This week, we're working with First Baptist Church Big Pine Key. Our project: remodeling a trailer for one of their older ladies who is slightly mentally handicapped, Ms. Joyce. Ms. Joyce can't read or write, but she has a ministry of writing letters. She copies passages out of devotional books or books of spiritual poetry, along with a verse or two of the Bible that goes along with that passage, and sends them to people. She has a special gift of knowing what to write for that person. While we were there, just those few days, we even got Ms. Joyce letters. And even though we were there to minister specifically to her and her not knowing us from Adam, she still managed to minister to us. My three letters, wow. They were exactly what I needed to hear. And they're going to stay in my Bible for a very, very long time.
The trailer Ms. Joyce lived in...was in awful shape. It was hardly a trailer at all. The main part (kitchen, dining area, bath) was barely the size of a good camper, and the living area part was just an added on closed in porch. It had no ventilation, barely any light, ceilings just over 6 feet tall, was infested with termintes and spiders, and was patched throughout with duct tape, fabric, and odd and end pieces of wood, glue, and even fabric and popcicle sticks. It had been through several hurricanes worth of damage and flooding, and was just crammed hoarder style with all kinds of just old, dusty junk. We were literally appalled that anyone could or would live that way, and that no one had taken the time to help her before us.
Debo and Ms. Joyce
So, we began to overhaul the place. We were only doing the living area, but simply getting the crammed-in junk out was a chore in itself. The room was so tiny that it was like a game of Tetris to get the furniture maneuvered into just one half at a time so we could work in the other.
The grass also had to be cut down to a manageable level, and the weedy flowerbeds trimmed up, so Will took ahold of the push mower and manned up to the job.
Ms. Joyce likes puzzles, and had them all over her walls. We had to take tons of puzzles down, and that was no easy feat. Most were put up with at least a dozen push pins, and most had the tips broken off. The walls were not easy to work with. Half were rotten, half were solid MDF plywood. You never knew if the wall would be so soft you'd go right through, or so hard you couldn't hammer a dent in it with a nail.
After putting the furniture in one half of the room we started by picking up the existing laminate tiles. They were not even stuck to the floor anymore, and were disgusting and broken. We got them all up, half of the room at a time. We barely had to scrape them at all. Even the trim around the baseboards came up without a hitch.
Then we began to fix the walls. They were very dirty, and very unstable from termites. We put up boards to nail drywall to across two walls that very much needed it and filled in the several caulked and boarded up windows with insulation, then put up sheetrock and mudded it. We painted the entire two rooms and ceiling a nice crisp white, and put up trim around the new walls.
On the floors, we replaced the old nasty tiles and leftover glue residue with new wood-look laminate tiles, these glued down properly and neatly. A big help to us on this part of the project was an unexpected helper, Jeffrey. He goes to the church we worked with, and lived right next to Ms. Joyce. Being bored for the summer, he showed up two days to help us. And, as an added bonus, he had helped his granddad lay flooring all his life! Much thanks Jeffrey, for getting completely tired out and disgusting on summer break with a bunch of crazy college kids from Mississippi!
Lastly, we replaced the old curtains made from pinned up blankets with new blinds and pretty new coordinating curtains. Once everything was moved back in neatly, it didn't even look like the same house we started in.
Cleaning out the stuff and beginning to scrape up the old tile
The tile pile. You can see how moldy and dirty the floor underneath is.
Will Jay mowing the yard.
Debo, Ms. Math Lady, is a whiz at figuring out where those outlet holes need to go in that sheetrock!
Hanging blinds...with crooked windows and a crooked ceiling. Fun like no other!
Hanging more blinds...again, crooked, and with the added fun of no elbow room! Haha
Girl talk...the boys wouldn't let us play with the tile :)
Finished! We think it looked pretty darn nice!
Ms. Joyce came and saw her house Wednesday night after we finished. She told the Pastor Charlie that her house was 'beeeautiful!' :) God rocks.
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