"Oh, you must say that to all the groups that come to work with you".   Well, regardless if I do or not (parents can't say they have a favorite child either), Natalie Nuce and the diverse group that she brought from around the country with her Global Village was awesome. There were about 15 volunteers in the group that signed up for a week helping build homes with Habitat of Tuscaloosa. Gayatri, an acupuncturist originally from India and Gina (aka Skip) both came from California. Steve and his wife and two kids, Jeremiah and Josh drove all the way from Wisconsin as did Courtney, a college student studying in Madison. Pastor Matt brought MIke, a Habitat staffer and AmandaPanda from Atlanta, Georgia. Cantor Pat and BFF Teresa drove from Massachusetts. Amber came from Ohio. The leader of the group, Natalie, lives and works in Americus, Georgia.
      All of these people had never met and at the end of the week were best of friends . I believe that their unity of heart and will had to do a lot with their production this week. They got a lot done and done well. Basically finished the exterior of Albert Witherspoons new home in the west end of town in four days. They installed all of the wall sheathing, set all of the roof trusses, sheathed that, installed black felt paper and then the Mennonites installed the metal on the roof to have the home "blacked in" and ready for the mechanical subcontractors to begin work.
      Additionally, Brandon had them shift over to another site, this one at 110 Juanita Drive for the day. When you looked at it first thing in the morning, it looked like a daunting task. This home is being built with a crawlspace under the house. The cinderblock and concrete footings for that has been completed by our subs. Before we install the wooden floor system for the house, the daunting task is to move dirt with shovels and picks so that the dirt under the house is level, but with a slight pitch to the access door in the foundation, so that if it rains or there is a water leak in the house, it will run out . When the subcontractor digs the two foot wide by 12" deep trench as a form for the concrete footer, they scoop out the dirt and drop it out of the way, either inside or outside of the footprint of the house. The outside dirt we can move around with the machine later, but the big mounds of hard dirt and rock that is on the inside is essentially blocked in once the four courses of cinder block are laid to form the 46' by 26' foundation. So, thes piles had to be moved and raked and leveled all by hand (and back).
     I drew a line all the way around on the block to the level where the dirt would have to be to give us the fall we needed to direct the water out of the house Once the high spots were knocked down, I dumped loads of sand over the wall and they fine tuned the grade. Once the dirt was where we wanted it, we laid out 10 mil plastic on the ground and up onto the wall to act as a vapor barrier. They also installed 2" thick blue Styrofoam, cut in trapezoidal shapes to fit the wall, stopping 2" below the top of the block for a termite inspection band .
      Anyway, this foundation is the BEST looking crawlspace that we have ever done in all of the 47 homes built since the tornado. And, no, I don't say that to all the groups.
       The Global Village has been sending teams internationally for years and this group is one of the first to do work in the US under a new pilot program. We look forward to hosting more groups with this program. It's nice because you can go on mission trip and don't have to spend $1,500 on an airplane ticket. We also look forward to some returnees from this group to come back on their own or with new friends.
     Speaking of foreign trips, it's shaping up for me, personally to do three this year. I've been invited on one in January to Guatamala. Another to Honduras and a third to Nepal with Ryan and the Fuller Center.   That's my three weeks vacation spoken for. Oh, yea, and Bart said we are doing a Katrina anniversary build in Biloxi, in August. That's four. Never was very good at math.
       That's all for this week. Love ya.   Peter