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!)