As we Move Along...

Its Friday afternoon and I have spent the whole morning for the most part sitting here in the office. I checked on one job to make sure the teams knew what they were up to and thanks Michael, one of our three dedicated drywall intern guru's that have made this summer possible and us extremely productive the problematic cieling looked smooth and good it was an easy stop. Ruth is typing up our work orders for Monday morning. That right there is a profound statement and testament to how far this place has come. All of last summer and not to mention probably just a few weeks ago that would have been a Sunday night activity. We would have spent all of Saturday scrambling to see where we are on projects and what new projects we need to get into in order to keep everyone busy and productive Monday morning. This Friday is also sweet in that we have just finished with Group, an organization that sent us 300, yes 300 kids to work for four weeks straight. That adds up to around 1200 high school kids that worked and stayed busy working on projects. The amazing thing is that they didn't just do clean up or painting they framed houses, roughed in electrical and plumbing, drywalled, built porches and plenty of other skilled skilled labor. We often had down to the job and amount of teams that we had to keep busy just enough supervision to work on the houses we needed to. Given, it wasn't a well oiled machine of knocking out jobs left and right but it was amazingly smooth and productive with very few hic ups considering the task of keeping 1200 high schoolers busy on construction, real construction projects. Writing this amazes me with what has been accomplished and dealt with especially considering where we have come from and are now capable of. We would not have been capable of that task any sooner that when they showed up on that Sunday in June. Last summer it was only me scheduling work and Conrad making sure teams knew what they were doing on job sights with our interns treading water as furiously as they could to keep this place afloat. Much of the change is thanks to Ruth organizing the chaos of running 20 to 30 projects a week, Andrew, Doug, and Clyde being extremely capable and flexible with running our unskilled labor to build houses, Group sending us skilled site coaches and being good at what they do, and our interns actually being able to run teams and teach how to do skilled work. 1200 high schoolers stayed busy and did productive correct work. Talk about one of the largest answers to prayer Lagniappe has seen. Again it is one of the many answers to prayer from support to concrete, from staff to passed inspections, from trucks and trailers, from the right job dropping in the front door to community members being involved in the church, plugging into the church, and tasting grace for the first time. And the list can go on and on so much so that it is hard not to be one of the nine lepers that didn't come back and thank Jesus for healing. This is simply because the answered prayer has been so much and often. As Curt always says, that is the magic that makes Lagniappe, we pray for rain and pack an umbrella because we have seen Him answer prayer so often. It is not that we have great faith but because God has been that faithful. We thank Him continually but it is hard to keep up. So it is Friday and I will probably have tomorrow off, a full day off for the first time in a month and a half. Please keep us in your prayers because God is faithful and has been answering prayers more than we even know or can keep up with. Lagniappe continues to be a place where God is at work in very obvious ways and straight blows are struck every day with crooked sticks. High schoolers finishing drywall is just the surface of that type of amazing work that God is using to advance His kingdom down here in the Bay but no small answer to pray. So on this Friday as Group gets ready to be done with there 2007 run with Lagniappe and the most ominious weeks of our calendar pass the whole purpose of this blog is just to be thankful, thankful that again the Lord has used us beyond what we are capable of so keep us in your prayers but also include prayers of Thanksgiving because all your prayers have been answered for this place over and over again.