So, Jim and Irene, what do you do on one of these sojourns?

We thought we'd take this opportunity to give you a "picture folio" of our work at our most recent sojourn.  It was at the Middletown, New York Church of Christ.

For the last 18 years this church has been meeting at the Howard Johnson's in Middletown in one of the Motel's conference rooms.  The church has grown to be about 60 members over that time.

Three years ago the church was approached by the town of Circleville.  The town owned a building that was built in the 1940's by the Townley family.  It was originally an auction house.  When it was given to the town it was used for year's as a firehouse.  Then, after the town built a dedicated firehouse, the town converted it into a community center.  This caused it to become a well-known landmark within a 10-15 mile area.  So the church put in it's down payment on the building and the town of Circleville is carrying a 5 year note.  The church is required to make a one-time-per-year payment of "X" amount of dollars.

Since they got the building they have been working on getting it habitable. Apparently the town actually dumped it rather than sink the necessary money into it to bring it up to code.  So, for the last 3 years the church has been bringing in the sojourners to help with the necessary work that they have to do to make the required work, modifications and upgrades to get a Certificate of Occupancy (CO) so they can officially move into the building and "open" the building as a church building. (Until they get the CO they cannot have the building open to the public for liability purposes).  We are the 3rd Sojourn that has been here (1 per year) and they are getting to the point where they H-O-P-E to be able to get the CO by the end of this year.

OK, now on to what we had to do this year.  One of the things they needed done was to have a pantry area painted and a shelving unit in it sanded to remove the rust and then painted.  Irene jumped on that.  (After our Midwestern Children's Home Sojourn, Irene had purchased a "painter's kit" and was itching to break it in).  She had gotten pretty confident rejuvenating rusty metal items.  Here's a picture of the renewed pantry and shelving.

They also needed the kitchen (an institutional style kitchen) cleaned.  It was absolutely filthy.  There was 40 years of grease on the stainless steel venting to the stove/fry vat area.  Ethie, one of our fellow sojourners had started on that and once Irene was done in the pantry she helped finish the job.  Irene said in places the grease was up to 3/4" thick.  Here's are pictures of cleaned area.

One of the main tasks they wanted done when we arrived was to paint the walls: First with primer and then with a light beige finish coat of semi-gloss.  Unfortunately the drywallers hadn't gotten done finishing out the drywall.  It was all hung but they were still taping and finish coating the joints.  So the painting would have to wait.... for the most part.

One area that we could paint was the entry.  So this was the next area that the women jumped on.  Since this area was paneling it had to be painted using a brush for the grooves and a roller on the main part of it.  Here's three pics of them putting on the primer.  

Another big task they wanted done was a coat closet.  The room was built with conic blocks on 2 of the outside walls.  So, those 2 walls required insulation.  The whole room would need to be framed in and have drywall hung to get it ready for the drywallers to tape and finish.  Martin Buchanan and I drew that task.  Here are two pictures of our framing the wall that will hold the insulation inside the block exterior wall:

It took us 3 days to get the framing done and the insulation installed. It took us 1 1/4 days to get the drywall installed.  But here is the finished product:

The second week of work we got to the painting and hanging the suspended ceiling framework that need to be done but had to wait until the drywallers were out of our way.

The suspended ceiling framework was handled (for the most part) by some of the other sojourners.  Here are a couple pics of them leveling the outside wall of the room rails in the fellowship area that is just inside the entry foyer:

Now a few pics of them actually hanging the suspension grid from the wires that had been screwed up into the ceiling joists:

Since all of the drywall was "raw" the first thing that needed to be done was a priming coat to seal it and then it could have the finish coat put on it.  Here are some pics of the "before" drywall:

It took 2 days for all of the priming to get done.  Having said that, after any one room was primed (after about 6 hours drying time) we could begin putting the finish coat on.  First, however, the walls would have to be brushed down to get all of the drywall dust powder off the walls from sanding the drywall joints:

Then the primer coat could be applied:

Now it was onto the finish coat on all the rooms that needed painting.  Those include: the entry foyer; fellowship area; 2 classrooms; a cry room; a connecting hallway and the main assembly area.  At first while many of the sojourner ladies were doing the primer coat on the drywall, once we could start, Irene and I did the finish coat.  

As they finished priming the other ladies jumped on helping Irene with the remaining finish painting: 

Since I was going to be teaching class on Wednesday night, I took part of Wednesday off to get my notes prepared.  It would be Lesson 1 of the 10 lessons on "Perfecting Holiness" which would be a workshop I would be teaching on Saturday morning.

Thursday is the final day of a sojourn and we still had lots to do.  We needed to continue on the suspension ceiling in the main assembly hall and clean the floors as well as we could.

I got moved onto the ceiling suspension team for the final push:

We didn't quite get the ceiling in the main hall completed by Thursday, but Bob Jarvis and I were both sticking around until Friday, so we finished it that morning (and even got paid time and a half for overtime - of course 1.5 x $0 = $0.00 still).

We decided to stick around an extra week and just do some relaxing and catch our breath.  Our next sojourn is in Saguenay, Quebec.  We will leave tomorrow morning after meeting with the church one more time this evening for bible study.

Here's a picture of the whole Sojourner team that was at Middletown:

The Things They DON'T Teach You in School OR Chasing a River

We finished the Vacation Bible School (VBS) at the Groesbeck church of Christ in Cincinnati Ohio on the 2nd of July.  It went very well.  6 children attended - 4 of which attended because we had passed out 700 invitations to homes around the church's building.  That was nice.  They all had a wonderful time.  Now the members have to step up to the plate and have classes ready for them to attend on Sundays and Wednesdays.

We drove to Lafayette and spend the 4th of July weekend with Neo and her parents.  We parked in Frankfort, at the congregation I preached at for 12 years (they put in an electrical hookup for us).  Neo came and spent the night of the 4th of July with us so she could go to services with us on Sunday morning.  Sunday evening I had the opportunity to preach there.

On Monday we had to take the trekker to get the Driver's Side Rear Ride Height Leveler adjusted.  Now it's working great.  I also had the dreaded and loathed "shot in the eyeball" doctor's appointment on Monday.  That evening Steve (Neo's dad) and I went to see Terminator:Genisys.  It was pretty good.

Tuesday morning we left for Middletown, NY and the sojourn with the church there.  We got as far as Streetsboro, OH on the first night.  We stayed at a KOA there.  We left at 8:30 AM Wednesday morning and got all the way to Middletown, NY by 4:30 PM.  Sweet!

Coming into NY we went over a river.  When we looked it up it was the Delaware River.  LO AND BEHOLD!  I was born in Pennsylvania and was taught that the "Delaware River is the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey."  Your a kid and you hear what you are told.  You believe what you are told.  It's like I thought it was a line that was between those 2 states and those two states alone: "the Delaware River is the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey."  Yesterday was the first time I realized that the Delaware River kept going.  I got to looking at the map last night (Wednesday, July 9th) and realized that it is also the border between Pennsylvania and New York State for a ways too.  Then it turns north (and a little east) and splits into the Eastern Branch of the Delaware River and the Western Branch of the Delaware River.  These two branches have their beginning in the Catskill Mountains of New York.  OH COOL!  Since I read the works of Irving Washington as a kid (Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow) which are set in the Catskill Mountains, I've always wanted to visit them.  SOOOO, today was "ROAD TRIP!"

We got in the car and headed for Stamford, NY which is where the Western Branch has it's headwaters.  Along the way we stopped for lunch in Phoenicia, NY.  If you are in the area, Brio's Pizzeria is a great place to eat:  Good Food; Good Portion Size (meaning - BIG).  As we continued to Stamford we saw a sign that pointed to Roxbury, NY which is where the Eastern Branch of the Delaware River has its origin, so we went over to it first.  Having found the Eastern Branch beginnings in a bog near Grand Gorge after about 30 minutes of chasing it down, we headed to Stamford once again.  This one took us about 20 minutes to find the headwaters area.  It was on private property, so we couldn't get in to see it.  We had to settle for the place about 3/10 of a mile away where it emerges into view from River Road.

I know feel infinitely smarter knowing the truth about my beloved "Border River" the Delaware and I've gotten one thing checked off of my "bucket list" - I've seen and driven through the Catskill Mountains.  My only regrets are I didn't see a headless horseman or a bunch of little men bowling.