Friday, July 29th. It is our last day here and we are bound and determined to finish Debra’s project. We plan to work until noon and then head back to the church to leave by 3pm at the latest. Best laid plans…
Before we start working, we give her a gift from our team. We have taken one of our work shirts (a clean one!) and wrote the verse from Joshua 1:9 on the shirt and we all signed it.
“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”
It touched me to see how much that little gift meant to her. It reinforced the reason we were there and I am glad that she will always have a little piece of our team with her.
We still have a couple of trees that are giving us trouble. We are trying to cut the trees enough that they will fall down into the dense woods so the homeowners do not have to look at these giant dead trees laying at a 45 degree angle in the other trees.
Trying to get a tree out of the last corner of the lot
We use pulleys, the skid steer, sledge hammers and anything else to get these trees down. The guys finally get the last tree to fall down where we want it to go. While they work on that, the other part of the team works back in the corner removing a 12 foot section of tree, maneuvering it between two giant root balls.
Debra insists on buying our team lunch and we enjoy a wonderful meal of pizza. It’s hot again – but we keep going. We leave Debra’s at 2:30pm – much later than we hoped. But her lot is done!!! That is totally worth the delay.
We head back to church to clean up, shower and pack. Pastor Ed comes to church to send us off. We share our “high’s and low’s” of the day, just as we do every day. He gives us a prayer and a blessing and we head out for the trip home. It is 6pm and we are hoping to get to Nashville tonight, 3 hours away.
End Note: We made it back to Wisconsin safely on Saturday, July 30th. Our trip home was uneventful, other than some more storms in the Nashville area.
This account of our trip is dedicated to our three homeowners, the people of Alabama and my amazing team: Pastor Ed, Rob, Brad, Diana, Joshua, Jason, Jeff, Erik, Nick, Dale and Mitch. May God continue to bless your lives richly – and thank you for blessing mine.