Day Two

Day 2-

As I woke up today I didn’t know what to expect. Yesterday already proved that these workdays were going to be long and difficult…but I was ready for it. As I put my work clothes on and headed to go to the van for breakfast I didn’t know what to expect from today. When we arrived at the work site, we immediately started where we left off with finishing up with nailing the last of the tarpaper. As I began nailing the paper, I was already starting to feel the scorching power of the sun as its rays of heat landed on my back. I lost count of how many times I had to take a water break to keep myself from over heating. But despite how many times I wanted to throw down my hammer and quit because of the heat and the work I felt a little sympathy from God as now and then a few huge clouds would appear and block out the sun’s harsh light. It was like he was telling me ‘I know it’s bitter work but hang in there. You’re making a certain someone very happy with what you’re doing.’ Indeed I was making someone happy the owner of the house of whom we were fixing. The name of the lady who owns the house we are fixing is Alicia and her life has been anything but easy. She has two daughters who live in the DFW area. According to what I’ve learned from talking to her. She had a husband who died in a roofing accident leaving her a young widow to care for her young daughters. She continued to struggle through her life, as she had to save up enough to feed and pay for her daughters’ education through public college. A little while after her daughters graduated from college she got in a horrible accident that injured and nearly paralyzed her. I later learned she had two surgeries on her back. I learned that the first one failed and in the second one they inserted metal rods in her back to keep her up right. Naturally because of her bad back she’s lost the ability to help keep her house in line. It’s stuff like this that makes me realize how lucky I am to have a stable roof and a mother and father whose backs are healthy. Well anyhow after lunch break I was given the task to help put fiberglass in her household to help stabilize the roof. Trust me you do not want to get the stuff on your skin because it’s like getting a rash times 10…it SUCKS. After finishing up in the house we got to the back breaker of the day putting on new shingles. It’s not as easy to set up as one might think it sounds. I messed up once setting it up and I struggled with hammering it in as well. Once again I was at the point where I wanted to throw my hammer off the roof and quit ‘cause I was so aggravated, but once again God was there to calm me down. Except it wasn’t with clouds it was with popsicles that Mr. Sherwin bought us from an ice cream truck that was passing by. It was good by the way. So once again like earlier today I got back to work. I was tired but feeling good about what we did today and as I go to bed I look forward to helping out again tomorrow.

Miles Kirkpatrick