Week 16 - Trusty Notebook

Just to recap, we visited Redeemer Lutheran Church for a Sunday of church services before working at Lutherhaven. This last week, we found ourselves parked back at Redeemer to serve this beautiful church community. As mentioned in previous blogs, the great connector (Pastor Dave) has been working hard to set up projects for us while we are here.

We started the week surveying the various calls that had come in, brainstorming the fix, thinking through the materials and calculating the time needed.

When approaching a project that is more Logan’s field of expertise, I have come to expect he will bring along his trusty notebook. You could imagine why this is needed, but how about I tell you what I’ve observed. When someone hears that there’s a bright blue bus pulling into town, who is willing to get down and dirty or stare at a screen and shuffle papers for hours on end, they’re often appropriately perplexed and have a lot of questions. Ideas start to trickle in of how we could use our time, but there’s usually still some hesitation. Then we arrive at the job site (an office, a home, a campsite) and we start asking questions.

How can we help?

What's the ideal scenario?

Anything else we can do?

As people realize that we aren’t afraid of what they might consider “their mess,” something starts to shift. Walls come down. They begin to trust us with a little more.

And that’s when Logan pulls out the notebook. Because suddenly they’re pointing out the furniture they no longer need, the weeds and vines they don’t have the strength to get rid of, the frames that need hanging, or the machinery that needs fixing. And Logan writes it all down.

I don’t share this to lift ourselves up, and I’m definitely not saying we get to everything on the list. But I do think there’s a lesson in it. It can take walking through someone’s house, maybe returning a second time or having a conversation as long as it takes to do the job itself, to show people that you truly do care before their willing to let you in. And once they do, you have the opportunity to serve them fully.

And why is this breakthrough sometimes necessary? Well, it could be several things: their fears and pride or past experiences with people who didn’t follow through on their word. But I am learning the only reason I need to pay attention to is my own heart posture and motivation. Because sometimes the extra mile is to remind myself there may be more ways to love this person. And the question is whether I’m willing to slow down enough to see them, and stay long enough to follow through.

And so this week started with a bunch of walk-throughs where some of the walls started to come down and the project list grew.

We kicked it off with building storage shelving and a work bench for a couple. We are in the process of re-organizing said space and running items to the dump. I also took every tool available to me and what felt like way too long to remove 2 boxwood shrubs. At another house, we broke down a california king WATER BED. After many questions and much researching, I have concluded these are a perfect example of a 1980s trend. Nothing about this sleeping option seems likeable, convenient or economical. Nevertheless, trends have been trending long before social media.

From there we headed to an elderly couple’s home to clear out their gutters and clean their car for the first time since it was purchased. They shared with us their special mocktail drink (lips are sealed on the recipe) and of course many stories.

We were then off to an enticing and delicious-sounding project: trimming raspberry bushes. Upon arriving, we realised that sadly berry season is over, which leaves lots of trimming to be done. A classic example of lessons shared earlier in this blog: we ended up organizing and cleaning much more than just the raspberry bushes while the homeowner shared what an incredibly epic business women she had been during her time in the workforce.

And lastly, we completed many (but not all) runs to the dump.

Some fun trivia: when planning out how we’d get rid of all the trash this week, I wondered about where the local “tip” might be, to which Logan looked at me with much confusion. Now, to give credit where credit's due, Logan is great about making connections between my Aussie slang and regular American/English. However, this was one of the very few times he had absolutely no idea what I was saying. I was like, “you know, like where all the town rubbish (trash) goes,” to which he replied, “you mean the dump!?!”. No, honey, that's what you ‘take’ in the loo.

And so another week begins with just a few projects in mind to finish up our time in Spokane, but we’ll see how many end up in the notebook. . .