Wanna come to my party?

Our soon to be redone bathroom

11/19/10 Friday
I’m going to try and pack a lot into this day. So much to do and so little time. Tomorrow morning we attack the bathroom and I want to get a head start on that. I’ll cut a new access to the crawl space but doing that requires I move a ton of stuff out of the way to start with. Then I’ll crawl under the house with a cordless drill and tape measure to identify where to cut the floor out. Haven’t seen the honey bees lately so hope they are gone, but with the cool weather they might just not be active. If there are no bees on the old hive I can cut it out and thus, hopefully, reduce or eliminate future swarms from taking up residence under the house. While under the house I can make note of the existing plumbing and get a better idea of what we’ll need to do.

Here's the new tub and shower. The wall you see will be torn out with a support beam needing to be installed in it's place as this had once been the outside wall of the house. On the other side is the present bathroom

Then I plan on tearing down the wall. Once that’s done using the bathroom becomes a whole new concept, an open air experience so to speak. We plan on moving the toilet to a new location, not far, only a few inches facing a different direction. When we do it means the water must be shut off and there will be no toilet available for use. We can deal with that no problem for when we first moved into the house there was no water at all so we used a bucket. If things go right the water won’t be cut off but for a short time while we rush to attach the new pipes.

Remodeling the bathroom involves mysteries yet to be found. We don’t know the condition of the floor so are unsure if it will all need to be replaced or not. I went to Lowe’s yesterday to get advice and an idea of prices. There I learned about the types of drywall and flooring needed, along with a few other details that helps me get a better handle on what to do and how to do it.

I don’t have an idea if we will have any help showing up or not. It may just be Ricardo and me though I sent out an open invitation to any who might want to show up and pitch in. We plan on having food for sure, I think Cherie said she’d cook up some chili or something. There was a whole list of stuff she mentioned and of course I don’t remember it all. So we will be prepared for a group and of course if anyone wants they can bring food as well. As a visionary person I always see things as they can be so imagine a large crowd of friendly people showing up, laughing and enjoying their fellowship in the Lord as they all pitch in to accomplish something good. I understand that kind of thing generally doesn’t happen without lots of planning and promotion so in reality it might not work out that way. Regardless, our church budgeted us five hundred dollars for the project and even if it’s just me and Ricardo we are blessed and will have a new bathroom and be able to take showers.
Note how the door hits the toilet. This is definitely a one person at a time bathroom for now. We look forward to the new toilet that will flush without the help this one needs (Keep a container full of water to assist each flush presently)

The old cesspool, with its’ collapsing walls, is a problem that we’ll attack later. There is a septic tank we can have for free but it’s concrete and buried in the ground so requires a backhoe to remove and bring here. I’m willing to dig the hole for it by hand, though everyone tells me I’m nuts. I do the best I can with what I have and we don’t have a lot. Meantime the cesspool still works, though I’ve noticed that the surface soil stays wet lately near the holes where it’s collapsed so wonder what that means. Don’t worry about it for I know that God meets our needs and always has out of the blue.

Stupid computer. Just lost a couple of paragraphs of writing because the power cord worked it’s way out again. Fortunately it had auto saved most of today’s post, everything up to this point, so I didn’t lose it all. Oh well, life goes on and in the realm of things it’s just a frustration. I’m blessed to have this laptop period, despite the fact it’s cobbled together, it still works, just a little delicate.

So back to rewriting what I wrote before.

Speaking of God meeting our needs I now have permission to tell of what God has done for Cherie. Wasn’t allowed to speak of it before and I’ve learned to respect my wife’s wishes, along with learning constraint when it comes to what I post. I will practice constraint in this portion for sure.

Cherie loved her job at the church she worked at. Loved it and imagined this was where she would work till she retired. There was a new pastor there and he showered Cherie with praise, expressing his appreciation for the quality of work she did. Then they hired a new youth pastor. He was an old friend of the new pastor. With any change there is always a disruption of things. Sometimes that is good, and sometimes it is not. Cherie used to love her job, to come home happy and fulfilled, but I noticed a change. She told me once that now she often cried all the way home. As she shared the change in attitude that occurred with this new guy I resisted the urge to march in there and express myself, resisted that urge many times. Now nothing she did was satisfactory and the new youth pastor seemed more interested in doing Cherie’s job than in doing anything with the kids. He quibbled over commas and took from her tasks she had been doing, trashing her ideas and in the process her self esteem.

Cherie hung in there the best she could. I prayed for her every day and worked hard to build her up but it was trying. It seems that this new guys attitude, his spirit I will say, infected others, particularly his friend, the pastor. Everything changed in the office, the whole atmosphere became different. The good days were the ones where these two were gone and the dreaded days were the ones that both were present in. I pray hard about this. In this world of life and death, this struggle against compromise and complacency, there is such need and it is in the midst of this need that there should be those who are beacons of light showing the way. But for many in the ministry it has just become a job, a paycheck, and their heart is no longer in it. They often become just babysitters for Christ, doing no more than they have too and distancing themselves from concern, from caring and loving those in need.

I see great distress for many ahead…I see so much yet hesitate to reveal it. Why do I hesitate? Because I know what will happen, what will be said and the reactions of those who desire not to be exposed, who run from the truth and live a lie. How long must I keep this to myself? I debate within about this, wondering “what am I supposed to do?”. There is a time coming when I will be flung into the spotlight, then I will stir things up, then I will speak the words of God and dismay many. Till that time I will serve, I will do the best I can for those put in my path.

Anyway, listen to how Big God is, to how He provides even before we know we have a need. Someone we know went through similar disruptions at her workplace and Godcidently (There’s my new word again) met someone starting a new company, in the same field she was in. So our friend got a job at this new company and they Godcidently need someone with the same skills that Cherie has so started reaching out, offering Cherie a position with an increase in pay. Incidentally the new publishing programs and abilities that Cherie had to learn at the church are precisely what’s needed at this new company. So Cherie starts her new job, at the new company, with owners that are very much Christian, Monday. There are no accidents here, none whatsoever. The timing and everything connected with it are way too much to be called a coincidence, thus it’s another one of the many Godcidences that have made up our life since I woke from the coma.

I must create some new believer bible studies for the two guys at the jail who gave their life to the Lord. There are only two guys in the jail, plus a third who is a trustee, and when I talked to them yesterday one said he would like to accept Jesus as his Lord and savior, so I prayed with him to do so. The other guy has been in and out of church his whole life and I presumed he was a Christian, but he asked that I lead him in a prayer for salvation too. Presuming is seldom a good thing. Now I have a responsibility, now I have to lives in my hands that I must care for. To lead someone to the Lord and just walk off like “it’s all ok now” is like leading a horse to water and not bothering to care for it afterwards, letting it die from a lack of nurture. Such a thing is common in the church and is so so wrong. Thus I have a job to do, a responsibility to finish what I started. Both of these guys are from out of town, one from Big Spring, and the other from Odessa. I need to make sure that I find good churches for them to go to when they get out of jail. One will be out in two weeks and the other isn’t sure when he will get out. Both desire to change their lives and the Odessa guy has a history of alcohol abuse and perhaps drugs too, though I’m not clear on that. Regardless, what I know is that to change your life requires you change your friends, for the old crowd will gladly drag you back into that which destroys, the habits and practices that bring death instead of life.

It’s 10:13 already. Can’t believe I’ve been working on this for over two hours already. Writing takes time, especially when you must redo what you wrote previously. Lots to do and times a wasting. At 4:00 I must leave for the two hour trip to Ft Stockton, where I will visiting my brothers in white at the prison. Bye now. If you’d like to come to the house tomorrow and help, visit, or just give advice as we work on the bathroom you’re more than welcome. Drop me an email and I’ll give you directions. bobcarver2@yahoo.com