Tuscaloosa Tuesday, April 24

Mission: Tuscaloosa 2012

Our second day of working on the Habitat house.  We got started about 8:00 again.  We park our church van at the top of the hill and walk down; the driveway isn't suitable for the van.

This once was a forest; now it's just sticks that used to be trees. The tornado came across this area just before it reached the house we're working on.

We started the workday as we always do, with a prayer.  The two gentlemen in the middle are plumbers who had just arrived and whom we invited to join us.

Pete, our supervisor, lists the jobs to be done today.  There's quite a variety.

The little dog that happened by was irresistible.

Driving screws into the panels that form the walls of the "safe room."  The walls are two 3/4-inch plywood sheets and a sheet of 14-gauge steel fastened to double studs. Driving the screws in is not a simple process.

The outside walls of the building are fastened to the slab by lengths of threaded steel rod that are epoxied into the slab.  We've drilled all the holes, cleaned out the concrete dust with an air hose, inserted the epoxy into the holes, and then inserted the steel rods.  This is the tool used to get the epoxy into the holes.

Working on the roof of the Safe Room.  The top is like the walls, two sheets of plywood and a sheet of steel.

Driving nails to hold the hurricane tie-downs that attach the roof trusses to the framing below.  This was a two-day job, but it's all finished now.

The plumber is also working up in the rafters today.

The huge pneumatic nail gun was used to add some more parts to the framing.

The outside is taking shape as well, with work on the fascia, the trim around this gable over the entrance, and putting up the blue house wrap.

Every job site has a rat's nest of battery chargers all plugged in and always busy.

Attaching the house wrap and working on the gable.

Taking a break from installing screws in the safe room walls.  One of the steel sheets can be seen on the left; this will be covered by two sheets of plywood, and all of it screwed together and attached to the studs inside the room.  About 1,000 screws are needed to complete the room.

Seeing what's on tap for tomorrow.

Pretty much everyone got involved in attaching the house wrap.

Working on the fascia, and an overall view of the house as it looks now.

 The view from the inside; the door and window openings are being cut into the house wrap.

What we've completed, and what's next to be done.

The whole team crowded into the safe room, and Pete took our picture.

Tomorrow, perhaps, the metal roof.

Tuscaloosa Monday, April 23

Mission: Tuscaloosa 2012

After eating breakfast and packing lunches, we piled into the church van and drove to the Habitat site. Our drive took us through part of the 2011 tornado's path, and the devastation was obvious in destroyed trees and flattened (now missing) houses. The cleanup, meaning removal of debris, has been all but completed, with a few damaged buildings still to be seen.  Most destroyed buildings have been removed, leaving just concrete slabs to show where people once lived.  On Thursday we'll have a closer look at the damage area during a tour hosted by First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa.

The habitat site has several houses in various stages of construction, some almost completed and others about to have foundations poured.  We were welcomed by the Habitat for Humanity supervisor for Tuscaloosa.

Habitat's supervisor giving us our initial pep-talk.

There were a number of mission groups from all over the US, including New Jersey and the Midwest.  Each team was assigned to a different house.  The group from Wake Forest Presbyterian was assigned to one of the houses in the immediate area that was almost complete; their goal is to actually complete it by the end of the week.

Our group was assigned to a house out in the countryside, near where the tornado's destructive path ended.  The house is down in a valley, and is surrounded by a mix of homes that were also destroyed and others that had minor or no damage.  Our house collapsed on its owner, severely injuring him.  The new house is the same size as the earlier one (same slab, after all), but has been redesigned inside to address the owner's mobility issues and to include a "safe room", which is an interior room that is very heavily built in order to act as a tornado shelter.

We arrive at our Habitat house, along with lots of scaffolding.

When we arrived, the house had been sheathed
but the window and door openings had not yet been cut out.

One of the first things we did was to use a reciprocating saw
to cut the openings.  Now it looks like a house rather than a shed.

Adding sheathing to the rear gable end.

Some of our team members tried unfamiliar tools, while others settled in to familiar jobs.

Still others approached the work like it was their day job, which in fact it is.

Using a reciprocating saw to cut the sill plate away where the doors will go.

Pete, our site supervisor, gives instruction on using a hand-held metal-cutting band saw. The saw was used to cut lengths of threaded rod that will be used to bolt the framing to the slab.  The new house is being constructed to withstand 130 mph winds, such as a major hurricane might have.

We broke for lunch, which was the sandwiches that we had packed at the church.

Drilling the holes for the threaded rods.  Drilling took considerable effort, but the worst part was cleaning out the concrete dust so that the epoxy that holds the rods to the slab would adhere properly.

 

Using a hammer drill to install high-tech screws in the walls of the safe room.  The walls are double-studded on the inside, and then covered with a sheet of steel and two 3/4-inch layers of plywood.  Hundreds of these screws fasten everything together.

After we cleaned up at the end of the day, the house shows considerable progress.

Our to-do list for the week shows good progress.

Back at the church, dinner was lasagne and salad.  We cooked tonight (easy to do -- just take pre-made lasagne out of the freezer in the morning and bake it in the evening) and the Wake Forest group cleaned up.  Tomorrow we will exchange duties.

A very successful first day, and everyone is tired.  We will do this each day, but the jobs we do will change as portions of the house are completed.

Tuscaloosa Sunday, April 22

Mission: Tuscaloosa 2012

Our group of ten mission trip participants was commissioned near the end of the 11:00 worship service, had a brief lunch, loaded the van, and took off for Tuscaloosa.

Greeted by well-wishers after the 11:00 service.

Explaining about mission trips.

Loading, or pehaps overloading, the van.

Saying goodbye.

Ready to leave.

It was an uneventful five-hour drive from Athens to Tuscaloosa.  We were met at First Presbyterian Church by a long time (50+ years) member who showed us around, told us where all the food and facilities are, and took our picture as we posed on the church's staircase.

First Presbyterian Church of Athens' mission team
posing on the stairs of First Presbyterian Church of Tuscaloosa.

We left to find some dinner about the time that another mission team, this one from Wake Forest Presbyterian Church in North Carolina, arrived.  The two teams are sharing the space at FPC Tuscaloosa this week.

We found dinner, in fact we found an Athens restaurant: De Palma's.  They couldn't do a table for 10 with no notice, so we had two tables of five.

Dinner at De Palma's in Tuscaloosa.

Dinner at De Palma's in Tuscaloosa.
 

Early rising tomorrow -- we must be ready and in the van by 7:40 in order to be at our Habitat for Humanity job site by 8:00.

Senior Adult Ministry: Senior Spotlight

Bill Flatt

Interview By: Hannah Walters

The great William (Bill) Perry Flatt was born in Newburn, Tenn. on June 17, 1931. He grew up on his family’s cotton farm where he regularly attended the local Methodist or Presbyterian church (wherever the pastor was that week) and he spent his childhood summers making rounds to the four surrounding churches. His chore was to draw water which he claims was his “ambidextrous talent.” Not only did he grow up in a church and family-oriented environment, living within five miles of his grandparents, he was also was surrounded by what would end up being his life career: agriculture.

His love for agriculture started when Bill was six years old and he began working on his family’s farm picking cotton. Most of us pray for fluffy white snow to let us get out of school. In Bill Flatt’s childhood, kids got out of school for fluffy white cotton! School kids would get several weeks off to work on their parent’s farm and they got paid by the pounds of cotton picked. Devoted to the church at an early age, Bill began tithing with his first earnings as a cotton picker because like his grandmother would tell him, “Billy, the first ten percent you earn goes to the Lord!” The other money he earned, that he didn’t give to the church, Bill saved for college.

First, Bill attended Bethel College, a Cumberland Presbyterian College where he met his lovely wife, June. They married when he was just seventeen years old. He was later a Deacon at Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Knoxville after they transferred there to attend the Univ. of Tennessee. June was editor of the campus newspaper. With no more cotton fields to pick in the city, Bill worked as a traveling salesman to make money to pay for both his and June’s tuition. After receiving his undergraduate degree, Bill attended Cornell Univ. in Ithaca New York, where he earned a PHD in Animal Nutrition, Biochemistry and Physiology.

Being a triple major doctorate-degreed man, or as one could say, the Agriculture Guru, Bill and June moved to Beltsville, MD just outside of D.C. to work. There he was head of an energy metabolism lab where he worked to increase the efficiency of dairy cows to produce as much milk as possible with the least amount of feed.

Finally, in 1969, Bill and his family moved to Athens. At first, his daughters wanted to attend the Tuckston Methodist church. After they graduated and moved out however, Bill and June began attending Athens First Presbyterian Church in 1973. As he says, “Sunday, it was time to go to church. It was something we did, you know.” He describes this devotion to attending worship as enabling him to question his fundamental faith in a good way so that he can grow and really understand and strengthen his beliefs.

As clearly an avid church-goer, Bill has many favorite practices. His favorite verse is the classic John 3:16 and his favorite hymn is “Amazing Grace.” In fact, in a year he spend working in Scotland to verify the agriculture research he’d done here in the States, Bill says he heard “Amazing Grace” performed many times on the bagpipes. Not only is Bill Flatt a great Christian, he is also a great athlete! When he was in his sixties and taking care of his wife, June, who had tragically developed a debilitating disease called Guillain-Barre syndrome, Bill realized he needed to get active because, in his words, “I needed to be healthier so I could live longer to take care of June.” He achieved this by working out devotedly to Richard Simmons “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” workout video. Bill works hard at everything he does, he even got a call from Richard Simmons himself on Bill’s eightieth birthday and Richard sent him his newest workout video for free!

Obviously we can all look up to Bill Flatt on how to live our lives. Devoted, hard-working, intelligent, kind, and always happy, Bill Flatt is a beacon of light to strive towards, fellow Christians.