Churchbuildingdock

Chris Swan: Notice that this blog posting's title is not "Churchdock," which sounds better than, "Churchbuildingdock."

On Friday the 28th of October I drove the Illuminate 2 all of the way to Red Sea Church in Portland. I have been told that Portland is the least churched city in the United States of America. This means that the church building corresponding to Red Sea Church has a large part of its mission ahead of it, although it has been in dire need of a refit.

I became the least part of this refit which took place on the date mentioned above. ~70 men of the Acts 29 network spent ~400 man-hours on this building which had appeared as yet another part of a disfunctional neighborhood.

Upon my arrival I was quite pleased to hear that one of the men who was a pastor of mine at the Evangelical Free Church of Pullman while I was in Pullman was in attendance with the elders of Alathia Community Church which began with them in Issaquah Washington. He reminded me that I was the only college student who came into his church and immediately asked for a docrinal statment, remarking that this was beautiful for him to observe. I had not realized what an impression I had made.

To see so many men working on so many different parts of a semi-symmetrical structure with multiple levels made me think of the battle-damaged Enterprise starship getting fixed up in spacedock for another mission, hence the title of this blog posting. These parts included

1. Painting of many rooms with multiple ladders and multiple paint colors in each room
2. Construction of two counter tops with framing and sheetrock
3. Construction and wiring of one sound booth with a platform, framing, and sheetrock
4. Installation of eight ceiling fans utilizing one one man lift
   
5. Much landscaping
6. Much demolition of visually archaic furnature
7. Demolition of crack shack (quite common in this neighborhood)
8. Plumbing for new sinks (with new counter tops) in four restrooms
9. A fair amount of pressure washing
10. Other things

Seeing the success of the mission, which was almost without conflict through the submission and proper reception of instruction that must have taken place, made the accompanying aggrivation seem small.

Even so I have determined that I am quite happy that I have an engineering job which does not require any skill regarding paint. I spent most of my time there doing interior painting while standing on a ladder. I am not particularly proud of my work, for it was slow and its results were often sub-par, although they did improve. I don't know why the leader pointed that job out as "unskilled."

On the bright side, the Illuminate 2 managed another 350 wreck-free miles, dispite my allegedly poor handling, which a spiritual superior has had the effrontery to point out; it must be quite bad, but I am yet unconvinced. The man paid me an extra 25% for the drive, most likely this was a tip for not wrecking. What do you think?