Houston Trip

I guess after writing about going to Houston, i should write ABOUT Houston. I am lazy that way.

FIRST DAY: Here is a photo of our shoes after the first day of work. We spent the first day of our trip traveling to Bush airport, met up with our contact people over there in Houston, had pizza for dinner, then a long orientation, and then off to bed for an early morning. We got up at 6:00am (but it's really 4:00 PST) to get ready for our first day on the job. It was raining all week in Houston, so everything was muddy. God was faithful in answering our prayers and it did not rain on Friday. So we had a hearty breakfast of kolache provided by habitual for humanity. The guys LOVED it.. and they are talking about bringing it to LA. The dream is to have Epic inside a bakery factory.
The house only have the foundation and the frame done. So, some of the guys worked on bringing the building the roof, while I worked on the siding with Kev. It was hard work, and it took some time getting used to the hammer. We had great Italian for lunch (i am all about food), and I spent the afternoon working on nailing the roof down on the house. I don't have pictures cuz i was busy working and didn't bring my camera with me. :(
It was a good day of work and we were filthy. I mean filthy!!! All our shoes were covered in mud, and some of us were covered in mud as well. I thoroughly enjoyed being dirty since i don't think i was ever allowed to play in the mud! It was a fun time.
We came back to the church for a quick shower. Our team was composed of 7 guys and me, and we have ONE shower. So the shower time was limited to 10 minutes each. I jumped into the shower as soon as we went back to church cuz i was closest to the bathroom.

For dinner, we had Texas style BBQ food. The sausage was good, but the other stuff was just okay. The BBQ sauce was GREAT. I don't have a picture of it, but between me and Jerry (the Oasis team leader), we used up an entire bottle of BBQ sauce. (For those of you who saw the houston's video, that's the reason behind that photo of Jerry and me holding the empty bottle. That was our victory picture). Then we did a car tour of downtown Houston and we stop by Galleria's waterfall. I seen it 10 years ago when i first visited Houston, and it looks the same. Except i think it's prettier at night.

SECOND DAY: Early day again. We got to HFH around 7:00 ish, and had kolache for breakfast. I spent the whole day working on the roof. I prayed for overcast all day because it was pretty hot down in Houston. Many things went wrong the second day, but they are all quite amusing. First, before the start of the day, i realized that my overall was ripped around my pocket. I didn't realized till i got to HFH, and i didn't bring an extra pair of pant that day. So, Jerry asked around to see if he can get me a pin, but instead they got me ducktape. Yes, ducktape! Some lady helped me put ducktape to cover up my small hole. So, i walked around for most of the morning with an X on my behind. Then of course there is the inevitable accident of hitting my thumbs with the hammer, several times. So my thumbs are still bruised from that. Then halfway thru the day, i went to use the potty, and realized the size of the ducktape got ripped as well. So i went back to the same lady for some reinforcement. Now, half of my butt cheek is cover with tape. It was getting hot at that point and i can really feel the lack of air because of the tapes. Anyhow, that did not bring down my spirit of working. It was a great day, and we worked hard on that roof.
Going back to the overcast thing. So it wasn't sunny the whole day, but still i took jerry's advice and put on some sun screen on my face, neck, arm and my back. Since i am with 7 guys, i wasn't able to ask anyone to help me put on some lotion on my back. So i got as much of my back as possible. Of course, like always, i missed some spot. So by the time i came back from the day of work, i realized that i burn two strips on my back between my racerback tank top, and the overall. It got burned really really bad. hai... i think i am done peeling now.
I think the team got really comfortable with each other by the second day. At least i know i was. I started being myself and barking order at everybody. They found it quite amusing, and i realized that i can't help but being bossy. Bossy in a sense of getting things done. I just can't sit back and not get things done. Since we were on the roof, and they basically took our ladder away (in case we want to run away), we had to rely on others to get us stuff that we need on the roof. Things like nails, diskes, water, tape, pencil, knife etc. It was great..... :p
So, I don't have a before picture of the house, but this is what the house looks like at the end of the second day.

It feels so great to do manual labor and see the products of your labor and sweats!! I think we all left HFH feeling like we have accomplished a lot. This is how we looked at the end of the long two days. (if you look closely at this picture, you'll see the whole team in it, all 7 of us, can you name them all?)





Oh, the ending of my overall. So, i can't remember how many times i had to go back for ducktape reinforcement, but this was the end result of my two days of hard work on my overall. Also, i found another hole on the other side of the pant at the end of the day. I think it's because i was sitting on the roof and moving around a lot. It retired in Houston, and ended up in the trash of St. Agnes Church.
We spent the night at Rev. Murray's house with is Bible Study's group. Another great dinner, and good fellowship and singing. I got to know some of the people on the team better and found out the ages of some people (let's not talk about that)... We went back to the church at night, and stayed up another hour or so talking. It was a good time just chatting about anything and everything. I really feel like i got to know some people much better, and I got to say, certain person was more goofy than i realized, and another was more talented than i expected, and we have some really good conversation from music, to sports, to architecture, to church, to food, to girls, heights and expectations. Everything.
LAST DAY: We got to sleep in!! We worshipped with St. Agnes Church at 11 (2.5 hours sunday service... i was dozing off at one point). Then we packed up, had a late lunch, and went to the airport, sat on the plane for an hour before it finally took off, and arrived an hour late at LAX, got stuck in traffic on 105 because of a car accident, stopped by Tea Station for a boba green tea (so good, although they messed up my order), drove home, missed Grey's Anatomy, took a nice LONG shower, and checked my three email accounts. It was a great trip. I would do it again anytime. I am hopping the next trip would be New Orleans. We'll see...