Work Day #2
Today we started off to a fast start and then slow down due to having to wait for one of the projects to be done before we could work on other ones. We got up and had breakfast and then proceeded to have devotions given by Pastor Bill who is from Faith Lutheran where we are staying.
Rigo, Miguel and Nicole continued to work on the new bathroom. Julia and I prepared a section of the lobby to get painted, by packing up and moving a shelving case which housed many DVDs, VHS tapes, and CDs. We then sanded down the screw holes that were on the wall we were prepping. Before we could paint we needed another group to finish their project which was removing an old vent system. This process ended up using the majority of our group to complete. Beth and Emilie along with Pastor Bill from Faith Lutheran were the ones incharge of this task. Beth used her monkey climbing skills to complete this task. Once we all helped remove that we were able to get back to work on prepping and start painting part of the lobby. Carmina, Natalie, Kristine, and Hannah went back to work on prepping the outside wall to be painted. Due to only one power washer, Carmina and Natalie took turns cleaning the wall. They also worked on painting the stairway to the basement. The others ended up inside helping paint and and prep other wall to be painted. Once most of the lobby wall was painted. Anakin and Ashley continued helping Bill E. in the morning with the drainage stuff and then helped Tim in the Beauty Parlor area. Beth and I headed to start prepping and painting the boys bathroom. We were able to prep and finish painting the whole bathroom, just some touch ups needed tomorrow. The group that finished painting the lobby headed to help Tim, a board member of Paradox, clean out another part of the building that Paradox hopes to use in the future. This group also along with a couple others headed to the dump with Bill K. to get rid of all the trash that they cleaned up and took down. Kids have more details on this see below.
After we were finished with work for the day, we headed to get wonderful showers and then headed to dinner. We ate a Calhoun's, which is a BBQ place, Great food! Bill and Susan K and Tim joined us for dinner along with some of the Paradox students, Roger, Brandon, Tristan, Tristan, and Caden. These boys have also been helping us with painting and cleaning up areas of Paradox. It has been neat getting to know them.
This group of youth and staff have been an amazing group to work with. Parents you have raised amazing kids who are willing to serve and help others.
~ Cerutti
Today I did a variety of jobs. I painted a wall, hauled waste into a trailer, and ripped up 3 layers of flooring. As I write, I am covered in paint and dust, and am desperately awaiting an open shower. In-between jobs, I took a trip to a junk yard about 30 minutes away. The whole time, Tim (a resurrected man with a thick southern drawl and equally thick sense of humor) and Bill (the owner of The Paradox and an amazing beef jerky maker) talked our ears off. They gave us a tour on the way, and showed us random videos on their phones. When they talked to each other, every sentence they said had the opposite persons name in it."Bill, you passed the junk yard!"
"Come on, Tim! Why didn't you tell me?!"
"Sorry, Bill."
"Oh, Tim."
"Please forgive me, Bill. Look on the bright side, these kids get take the scenic route!"
So funny. Now I'm going to finally take my shower!
-Julia :)
Today I had the privilege of doing a variety of jobs. At first I got the task of ripping out an air duct which trust me is harder then it sounds we had to come up with a sound plan and use the muscles God gave us to lift hold and push out the duct. Getting that duct out was a real struggle that took way too long. Next I got a little break by painting. Since I have the arm length I was put on a 12ft ladder to do the upper portion of the wall. But looking back after the wall was finished made me feel really accomplished. A little later I got put on the dump crew which drove about 30 minutes away to the dump and while we were there we each individually threw away 500lbs. We did encounter a struggle Because you had to be 16 years or older to help and that limited our crew but we got the job done! I feel that today was a great second day of work and I'm so happy that we get to help out the center the way we are.
-Emilie
Let's just start out saying that I will never be wearing these clothes again! As soon as we got to the paradox Emilie, Hannah, Pastor Bill, and I were put in charge of taking out the heating and cooling vent that was in the the ceiling. Emilie and I were in charge of cutting all of the wires holding up the smaller parts of the vents. This seems like an easy job except for the fact that below the vents was a suspended ceiling. We had to climb up ladders and move the ceiling tiles so we can get to the vents. Some of the sections were connected to each other some were not. We eventually got all of the smaller parts out after having to move from one ceiling tile to the next. We finally got to the part where we had to take the larges part of the vents out. This part was about 35 feet of metal vents. We tried to take apart as much as we could. As we were trying to break it off we had someone push a part from the other side of the wall so it would fall the other direction. As the part came down it took out a ladder and crashed to the floor with a loud bang. Simultaneously every adult started freaking out and screaming to make sure everyone was alright. We had no injuries (thank God!). But we got to the point where we needed to just scoot the rest of the vents along the wall to an area where they could fall and not damage anything. As we began to move the largest part we had 3 people up on ladders, one person in the group guiding it with a piece of wood, and I was up in the sound booth on the other side of the wall attempting to guide it also. As everyone was pushing some could no longer reach it to hold it up. This made it very difficult for Kristine and I to hold up the whole thing and still balance it on the wall so no one got hurt. We finally pushed it one last time and it came crashing down. God was definitely watching over us to make sure no one was injured and the task got done. As we finished this we decided that it was time for lunch. After lunch we started all of our painting projects. Some people started to paint the kitchen, other painted the wall in the skate park, and others were power washing the back wall. I started working one the kitchen. They were painting it a dark blue. This paint however was an oil based paint which makes it harder to come off of skin and impossible to come off of clothing. As I am looking at the wall I noticed that a part of the wall was missing point towards the top because they could not reach it from the ladder. I decided to climb up into the coins booth and try to reach over the wall and paint that section. It worked a lot better than we all thought it would. As I got down I realized that my armpit felt a little sticky. Later I found out that I had stuck my armpit in paint while trying to reach over the wall (and it was not coming out to easily while showering). When I came back to the kitchen Cerutti and I noticed that there was a bunch of people working inside the kitchen. So we decided to take on the boys bathroom. As we got into the bathroom and started to paint we realized that the paint was going to need a few coats to completely cover the yellowish walls that were underneath. After finishing our first coat we noticed that the skateboarders that had been working on painting the wall in the skate park were no where to be found. We went out to get a drink and we find all of the boys playing pool and lounging around. Cerutti decided that this was unacceptable and treated them like she was their leader and told them to get back to work on that wall. They were very amused by this and said that they were all done with the wall. She made them all march into the room and pointed out every spot that was not to her liking. They immediately started working again. She then decided that if they could finish the wall to her liking that she would take them out for ice cream. They seemed to love that idea and got right back to work. As Cerutti and I started working on our second coat in the bathroom we were focusing on the trim. At first we tried to make it not touch the ceiling. We quickly determined that it would work better if she painted it to look nice on the wall and I would come by with a wet rag and wipe off the paint on he ceiling. This worked very well for us. But all of a sudden it got very quiet back where the boys had been working. They were all walking out of the room to go play pool again when Cerutti asked them what they were doing and why they weren't working they all proceeded to sprint back and grab the paint brushes and quickly paint in hope they would still get their ice cream and wouldn't be yelled at. So Cerutti and I went back to working in the bathroom. We had finished the trim and were now painting the wall. You could always tell when one of us would get paint on the ceiling because we would let out loud shrieks and groan since we had messed up. We finally finished the bathroom and everyone was back from taking trash to the dump. Everyone was cleaning up and getting ready to hit the shower that we were all looking forward to. So we head back to the church to get all of out stuff together. We headed over to the community center to take showers. As I am changing I realize that I have a visible line of dirt and paint where my shorts ended. You could say I was ready for my shower! As I got out and dried off I began to look for my clean clothes which were no where to be found. I had forgotten my clean clothes back at the church. I had to change into my dirty paint cloths again. After we go back to he church and I put clean clothes on we head to dinner. We went to a place that was famous for its meat. After we had all eaten our dinner the boys that had grown fond of Cerutti and how she made them work reminded her a few times they she owed them ice cream. She promised to either get it Wednesday or Thursday as long as they were working all day when they came and not taking breaks. I can't wait to see what the rest of this week hold and all of the little things that happen that we will remember forever. *update: no spiders were seen today but many spider eggs were ewww*
-Beth
I got to use a drill to put up more walls for the new bathroom. I also got to talk to some new people and made some new friends. Today was a very good day, even if I ended up feeling sore.
-Nicole
Today was a lot crazier than yesterday. Instead of working on one project all day, I shifted jobs a lot. I started by power washing the outside wall for a little while. I took a break and went inside when the power washer overheated. After lunch, I was asked to help paint the kitchen wall that had been put up the day before. Let's just say, that is now a very blue kitchen! A little while later, I stood on the very top of a rickety ladder to help Beth and Emilie knock down an old piece of insulation. lucky for me Natalie was there to hold the base of my ladder steady. A few hours later, I wandered outside to see if there was any tasks I could help with. Tim asked if I wanted to "go on a road trip" and seeing as I had nothing else to do, I hopped into the van. Turns out we were traveling to a "dumpster" while hauling a trailer full of trash behind us. Turns out this "dumpster" was almost 30 minutes away & locked up like a high security prison. When we entered, only people who were ages 16 and older could get out of the vehicle. That meant me, Emilie, Ashley, Hannah, Bill, and Tim. So we unloaded 500 pounds (each) of trash out of the trailer & loaded it into one of the dump's large dumpsters. Not to mention, it was over 90 degrees outside! #Sweat4Jesus And although I got dust in my eyes, it was fun to be doing something productive to help the center. By the time we got back to the center, it was time to pack up and go shower. Thank the Lord for showers! Can't wait for tomorrow's adventures!
Kristine :)
Showers are a blessing. I spent most of the day waiting for a power washer to get its head together and work. While waiting, I took down a metal grid that was the length of the one wall. It was on the ceiling so I did a few balancing acts to reach. I walked out of the center covered in gravel and dirt, but also with a whole new appreciation for painters.
-Natalie
Today I went from holding ladders for people to scrubbing walls to cleaning out a room. I mainly cleaned out the room. It was really fun to get to know Tim, who always has a smile on his face and is very God-centered, while cleaning. After loading the trailer with garbage, we took it to a junk yard and emptied it. Overall, today was very productive and nice!
Hannah
I started the day by helping take out the air duck. It took forever and I had a ton of insulation falling all over my head! After that I scrubbed the tire marks off of the wall to prep for painting. Anakin, Bill, and I then went to the hardware store to pick up more paint and wood. Me and Bill climbed into the back of the stacks of wood to reach the best ones! After we got back from the store I started working in the old beauty parlor to get rid of all the garbage and water logged panels. It was super messy and had a TON of spiders! D: But after the room was cleaned out, it was all worth it! Tim, Emilie, Julie, Anakin, Tristan, Hannah, Bill, Kristine, and I went to dump the trash from the room at a junk yard. Tim, Hannah, and I lifted over 1,000 pounds after loading and unloading the trailer! Today was very busy but was tons of fun!
Ashley
Well today I woke up energized and ready to work. I arrived at paradox and started to scrub paint off the one wall and it took forever, but I didn't have to do all of it, about 15 minutes in Ashley and I went with bill to Home Depot to get wood and paint, and it took about an hour and I almost died doing it, but you know someone's gotta do it. After that we started scrubbing a different wall. We did that till lunchtime and after for a bit. Then we went into the old beauty salon and started to take out the wood and all the trash out to his trailer. That took a good hour or two but it was fun. Ashley, Hannah, Julia, and I were all helping him and Tristian move everything. Next we went with Ashley, Hannah, Julia, Kristine, Emilie, Tristan, Bill, tim, and I went to take everything over to the waste management and unloaded everything . We got back to have Ashley, Hannah, Julia, Tristan, tim, and I tore up the tiles in the beauty salon. Obviously a very fun and exciting day. It was hard but all worth it!!!!
-Anakin🐑
Rigo, Miguel and Nicole continued to work on the new bathroom. Julia and I prepared a section of the lobby to get painted, by packing up and moving a shelving case which housed many DVDs, VHS tapes, and CDs. We then sanded down the screw holes that were on the wall we were prepping. Before we could paint we needed another group to finish their project which was removing an old vent system. This process ended up using the majority of our group to complete. Beth and Emilie along with Pastor Bill from Faith Lutheran were the ones incharge of this task. Beth used her monkey climbing skills to complete this task. Once we all helped remove that we were able to get back to work on prepping and start painting part of the lobby. Carmina, Natalie, Kristine, and Hannah went back to work on prepping the outside wall to be painted. Due to only one power washer, Carmina and Natalie took turns cleaning the wall. They also worked on painting the stairway to the basement. The others ended up inside helping paint and and prep other wall to be painted. Once most of the lobby wall was painted. Anakin and Ashley continued helping Bill E. in the morning with the drainage stuff and then helped Tim in the Beauty Parlor area. Beth and I headed to start prepping and painting the boys bathroom. We were able to prep and finish painting the whole bathroom, just some touch ups needed tomorrow. The group that finished painting the lobby headed to help Tim, a board member of Paradox, clean out another part of the building that Paradox hopes to use in the future. This group also along with a couple others headed to the dump with Bill K. to get rid of all the trash that they cleaned up and took down. Kids have more details on this see below.
After we were finished with work for the day, we headed to get wonderful showers and then headed to dinner. We ate a Calhoun's, which is a BBQ place, Great food! Bill and Susan K and Tim joined us for dinner along with some of the Paradox students, Roger, Brandon, Tristan, Tristan, and Caden. These boys have also been helping us with painting and cleaning up areas of Paradox. It has been neat getting to know them.
This group of youth and staff have been an amazing group to work with. Parents you have raised amazing kids who are willing to serve and help others.
~ Cerutti
Today I did a variety of jobs. I painted a wall, hauled waste into a trailer, and ripped up 3 layers of flooring. As I write, I am covered in paint and dust, and am desperately awaiting an open shower. In-between jobs, I took a trip to a junk yard about 30 minutes away. The whole time, Tim (a resurrected man with a thick southern drawl and equally thick sense of humor) and Bill (the owner of The Paradox and an amazing beef jerky maker) talked our ears off. They gave us a tour on the way, and showed us random videos on their phones. When they talked to each other, every sentence they said had the opposite persons name in it."Bill, you passed the junk yard!"
"Come on, Tim! Why didn't you tell me?!"
"Sorry, Bill."
"Oh, Tim."
"Please forgive me, Bill. Look on the bright side, these kids get take the scenic route!"
So funny. Now I'm going to finally take my shower!
-Julia :)
Today I had the privilege of doing a variety of jobs. At first I got the task of ripping out an air duct which trust me is harder then it sounds we had to come up with a sound plan and use the muscles God gave us to lift hold and push out the duct. Getting that duct out was a real struggle that took way too long. Next I got a little break by painting. Since I have the arm length I was put on a 12ft ladder to do the upper portion of the wall. But looking back after the wall was finished made me feel really accomplished. A little later I got put on the dump crew which drove about 30 minutes away to the dump and while we were there we each individually threw away 500lbs. We did encounter a struggle Because you had to be 16 years or older to help and that limited our crew but we got the job done! I feel that today was a great second day of work and I'm so happy that we get to help out the center the way we are.
-Emilie
Let's just start out saying that I will never be wearing these clothes again! As soon as we got to the paradox Emilie, Hannah, Pastor Bill, and I were put in charge of taking out the heating and cooling vent that was in the the ceiling. Emilie and I were in charge of cutting all of the wires holding up the smaller parts of the vents. This seems like an easy job except for the fact that below the vents was a suspended ceiling. We had to climb up ladders and move the ceiling tiles so we can get to the vents. Some of the sections were connected to each other some were not. We eventually got all of the smaller parts out after having to move from one ceiling tile to the next. We finally got to the part where we had to take the larges part of the vents out. This part was about 35 feet of metal vents. We tried to take apart as much as we could. As we were trying to break it off we had someone push a part from the other side of the wall so it would fall the other direction. As the part came down it took out a ladder and crashed to the floor with a loud bang. Simultaneously every adult started freaking out and screaming to make sure everyone was alright. We had no injuries (thank God!). But we got to the point where we needed to just scoot the rest of the vents along the wall to an area where they could fall and not damage anything. As we began to move the largest part we had 3 people up on ladders, one person in the group guiding it with a piece of wood, and I was up in the sound booth on the other side of the wall attempting to guide it also. As everyone was pushing some could no longer reach it to hold it up. This made it very difficult for Kristine and I to hold up the whole thing and still balance it on the wall so no one got hurt. We finally pushed it one last time and it came crashing down. God was definitely watching over us to make sure no one was injured and the task got done. As we finished this we decided that it was time for lunch. After lunch we started all of our painting projects. Some people started to paint the kitchen, other painted the wall in the skate park, and others were power washing the back wall. I started working one the kitchen. They were painting it a dark blue. This paint however was an oil based paint which makes it harder to come off of skin and impossible to come off of clothing. As I am looking at the wall I noticed that a part of the wall was missing point towards the top because they could not reach it from the ladder. I decided to climb up into the coins booth and try to reach over the wall and paint that section. It worked a lot better than we all thought it would. As I got down I realized that my armpit felt a little sticky. Later I found out that I had stuck my armpit in paint while trying to reach over the wall (and it was not coming out to easily while showering). When I came back to the kitchen Cerutti and I noticed that there was a bunch of people working inside the kitchen. So we decided to take on the boys bathroom. As we got into the bathroom and started to paint we realized that the paint was going to need a few coats to completely cover the yellowish walls that were underneath. After finishing our first coat we noticed that the skateboarders that had been working on painting the wall in the skate park were no where to be found. We went out to get a drink and we find all of the boys playing pool and lounging around. Cerutti decided that this was unacceptable and treated them like she was their leader and told them to get back to work on that wall. They were very amused by this and said that they were all done with the wall. She made them all march into the room and pointed out every spot that was not to her liking. They immediately started working again. She then decided that if they could finish the wall to her liking that she would take them out for ice cream. They seemed to love that idea and got right back to work. As Cerutti and I started working on our second coat in the bathroom we were focusing on the trim. At first we tried to make it not touch the ceiling. We quickly determined that it would work better if she painted it to look nice on the wall and I would come by with a wet rag and wipe off the paint on he ceiling. This worked very well for us. But all of a sudden it got very quiet back where the boys had been working. They were all walking out of the room to go play pool again when Cerutti asked them what they were doing and why they weren't working they all proceeded to sprint back and grab the paint brushes and quickly paint in hope they would still get their ice cream and wouldn't be yelled at. So Cerutti and I went back to working in the bathroom. We had finished the trim and were now painting the wall. You could always tell when one of us would get paint on the ceiling because we would let out loud shrieks and groan since we had messed up. We finally finished the bathroom and everyone was back from taking trash to the dump. Everyone was cleaning up and getting ready to hit the shower that we were all looking forward to. So we head back to the church to get all of out stuff together. We headed over to the community center to take showers. As I am changing I realize that I have a visible line of dirt and paint where my shorts ended. You could say I was ready for my shower! As I got out and dried off I began to look for my clean clothes which were no where to be found. I had forgotten my clean clothes back at the church. I had to change into my dirty paint cloths again. After we go back to he church and I put clean clothes on we head to dinner. We went to a place that was famous for its meat. After we had all eaten our dinner the boys that had grown fond of Cerutti and how she made them work reminded her a few times they she owed them ice cream. She promised to either get it Wednesday or Thursday as long as they were working all day when they came and not taking breaks. I can't wait to see what the rest of this week hold and all of the little things that happen that we will remember forever. *update: no spiders were seen today but many spider eggs were ewww*
-Beth
I got to use a drill to put up more walls for the new bathroom. I also got to talk to some new people and made some new friends. Today was a very good day, even if I ended up feeling sore.
-Nicole
Today was a lot crazier than yesterday. Instead of working on one project all day, I shifted jobs a lot. I started by power washing the outside wall for a little while. I took a break and went inside when the power washer overheated. After lunch, I was asked to help paint the kitchen wall that had been put up the day before. Let's just say, that is now a very blue kitchen! A little while later, I stood on the very top of a rickety ladder to help Beth and Emilie knock down an old piece of insulation. lucky for me Natalie was there to hold the base of my ladder steady. A few hours later, I wandered outside to see if there was any tasks I could help with. Tim asked if I wanted to "go on a road trip" and seeing as I had nothing else to do, I hopped into the van. Turns out we were traveling to a "dumpster" while hauling a trailer full of trash behind us. Turns out this "dumpster" was almost 30 minutes away & locked up like a high security prison. When we entered, only people who were ages 16 and older could get out of the vehicle. That meant me, Emilie, Ashley, Hannah, Bill, and Tim. So we unloaded 500 pounds (each) of trash out of the trailer & loaded it into one of the dump's large dumpsters. Not to mention, it was over 90 degrees outside! #Sweat4Jesus And although I got dust in my eyes, it was fun to be doing something productive to help the center. By the time we got back to the center, it was time to pack up and go shower. Thank the Lord for showers! Can't wait for tomorrow's adventures!
Kristine :)
Showers are a blessing. I spent most of the day waiting for a power washer to get its head together and work. While waiting, I took down a metal grid that was the length of the one wall. It was on the ceiling so I did a few balancing acts to reach. I walked out of the center covered in gravel and dirt, but also with a whole new appreciation for painters.
-Natalie
Today I went from holding ladders for people to scrubbing walls to cleaning out a room. I mainly cleaned out the room. It was really fun to get to know Tim, who always has a smile on his face and is very God-centered, while cleaning. After loading the trailer with garbage, we took it to a junk yard and emptied it. Overall, today was very productive and nice!
Hannah
I started the day by helping take out the air duck. It took forever and I had a ton of insulation falling all over my head! After that I scrubbed the tire marks off of the wall to prep for painting. Anakin, Bill, and I then went to the hardware store to pick up more paint and wood. Me and Bill climbed into the back of the stacks of wood to reach the best ones! After we got back from the store I started working in the old beauty parlor to get rid of all the garbage and water logged panels. It was super messy and had a TON of spiders! D: But after the room was cleaned out, it was all worth it! Tim, Emilie, Julie, Anakin, Tristan, Hannah, Bill, Kristine, and I went to dump the trash from the room at a junk yard. Tim, Hannah, and I lifted over 1,000 pounds after loading and unloading the trailer! Today was very busy but was tons of fun!
Ashley
Well today I woke up energized and ready to work. I arrived at paradox and started to scrub paint off the one wall and it took forever, but I didn't have to do all of it, about 15 minutes in Ashley and I went with bill to Home Depot to get wood and paint, and it took about an hour and I almost died doing it, but you know someone's gotta do it. After that we started scrubbing a different wall. We did that till lunchtime and after for a bit. Then we went into the old beauty salon and started to take out the wood and all the trash out to his trailer. That took a good hour or two but it was fun. Ashley, Hannah, Julia, and I were all helping him and Tristian move everything. Next we went with Ashley, Hannah, Julia, Kristine, Emilie, Tristan, Bill, tim, and I went to take everything over to the waste management and unloaded everything . We got back to have Ashley, Hannah, Julia, Tristan, tim, and I tore up the tiles in the beauty salon. Obviously a very fun and exciting day. It was hard but all worth it!!!!
-Anakin🐑