Service Trip Reflection Day 2: Lukas Petersheim and Andre Eanes

Today the weather was great for working, or at least better than yesterday in the scorching hot. The roofing crew spent half the day putting on a metal roof, which was a new experience for me, and I’m sure for the other guys too. We had enough time to finish the drip edge before the huge thunderstorm hit. We slipped over each other trying to get under the roof of the house in which we stayed (played) about 30 minutes to wait out the storm. We got back to the church (First United Methodist of Americus) at around 3:30 when the second downfall decided to happen. A lot of us sat in the car and tried to decide if we were going to walk or run through the rain because we were pretty tired, but we all ended up running. It was a relief for everyone to finally get into some clean and dry clothes. The rest of this evening was very relaxing and fun. Peyton Erb making the whole group Chicken Sandwiches and Apple Crisp, and we are all so grateful for the work she is doing to make us great meals even after working very hard the whole day. This has been a great experience so far and I’m excited for the rest of the week.
-Lukas Petersheim

Today, we got to the worksite at 9:00, and everyone resumed their jobs from the day before. I was on the crew building the porch with Kayla, Genevieve, Lucas Wenger, and Brendan. Yesterday, we had finished putting the support poles going from the ground to the overhang of the roof and attached some of the rafters from the side of the house to the poles. Today, we finished putting together the frame of rafters in the porch and put all the floorboards down, except for the very last one, which we weren’t able to cut before the rain came. Fortunately, there weren’t any more incidents of people nearly falling through the rafters of the porch after we finished putting down the floorboards, except Bryson, who still managed to trip on the 6-inch crack that remained. At the beginning of the day, it was sunny and 70’s, and by 1:00 or so it was raining on and off  which continued for the next few hours. Our group made lots of progress today despite the rain. We started to put up siding, put up the outer layer of metal roof, and did lots of other small tasks to make the house look a bit more like a home. We left around 3:00, and it continued to pour for a while, including when we got back, where we needed to sprint to the door. I was still unable to avoid stepping in puddles as I ran to the church, which we had made sure was unlocked at the time. 

For the rest of the evening, we played games and really just had fun with each other. Today was a good day for bonding with others in the group and really making a difference on the house that we’ll we working on throughout the rest of the week. If you’re reading this last sentence, Ross hasn’t read over it. Silly Ross...(P.S I read this, but decided to leave it anyway.  - Ross)

-Andre Eanes