon as I could because I told my buddy I would meet him at his place to continue work around 7am, which means a 6am wake up for me. I wasn't too excited, but it was for my buddy's sake, so I was willing to do it.
Thank you so much for following along, and for all your support!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Oil primer is way more potent than latex primer. This stuff gets everywhere and you cannot breathe while your in the middle of it.
2. Tannerite definitely explodes with a downward force.
3. Acts 11
Since everybody had worked so hard yesterday finishing up the wipe down process before the day was over, we were able to start the process of priming the entire house as soon as we got there. I had no idea what the process of priming would look like, but I quickly found out that it would be another pretty long day.
Priming the house was actually going to be the easy part of the day because we had a paint sprayer, which was sweet cause I can't imagine priming by hand would be any fun. However, having a paint sprayer was almost like a catch 22, because instead of just taping off edges of trim and windows around the house, we had to completely cover the floor and windows with paper, plastic, and basically anything we could find. The over spray from the sprayer would have ruined the floors and windows if we hadn't masked everything, so it was definitely a necessary evil.
It took us a good majority of the morning to mask everything in the bedrooms, the living and dining room, and the kitchen, so we were able to start priming by early afternoon! This was the part of my day that I had the most mixed feelings about.
Basically two people were needed for the priming. One to actually spray the primer and one to hold the hose so it didn't get caught, tangled, or hit against the newly primed walls. I volunteered to be the one holding the hose since I didn't know how to prime, so that meant I had to get back in a ti-vac suit and put on gloves and a respirator.
This is where my feelings got mixed up. Being in the ti-vac suit yesterday was super hot and not necessarily the most enjoyable thing so the prospect of being in the suit again was not thrilling, but I was going to get to wear a respirator! Which was actually pretty cool, because I have never worn a respirator before and I think it's cool to something you wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to do in "regular" life. And I looked pretty cool in a respirator and ti-vac suit.
After we suited up, everything went pretty smoothly. It took a long time because we needed multiple coats and each coat took a while to dry, but we were out of their around 8pm after we masked and primed everything we could for the day. Long day, but it was pretty cool to learn about painting, masking, etc.
When we cleaned up, I met the other interns over at Greg's to shoot at some tannerite. The explosions I saw tonight were super legit. Greg blew up two old, portable tv's, but he set them on top of this run down shed on his property, so not only did the tv blow up, so did the roof of the shed. Awesome.
As we were leaving Greg's, Laura suggested we go to a bonfire with one of her friends, Andrew. It was still relatively early, so I didn't have a problem with it! We got there around 10:30pm and we bonfired it up until around 2am. That was a long bonfire. It was full of good conversation though, so I think the general consensus was that it was a good bonfire.
Sleep was well in order, when we got back, so I hit the hay as soon as I could because I told my buddy I would meet him at his place to continue work around 7am, which means a 6am wake up for me. I wasn't too excited, but it was for my buddy's sake, so I was willing to do it.
Thank you so much for following along, and for all your support!
God bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Oil primer is way more potent than latex primer. This stuff gets everywhere and you cannot breathe while your in the middle of it.
2. Tannerite definitely explodes with a downward force.
3. Acts 11
Sunday, July 8, 2012
Meth House/ Day 33
The solution to pollution is dilution.
After today, I don't think I will have a more memorable day on the rez. It was one of those days where you just can't believe what you remember of your day is actually reality. It wasn't a dream though. I worked too hard for it to be a dream. I woke up at 6am this morning, because today marks the start of a three day decontamination process. What are we decontaminating you ask? A former meth house. That's what.
A buddy of mine moved into a house that the owner has been renting for a while. He had heard rumors that this house had been a meth house at one point, but nothing was confirmed and the owner didn't seem to know anything, so he moved in. Unfortunately, after a couple tests had been run, it turns out that there was still meth residue in the house, and it was dangerous to continue living there until it had been decontaminated. He said he needed all the help he could get and I couldn't imagine not helping.
I got there around 7am and I met a couple other guys who were helping out, then the professional showed up. It was a man and his son. He said he had been doing this for years now, which was crazy to think about-- for years there have been houses that have been so contaminated with meth that this guy has had a job. We were all thankful he was here, because we just wanted to get our buddy back in his house!
The pro instructed everybody to suit up in a full body ti-vac suit, we put on N-95's and plastic gloves, then we went into the house to see how the process was going to work. Everything started with a thorough rinse of the house. We took lawn and garden sprayers and sprayed a mixture of water, Tide, and 409 over the entire house-- the chemical compound of the mixture will dilute and decontaminate the meth residue. We let it sit for about 10 minutes then it was time to get started.
The pro took five people to start the process-- one to spray the wall, one to scrub the wall, one to wipe the wall, one to hand out the paper towels, and one to man the garbage. Usually this job was done by a professional crew, but assembling a crew of civilians led by a pro saved our buddy quite a bit of money, so it was time to learn.
Overall, the process was super tedious. One person would spray, then I would scrub, then the next guy would take exactly three paper towels and take one swipe down the wall, then he would throw the three paper towels away and the next guy would hand him another three to do this over again, and the last guy would make sure the garbage can stayed close to the wiper. I'm sure you can imagine how tedious this process was.
We were closely supervised by the pro, as we covered the entire house with spray then a wipe down. We took enough breaks to stay hydrated and to eat, but we really wanted to get the initial wipe down finished so we could start priming tomorrow, so we worked about 11hrs overall. What a long day of wiping down every square inch of a house by hand, but I was so glad to help my buddy out.
After we called it quits for the day, my buddy's parents treated us all to dinner at the Starlight Cafe. It was so good! We ate pretty quickly because we had heard about a MMA Fight that was happening at the Rodeo Grounds that night, so we went straight there after dinner.
We got there right on time! The fights started out with boxing, then they switched to MMA. We saw some pretty sweet fights, but we also saw some lame ones. All I wanted to see that night was a knock-out, and in the second to last fight, I got to see a knock out punch! That was well worth the $5 I spent to get in.
After the fights, Jonny and I went out to Greg's place to check on some stuff and mess around. We ended up having a competition to see who could hit the broad side of a barn with a golf ball first. Greg only has lefty clubs, and I probably should be able to use them, because I'm actually left handed, but things did not go as planned. My golf balls, hit a tree, hit another tree father down the lawn, and ultimately completely missed the barn. Jonny won. I was surprised.
When we were done with our competition, we took a cruise through Greg's land to see if we could find anything interesting. We saw a couple huge deer, but other than that, everything was super quiet. It was a beautiful night otherwise.
But alas, all good things much come to an end, so we headed back to Mission and hit the hay in anticipation of another long day tomorrow.
Thank you so much for all of your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to decontaminate a meth house
2. The cover of night makes doing stupid things more enjoyable.
3. Acts 10
After today, I don't think I will have a more memorable day on the rez. It was one of those days where you just can't believe what you remember of your day is actually reality. It wasn't a dream though. I worked too hard for it to be a dream. I woke up at 6am this morning, because today marks the start of a three day decontamination process. What are we decontaminating you ask? A former meth house. That's what.
A buddy of mine moved into a house that the owner has been renting for a while. He had heard rumors that this house had been a meth house at one point, but nothing was confirmed and the owner didn't seem to know anything, so he moved in. Unfortunately, after a couple tests had been run, it turns out that there was still meth residue in the house, and it was dangerous to continue living there until it had been decontaminated. He said he needed all the help he could get and I couldn't imagine not helping.
I got there around 7am and I met a couple other guys who were helping out, then the professional showed up. It was a man and his son. He said he had been doing this for years now, which was crazy to think about-- for years there have been houses that have been so contaminated with meth that this guy has had a job. We were all thankful he was here, because we just wanted to get our buddy back in his house!
The pro instructed everybody to suit up in a full body ti-vac suit, we put on N-95's and plastic gloves, then we went into the house to see how the process was going to work. Everything started with a thorough rinse of the house. We took lawn and garden sprayers and sprayed a mixture of water, Tide, and 409 over the entire house-- the chemical compound of the mixture will dilute and decontaminate the meth residue. We let it sit for about 10 minutes then it was time to get started.
The pro took five people to start the process-- one to spray the wall, one to scrub the wall, one to wipe the wall, one to hand out the paper towels, and one to man the garbage. Usually this job was done by a professional crew, but assembling a crew of civilians led by a pro saved our buddy quite a bit of money, so it was time to learn.
Overall, the process was super tedious. One person would spray, then I would scrub, then the next guy would take exactly three paper towels and take one swipe down the wall, then he would throw the three paper towels away and the next guy would hand him another three to do this over again, and the last guy would make sure the garbage can stayed close to the wiper. I'm sure you can imagine how tedious this process was.
We were closely supervised by the pro, as we covered the entire house with spray then a wipe down. We took enough breaks to stay hydrated and to eat, but we really wanted to get the initial wipe down finished so we could start priming tomorrow, so we worked about 11hrs overall. What a long day of wiping down every square inch of a house by hand, but I was so glad to help my buddy out.
After we called it quits for the day, my buddy's parents treated us all to dinner at the Starlight Cafe. It was so good! We ate pretty quickly because we had heard about a MMA Fight that was happening at the Rodeo Grounds that night, so we went straight there after dinner.
We got there right on time! The fights started out with boxing, then they switched to MMA. We saw some pretty sweet fights, but we also saw some lame ones. All I wanted to see that night was a knock-out, and in the second to last fight, I got to see a knock out punch! That was well worth the $5 I spent to get in.
After the fights, Jonny and I went out to Greg's place to check on some stuff and mess around. We ended up having a competition to see who could hit the broad side of a barn with a golf ball first. Greg only has lefty clubs, and I probably should be able to use them, because I'm actually left handed, but things did not go as planned. My golf balls, hit a tree, hit another tree father down the lawn, and ultimately completely missed the barn. Jonny won. I was surprised.
When we were done with our competition, we took a cruise through Greg's land to see if we could find anything interesting. We saw a couple huge deer, but other than that, everything was super quiet. It was a beautiful night otherwise.
But alas, all good things much come to an end, so we headed back to Mission and hit the hay in anticipation of another long day tomorrow.
Thank you so much for all of your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to decontaminate a meth house
2. The cover of night makes doing stupid things more enjoyable.
3. Acts 10
A Day of Rest/ Day 32
I'm the kind of person who loves to constantly have something going on, so I seldom take a day to just chill out. Sometimes God places those opportunities in front of me in order to keep me on track. Rest is important. I guess.
Today was one of those days. Since the Tribal Labor Laws gave us the Thursday after the 4th off, I didn't have a whole lot planned. My brakes needed to be changed so I thought I would take care of that today, but I didn't get up as early as planned and I didn't wake up with the motivation necessary to really start the work on my car.
I spent a majority of the day sitting on our couch, working on stuff for school next year, and researching issues I'm having with my car. It was actually a pretty productive day; I just didn't feel like I did a whole lot. But it was nice to rest for the day.
Around 3pm, Greg called to see if anybody wanted to go to Valentine to get unlimited ribs at Jordan's. I wanted ribs so badly, but I ate a pretty late lunch and I wasn't sure that I would be able to take advantage of the unlimited ribs since I was still pretty full. Lame. I turned him down, but I told him to keep me on the list for next time!
The rest of my day was spent resting, until about 8pm. At that point, Jonny and I went to Greg's house to blow some stuff up. It took a couple minutes to set everything up, so by the time we were done, we were hard pressed for time to actually make this worth while. Greg took a couple shots at the Tannerite, but nothing happened.
We ended up fiddling with the set up of everything trying to figure out why the Tannerite wasn't blowing up, but that took way too long, so we ended up running out of day light. That was a huge bummer. I guess we'll have to figure it out tomorrow.
We ended up getting back pretty late tonight, so it was time for bed. Tomorrow Jonny and I are waking up at 6am. Stay tuned to find out why!
Thanks for reading.
In Him,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. How to read a vehicle electrical diagram.
2. How to fix the electrical issues in my car.
3. Acts 9
Thursday, July 5, 2012
4th of July/ Day 31
It's the 4th of July. That means it's time to pack as many festivities and explosives, as is humanly possible, into one day of crazy awesome fun.
My day was supposed to start with a walk/run this morning, but I couldn't quite find the motivation to subject myself to that kind of torture at 8am. So instead, my day started with Greg walking into my room and throwing an orange at my face. Thankfully, my arm deflected the flying fruit.
It was about lunch time and the races started in about an hour, so it was time to get up, do my devotionals, and get some food. Just as I had finished with everything, Greg met us back at our place and Greg, Scott, Jonny, Stephen, and I caravaned out to the mud race track.
We got there right at 1pm, but since everything is on Indian time out here, the races didn't actually start until 2:30pm. Once they started up, it was super sweet! Each driver would take their truck would go as fast as it they could around a figure 8 course that had random holes filled with water throughout. Greg had a friend that was racing too, so that was pretty awesome. The excitement gets to you when you're rooting for a specific driver.
After the races, there was a mud tug-of-war "tournament". I kind of thought it would be cool to go down there and try it, but they were asking for teams of five and a $10 entrance fee. We only had four people in our group, 'cause Stephen had left, and we didn't have $10 cash.
But just as I had dismissed the idea, a random guy came by yelling something like "We need a couple extra guys! Come on! Let's go sign up!" They were pointing at Jonny and I. I hesitated for a second, but they didn't need to tell me twice. This would be an experience.
Jonny hesitated for a couple seconds longer than I did, but he joined us as well. We grabbed another guy as we walked down to the track, and we were ready to rock. They made me the team captain for some reason, so I had to go up to a captains meeting quick. I looked at all the other captains and most of them seemed like pretty large guys. We would have to fight like mad to win this thing.
We went over strategy quickly, before they called the two team captains for the first round of tug-of-war. It was my team against the log homes boys (they're huge). I won the coin toss, and we picked the far side of the bank. It was truly a bank, because we were fighting to pull each other into a mud pit that was just the right consistency of mud and water to make it a truly distasteful experience for anyone who fell in.
It was pretty muddy and therefore slippery, but we were going to fight as hard as we could. One of the "officials" was giving me advice telling me to release then pull as one team to catch the boys on the other side off balance and win this thing.
When we started, I expected to immediately be tossed into the muddy water, but we actually held our own! And we were about to win the thing, until something went wrong. We quickly started losing ground and I started screaming "Pull! Pull! Pull!" It was useless. Before I knew it, I was headlong in the sea of mud. What happened?
I pulled myself out of the goop, and immediately I saw one of my teammates on the ground. Some people were standing around him and he looked like he was in pain. He told me he popped his knee out of socket right before we were about to win. Without him, we definitely outnumbered by the other guys, hence the reason I was covered from head to toe in mud. So that's what happened. We helped him back to the side of the track so another team could battle it out, and he told us he would be fine.
I spent the next hour or so trying to wash off-- though I spend more time waiting in line than washing. The mud was everywhere and I really didn't want it to get all over my car. I washed off the best I could and made my way back to the side of the track.
After I washed off, we spent a couple minutes watching some guys try to jump another mud trench with their trucks and ATV's for money, but nobody made it. It was almost time for the cookout in SF, so Jonny and I took off. When we got back to our place, I took a shower quickly to clean all mud off me, then we loaded up our vehicles and headed to SF for the cookout!
Our time in SF was amazing! I got to spend time talking with Karen, who I only knew a little bit because she is the grandma of some of the kids I know in SF, so that was awesome. Then there was the food! Hot dogs, brats, hamburgers, barbecue chicken, and steak; chips, pickles, pasta salad, baked beans with bacon, potato salad, and cookies/donuts as well! Oh my gosh. It was sooo good.
After dinner, we made our own fireworks show. Karen had bought a ton of fireworks for her grandkids so we spent quite some time setting all of those off. It was pretty awesome just hanging out and lighting fireworks in the street. Especially because fireworks that shoot into the air are legal in SD, so I would venture to say that our show was even better than a "professional" one. At least it was more fun.
We hung out at Karen's until after midnight, then we decided we should get back so some of us could get some sleep. Greg and I had a pretty awesome conversation about business on the way back, then it was time for bed.
Tannerite tomorrow with Greg and the gang. And I have the day off from work! It should be a good day. Thanks for all your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Never turn down the opportunity to do something crazy.
2. Having your own fireworks show with friends and family is way more legit than going to watch a "professional" show at the Rosebud Casino.
3. Acts 8.
My day was supposed to start with a walk/run this morning, but I couldn't quite find the motivation to subject myself to that kind of torture at 8am. So instead, my day started with Greg walking into my room and throwing an orange at my face. Thankfully, my arm deflected the flying fruit.
It was about lunch time and the races started in about an hour, so it was time to get up, do my devotionals, and get some food. Just as I had finished with everything, Greg met us back at our place and Greg, Scott, Jonny, Stephen, and I caravaned out to the mud race track.
We got there right at 1pm, but since everything is on Indian time out here, the races didn't actually start until 2:30pm. Once they started up, it was super sweet! Each driver would take their truck would go as fast as it they could around a figure 8 course that had random holes filled with water throughout. Greg had a friend that was racing too, so that was pretty awesome. The excitement gets to you when you're rooting for a specific driver.
After the races, there was a mud tug-of-war "tournament". I kind of thought it would be cool to go down there and try it, but they were asking for teams of five and a $10 entrance fee. We only had four people in our group, 'cause Stephen had left, and we didn't have $10 cash.
But just as I had dismissed the idea, a random guy came by yelling something like "We need a couple extra guys! Come on! Let's go sign up!" They were pointing at Jonny and I. I hesitated for a second, but they didn't need to tell me twice. This would be an experience.
Jonny hesitated for a couple seconds longer than I did, but he joined us as well. We grabbed another guy as we walked down to the track, and we were ready to rock. They made me the team captain for some reason, so I had to go up to a captains meeting quick. I looked at all the other captains and most of them seemed like pretty large guys. We would have to fight like mad to win this thing.
We went over strategy quickly, before they called the two team captains for the first round of tug-of-war. It was my team against the log homes boys (they're huge). I won the coin toss, and we picked the far side of the bank. It was truly a bank, because we were fighting to pull each other into a mud pit that was just the right consistency of mud and water to make it a truly distasteful experience for anyone who fell in.
It was pretty muddy and therefore slippery, but we were going to fight as hard as we could. One of the "officials" was giving me advice telling me to release then pull as one team to catch the boys on the other side off balance and win this thing.
When we started, I expected to immediately be tossed into the muddy water, but we actually held our own! And we were about to win the thing, until something went wrong. We quickly started losing ground and I started screaming "Pull! Pull! Pull!" It was useless. Before I knew it, I was headlong in the sea of mud. What happened?
I pulled myself out of the goop, and immediately I saw one of my teammates on the ground. Some people were standing around him and he looked like he was in pain. He told me he popped his knee out of socket right before we were about to win. Without him, we definitely outnumbered by the other guys, hence the reason I was covered from head to toe in mud. So that's what happened. We helped him back to the side of the track so another team could battle it out, and he told us he would be fine.
I spent the next hour or so trying to wash off-- though I spend more time waiting in line than washing. The mud was everywhere and I really didn't want it to get all over my car. I washed off the best I could and made my way back to the side of the track.
After I washed off, we spent a couple minutes watching some guys try to jump another mud trench with their trucks and ATV's for money, but nobody made it. It was almost time for the cookout in SF, so Jonny and I took off. When we got back to our place, I took a shower quickly to clean all mud off me, then we loaded up our vehicles and headed to SF for the cookout!
Our time in SF was amazing! I got to spend time talking with Karen, who I only knew a little bit because she is the grandma of some of the kids I know in SF, so that was awesome. Then there was the food! Hot dogs, brats, hamburgers, barbecue chicken, and steak; chips, pickles, pasta salad, baked beans with bacon, potato salad, and cookies/donuts as well! Oh my gosh. It was sooo good.
After dinner, we made our own fireworks show. Karen had bought a ton of fireworks for her grandkids so we spent quite some time setting all of those off. It was pretty awesome just hanging out and lighting fireworks in the street. Especially because fireworks that shoot into the air are legal in SD, so I would venture to say that our show was even better than a "professional" one. At least it was more fun.
We hung out at Karen's until after midnight, then we decided we should get back so some of us could get some sleep. Greg and I had a pretty awesome conversation about business on the way back, then it was time for bed.
Tannerite tomorrow with Greg and the gang. And I have the day off from work! It should be a good day. Thanks for all your support!
God Bless,
Brenden
Things I learned today:
1. Never turn down the opportunity to do something crazy.
2. Having your own fireworks show with friends and family is way more legit than going to watch a "professional" show at the Rosebud Casino.
3. Acts 8.
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