About a week or two before Thanksgiving our bishop told us that a "Gentleman from West Jordan" wanted to help our family with Christmas this year. (This happens to us a lot, and it's a good thing, because we often can't afford to do much for Christmas.) So we gave him a list of things for the kids and then didn't worry too much more about it. Until the next week when the bishop asked us for a list of things that Bruce and I might need or want. Well, that's a little different; usually it's just the kids. And we weren't sure what to ask for. What do grown-ups really ask Santa to give them?
A few days later, while we were still thinking about that, the bishop told us that the West Jordan Gentleman's ward also wanted to help us out with some home repair. And at that point he thought it would be easier for us to be in direct contact with the Gentleman himself. And who should this Gentleman be but Brother Pond—Jason's seminary teacher who came to his open-house in October?
My very first reaction was amazement and delight; we have so many home repairs that we haven't been able to afford. What a blessing to us!
By the next morning, I'm sorry to say, it felt a little different. Not that I was ungrateful, or didn't want the help, but . . . It's kind of like when you're a kid and you tell your friend about how goofy your little sister is, but when your friend tells you how weird your sister is you get defensive. Bruce and I often feel poor, and we know how far our money has to stretch (and sometimes it doesn't stretch nearly that far), but to have someone else notice . . . That feels a little different. And makes us wonder, How poor do we look? Well I guess when a nice man comes to your home for a party and sees that instead of carpet in your living room you have a cracked concrete floor it's not a huge leap to guess that there's not a lot of money flowing around the house.
I am happy to report that my little misgivings wore away pretty quickly, and I was back to just being grateful. I mean, if someone came and just fixed the leaky kitchen pipe that runs down the girls' bedroom wall . . . that would be incredible!
On Thanksgiving Eve, as I was making pies, Brother Pond and his friend Brother Wenzell (who is a contractor of sorts—he flips houses) stopped by to look over our house. While I worked in the kitchen Bruce showed them everything—missing carpet; a basement room with sheets for walls and a working toilet but nothing else; broken windows; the leaking pipe; the not-quite-finished deck; the list goes on —they even looked in the garage. After a while I was able to take a small break from the cooking so I joined them outside.
They were discussing putting a storage shed in the back yard. Wonderful! We have a pretty hard time fitting our family and our stuff in our little house. With a shed we could shuffle some stuff out of the garage, and then keep other things there. Bro. Wenzell—Gavin—asked me which corner I would prefer to put the shed in. I liked the southeast corner until he implied that we might have to remove our peach tree to accomplish that. Give up our luscious, sweet peaches as big as softballs? That would never do. So I said the west corner would be fine. Then Gavin turned to Bruce and said, "Did you ask her about the garage?"
No; we hadn't been together until just then. So we went out to the garage and Gavin said, "What if we turn this garage into two bedrooms?" He showed me how there was plenty of space to do it, and how we could also build in some extra storage, and then waited to hear what I thought.
That nearly knocked me over! We had never, ever considered such a thing. (Unless you count the times when I've said we should make this kid or that kid sleep in the garage so we'd have an extra room in the house. ;-) ) My very first words were, "I really like not having to clean ice off of the van in the winter," but even as I said it I was realizing how amazing it would be to have extra space for the family—and all our stuff! . . . which was the next thing I said: "We could really use the extra space!"
We all talked a little more before the two men left. Bruce kept saying that whatever they wanted to do would be great; we had no expectations. When they were gone Bruce and I spent the rest of the evening—the rest of the weekend!—feeling kind of bedazzled. As we talked it over, we figured Brother Pond and Brother Wenzell would take our list of needs/wants/ideas to their ward, they would all discuss how much they could really do, then we'd hear back from them and be thankful for whatever we got.
So when Gavin Wenzell called the next Monday to let me know a concrete truck was coming to pour the foundation for the shed, it was still a little unbelievable. And things just rolled on from there.
I know you're dying to see what happened next, so here are the pictures:
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| Gavin came and framed the foundation |
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| then the cement truck came |
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| Tom and Gavin framing the shed |
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| walls . . . |
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| roof trusses . . . Can you see Tom in the middle of this picture? |
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| There he is! Nailing the roof on. |
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| And there's Gavin, putting trim/edgy-stuff up. |
They finished the whole shed in about ten days! On a Monday afternoon Gavin pronounced it done and told us to empty the contents of the garage into the shed so they could start on the new rooms.
So we all stayed up late, working madly. But the next day was a school day, so around 11p.m. we gave up and Michael and I finished the clean-up on Tuesday afternoon.
We were in such a hurry that we just hauled stuff from the garage and dumped it willy-nilly into the shed (some of it ended up in the living room and kitchen too). When I took a good look at the shed the next morning I fervently hoped that Tom and Gavin would have no need to go in there for anything and see what a disaster we'd made in their beautiful, new work!
Here's what happened next:
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| Tom and Gavin started framing rooms in the garage. |
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| Tom, framing the basement bathroom |
Once the framing was all done, Kelly Schaefer (another ward member who happens to be an electrician) came over and got all the initial electrical work done. It's unfortunate that we don't have a picture of him; he's a really nice guy. Then the insulation went in, the sheetrock went up, and they did the drywall. Yuck. Two men, Steve (below) and Brian, I think, helped with the sheetrock and drywall. Bruce says Steve actually likes doing drywall. Yay! (Someone should.)
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| insulation . . . Bruce helped every day that he was home. |
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| sheetrock . . . |
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| Steve doing the drywall |
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| the kids helped sand the walls |
And they did one more thing . . .
. . . they changed the first step of our stairway.
The red arrow comes from the end of the hallway to the stairs. When the house was built they put a railing at the end of the hallway so you wouldn't try to go straight down there (and fall down the length of two stairs instead of one). But the rail was totally in the way. It was right behind the pantry door so you couldn't open the pantry all the way, and it was also behind the refrigerator door. In fact, if the refrigerator door was open you’d be trapped in the hallway. So we just took the rail off. But, even though we were all used to it, it really could be a hazard for some unknowing person walking down the hall. Well, we figured if we made the first step the wide step (instead of the second one) we could eliminate that whole problem. And they did it for us! Yay!
Men from Brother Pond's ward came every day except for Sundays and put in about eight hours of work each time they came. They even worked until around 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve, and again on New Year's Eve. We got used to them coming and going each day and it was incredible and exciting to see how quickly the rooms got built.
But, at the same time, I couldn't help wondering, Why us? We don't deserve this any more than anyone else—and maybe less than some. Why?
It's a strange feeling, this . . . astonishment that complete strangers (although fast becoming friends) would care so much for us that they would donate all the time and effort and materials to do this. I think you have to be on the receiving end to understand what I'm talking about. It's just amazing and awesome (not like, "Awesome, Dude!" but more like the original sense of the word: inspiring awe) and humbling that someone would even think of or want to do this for us. And here they were, every day, doing it. What can you say to a gift like that? Only thank you. Just thank you.
Well, on a lighter note, they didn't stop with the drywall. But this is a pretty long post, so keep watching. There will be more. :-)
