Greetings cyberspace,
It's been a few months since my last post, but things are fairly much the same. Our house is still under construction, my son is still not potty trained (working on it), the church is doing well, could always be better, and Rachel is still very much pregnant, but doing well. So life is good. My current project has been to put in a toilet into our basement. We had this huge walk in shower that was probably 6x6, way too big for a shower, so we decided to add a toilet. Last Wednesday I broke up a bit of concrete and made a hole big enough and deep enough to see that there is a clay pipe right under where I wanted to put the toilet. I was unsure so I asked around and it turned out that it wasn't that big a deal, except clay pipes are really delicate, they are really thick, but they crack easily. So the hole got a lot bigger real fast, and I exposes the pipes pretty much all the way around. There is the main stack for the house which is cast iron and a floor drain from the laundry room all going to this clay pipe. And wouldn't you know it, it was cracked. There was sewage leaking into the ground, it was all mud, so nasty. Anyways I should have waited for plumber, but I was impatient and didn't want sewage spilling into the basement. So I broke off the pipe and that's where I got stuck, I've never done a ton of plumbing so I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew someone who did.
The guy who told me what to do in the first place, a deacon at the church, Ed, volunteered to come over and help me fix the problem. I was ready to patch it back together and forget about it, but he knows how to do this kind of work and he was willing to help. It worked out really well because he was planning on coming to Vacation Bible School with his wife to help out, and he said he'd just come help me instead. He's a great guy, totally humble and kind, honest and hard working, my kind of guy. So we worked for 2 hours to get it all fixed up and ready to be used as a sewer again. He let me grind off the clay pipe, which I did, fairly well, I prayed before each cut, because if it broke off it would break off too deep and we couldn't get a rubber gasket on it. This happened once, but we were able to fix it. So now we have to finish putting the shower drain in, fill the hole back up with sand, then top it off with concrete, and finally add the toilet and build a glass wall in between. Piece of cake. I learned a lot this week, not much of it theological but I learned about ID and OD, important plumbing things to know. I hope my sermon this Sunday didn't suffer for lack of more preparation time. Lord knows I could always spend more time preparing. I trust in God's goodness and mercy. I didn't feel like I left the people with that one importnat thought, but it was more of an experience of loving other people. I pray that it was honoring to God.
Peace.
