Louisiana 8 Mission Work Week - October 5-11, 2009: Saturday

Our final Team Bloggers are Christine Negroni and Steve Hart . . .

We raised the roof trusses on our house on Ferry Place early Saturday afternoon, an event evocative of the barn raising scene in the Harrison Ford movie, Witness. This literally capped our fifth and final day of work with RHINO. While Jeremy, the project manager directed, laborers on the ground did the hard and heavy work of moving these large wooden triangles into position.

We are not the only folks working on the house this week. Alongside us was Norma Hirsch, a recent college graduate who has traveled to New Orleans to spend two months with Habitat for Humanity. Today around 10 young adult members of St. Charles Avenue Presbyterian Church were on the site. All week we worked with about a half dozen people who will one day live in these homes.

Days ago many of us were strangers. Now we share bedrooms and port-a-potties. We bicker and we joke. We argue and look out for each other. We annoy each other and then pray together.

For the most part we are neophytes though Bill Langley, Bill Fulton and John Harter have been here before. Langley’s experience and interest in construction work was evident. (Who else would choose to spend a birthday doing this?) Bill Fulton’s insider knowledge of New Orleans and John’s patient hand on the steering wheel kept us safe and on time as we traveled around the city each day.

Claudia Fulton, was also a veteran of previous work trips, but never before had her sewing skills been leveraged on the circular saw. Within minutes of arriving each morning she was covered up to her rhinestone cap in sawdust. After exhibiting great aptitude and little fear, Debbie Soffayer was climbing extension ladders and swinging hammers and Nicol Rupolo capably took charge of projects while surprising everyone with her own brand of New Orleans iced coffee.

Maureen Peterson confessed she didn’t feel up to the task of driving nails her first day on the site, but by day two she had her gloved hands in even the most challenging tasks. Her friend Chris Harter was also indefatigable. While the two worked up a sweat they entertained us with a hilarious story of sweating it out in a more glamorous spa destination.

No one expects to get a word in edgewise or get out of a conversation without a good-hearted argument when Michele Kamenetzky, Juanita Williams and Christine Negroni are around. And since the house wrapping, sheath nailing and so many other projects needed bosses, the three of us were happy to make sure we were there to fill that role.

Doug Abel was the yang to our yin, a calm, easygoing presence and a relentless worker on his first NOLA work trip. He more than kept up with his experienced NOLA roommates, Steve Hart and David Van Dyke who, in addition to house building, were also making sure that each important step along the way was photographed. And of course, at the end of the day, it was David who had to make sure we knew the next day’s schedule where we would find our next meal and kept us focused, through the fatigue, the heat and the frustrations.

That a cooperative and effective work force has emerged from this ad hoc construction crew seems close to miraculous. We came to help build a home, a step along the way to building a community. But in the process we have become community.