Saturday, June 4, 2011

We Are Open!

The Billie Hamby Memorial Shelter, or My Friend's House 2, finally open. We admitted our first official resident today, and have about five on the way tomorrow or Monday.

This is what took so long. Well, actually not this, but getting cleared for the visit did.

Dining room (same room as the living room and the exercise room and the meeting room and the clothes folding room).

Living room and Dave,

To keep in shape--never liked exercise equipment in the living room, but there is nowhere else. Come to think of it, I just never liked exercise equipment. If I exercise, I want something to show for it, like a painted wall.

The food is here, most of it donated. So after almost two years of searching, planning, and execution, we are finally open. There are still many things to do, and much need for funds, but this is certainly a milestone. Thank you, those of you who have prayed, helped, and given money. Come see us when you can, and call us when we can be of help.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

We Need Help

The best-laid plans of . . . you know that quote. Here we are, ready to open, but a major (for us) complication has arisen. The fire marshal tells us that we will have to have a fire alarm system, because we plan to house people.

So here is what we need help with:

 1. If any of you know a company that installs fire alarms in this area, please let us know (so far our search has been fruitless).

 2. Better yet, if you know any companies that do it economically, so much the better.

3.  If you have any quick fund-raising ideas, better yet.

4. OR, if you have some money, and want a Fire Alarm System named for you, send it, and we will call it the Generous Donor Honorary Fire Alarm System, with your name in place of Generous Donor in Big Letters right inside the front door.

All kidding aside, even though we do not really understand the need for this, it looks as if it will be necessary to put it in, and we have pretty well spent the last of the funds. We know that God will provide, so we are putting all we can in it, and pray that some of you will see fit to help.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Thoughts on Troubling Bird Behavior

For the past few days, a bright red robin has seemed rather intent on attacking my bedroom window. His behavior is bizarre. He will fly up and land on a branch just a foot or two from the window and then fly with all his wing power, beak forward for the kill, only to hit an immovable object and slide and fall to the ground. And then less than a minute later, blam! Again and again, over and over.

I have talked to people who seem to know more about birds than I do, as to why the little thing keeps on doing this. The general consensus seems to be that the creature observes a reflection of himself in the window as it acts like a mirror, since the inside of the house is darker than the bright daylight. Thus seeing what he must believe is another male bird in “his” territory, he becomes intent on removing the usurper and possible competition for the area females.

I don’t know how long this little drama will play out, but my thought is that the final outcome could possibly be the picture of his little red carcass, dead from repeated blows to his head, lying on the ground below the window.

Perhaps there is a moral to this story. It might be that the bird finally did manage to destroy his foe. The irony being that the enemy that he killed was himself.

Is there a parallel in human behavior? It appears that we humans tend to proceed to behave in ways that are detrimental to our bodies, our minds and ultimately our souls, albeit in ignorance and misperceptions, believing a lie for truth and seeing darkness as light, so that the “enemy” we finally destroy is actually ourselves.

In this season, as thoughts of the cross of the Christ and the glorious victory come to mind, the command from Jesus to take up our own cross and follow Him to His cross—to die to self and allow Him to live in us, to choose life in Him—becomes a preferred way to life so we don’t have to continue to have war with ourselves like that bird did.


David R. Snow

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Oh, Yes: One More Thing We Need

I forgot one thing we need. Because of the generosity of people, we have rice. In fact, we have so much rice that we bought a 44 gallon trash container just to store the rice. That was not enough space, so we have about fifty pounds in a bin. So rice is not what we need. WE NEED GOOD RICE RECIPES! Those you have cooked forever, not those in a magazine that call for sixteen exotic ingredients available only in expensive grocery stores in metropolitan areas.

We will be waiting, saucepan in hand.

What We Need At My Friend's House

Some of you might be saying that we need things like organizational skills, less clutter, and more space. And you would be right. All those, however, will come in good time, hopefully. What we need right now is plastic bags. WalMart, Kroger, SuperOne, Brookshire's, whatever. So if you have any you need to part with, please let us have them.

 And thanks.

Saturday, March 12, 2011

Much Progress, Thanks to Many Helpers


Thanks to many volunteers, most of them from Immanuel Baptist Church here in Marshall, we are getting closer to being open. Last Saturday, March 5, about thirty folks from IBC braved cool, almost cold temps to come en masse and work. Carrie and Jeff Bolt are the ringleaders for this mission group. Carrie has been here many days, scraping and painting. The white accents and porch that are now clearly visible in the picture are the work of Carrie and friends, mainly Carrie.

The deck (not visible in this picture), the ramp, the posts, and the back porch are the work of Jimmy Ford and his helpers. The pastor, Carlton Burris, installed a kitchen sink faucet very handily, as did David Harber and Philip Johnson with the electrical stuff. And this is my very favorite, because I absolutely detest this job: Carolyn Curry cleaned the toilets. Many others helped in many ways, and I apologize for leaving your names off--blame it on my being 72. That is as good an excuse as I have. Today we had a group of six (I think--they were moving too fast to count well) ETBU students who elected to stay here and work during their Spring Break just to help us!)

We owe a great debt of gratitude to all these folks.

We are just about ready to call the Health Department folks to come inspect the kitchen. Then we can open.

The picture was taken last week sometime. We need to take another now to show the beautiful trees budding and blooming in the background. Spring is in full bloom in East Texas. If we can survive the change to Daylight Savings Time, work will continue.

The picture below was taken when the able carpenters were removing the wall in front of four windows, covered sometime in the dim, distant past. The windows were painted black. After much useless scraping and several broken panes we finally got some stripper for the students to work on them today, and now the sunlight is flooding in, plus the view of the fields and trees is lovely.


Pray for the people of Japan.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Biggest Volunteer of the Week




This week has seen changes, progress, a few little problems, new folks interested and volunteers. The biggest volunteer helper was the big forklift that helped lift that little bitty Hesston tractor (that is a BIG tractor, actually) out of the mud. Dave was covering a drainpipe with the Hesston, and somehow--who knows how--got that tractor up to its eyeballs in mud. After valiant efforts by our construction workers and Dave, all to no avail, a company working nearby helped get it out ever so quickly. Sort of like a tiger pulling a kitten out of a well, according to an observer. I got there too late to get a picture of the stuck tractor. But you get the picture. Thanks, folks. This would have taken a long time with a shovel.

Friday, January 28, 2011

This is for the person who said the well picture was fuzzy. That beautiful clear blue sky is what we have had here for the last few days. Today was a gift--January 27 and 74 degrees. Lovely weather. Anyway, this is the rig. The blue stuff on the side is pipe (for those as ignorant as I about well drilling). They have reached about 10-11,000 feet deep now. How do I know this?  Because Dave loves to go down there and talk to drillers.

Today I was perusing Craigslist, as I am wont to do. Every few days I search for Marshall, thus pulling up items for sale or wanted, ones which would be close. We have a nice-looking washer donated by Dave's sister Joanne and her husband Jim, but we need a dryer. Thus the search. While I was looking, the phone rang with the news that someone was delivering a washer and dryer at that very moment. Have not received the name yet, but whoever you are, thank you ever so much.

Progress is slow, but steady. Hot water, a shower, heat, lights, stove--all those are realities. The director's apartment is nearing completion, and painting and patching continues. We had an energetic crew of youth attending a retreat at First Baptist Church. They helped tremendously, spreading hay in the yard, and moving a mountain of paint, tiles, and other items. Several of the girls washed many, many floor tiles that we had left over from remodeling houses. Now they are ready to lay. That will save a pile of money.

We have always used whatever materials were good, available, economical, and usable. There are many of those around, reducing the cost of completion considerably. Our local Habitat for Humanity has been extremely helpful, supplying building materials excess to the houses they build.

So here we are, almost February. What was it I was saying last fall?  That we would be in by Christmas?  Sure. I should know better by now.

Good night and God bless. He certainly has blessed this project. We pray for that to continue.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Maybe This Will Work Right Now . . . Or Not

This is a test to see if you are being notified of posts. For those of you who have asked, I would appreciate a response if you get a notification of this post.

Carolyn

Saturday, January 15, 2011

More Progress on the Shelter

Time goes so quickly. It is Saturday, and then it is Saturday again before we do much of anything. But this week we did make what seems like more progress, despite the snow and the ice and the rain. Today was a mucky, get stuck in the mud day. Since the ground has not grown new cover since the land was cleared for the shelter to be put in place, it is slick when the drizzling rain keeps on and on. So one of our helpful volunteers got stuck today when he was tired and hungry and ready to go home. Between Dave and the volunteer's father who was also working, he got out. Then Dave had a hard time getting his big Chevy truck out, and did some fancy sideways-sliding, so the father pulled him out, too. My Toyota Sienna hesitated a bit, but climbed right up that hill. Go, Toyota.

But back to progress. The water heater is hooked up and working. That is a blessing, because that is one more item in the house we had moved in that we just had to wait to see if we would have to replace. One shower is in place, and the sheetrocking, bedding and taping in the apartment are complete. When the doors are installed, the floor covering down, the plumbing connected, and the painting completed, then our directors could move in. Maybe a couple of weeks.

If you read about the couple in Houston who had to quit feeding the hungry in downtown Houston because they lacked the necessary permits, and according to authorities, were not likely to be able to get them, and wonder if we will have to quit, we won't, at least for that reason.  We have a certified kitchen and the necessary permits, and should be able to get those for the shelter, also. Can't predict other events that may occur, but at least those items are okay for now. Lots of questions come to mind about that situation, such as how much protection do we need for anyone?  One of their defenses is that the poor have less health care; therefore, we need to regulate what they get to eat. One might wonder if it is better to get food prepared in homes than the leftovers from the dumpsters, or that they might at least have some food. Whatever number of meals these folks were serving  will be absent. Sounds like more hunger to me. There were suggestions that they partner with other groups. Might work, might not. We shall see.

I wanted to upload some pictures, but Linux and I are not getting along well enough. (Later--remember when we used to put that in letters when we would get around to adding something to it? Don't see that much in email).  The picture is of the shelter kitchen, before we installed the pantry shelves so we could put some of the clutter away. Mary Kathryn, see your old microwave being used?

Monday, January 3, 2011

Snow New Year's Resolutions Here

That's right. There's no resolutions here. Just a keeping on trying to get the shelter done. But wait. That is a resolution. So maybe there are some. Progress is happening! We now have water hooked up, toilets functional, heat and a/c working, and several more large items going. We still are working on floor covering, and today the glass company came out and fixed the broken window panes.


For instance, the director's apartment is taking shape. Still needs the outside door installed (brr!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), the sheetrock finished, and then the painting, floors, and bathroom installation. That clawfoot bathtub is in place. Good soaking tub. Whoever does that job will need some relaxation. That may be it.

The picture below was taken from the shelter. Far up about three trees from the big tree, you might be able to see the new gas well. We are very thankful for the well, even though we own a very, very tiny percentage of it, because it may be what puts food on the table at the shelter. God is good, all the time, and takes care of us in ways we could never imagine.


 That doesn't mean that we don't need help, because we do, and all help is welcome. We are using some of the plumbing parts that Marshall Hardware donated a while back, and a man down near Ben Wheeler, close to Canton, donated a shower stall and some cabinet tops. It is really neat to either be able to put some of those things together to make something useful, or to watch those more skilled than I do so.

One of these days I will get the PayPal donate button on here, making it easier to send money. Until then, just keep sending it by snail mail.

Happy New Year to you all.