We ended our missions trip to Utah with a work day aimed at helping the only Christian Camp in Utah to lay sod. Now, to be quite frank, I wasn’t really sure what that meant, but I was down to do it anyway.
We started to morning early as there had been some disquieting things happening almost conversations in the team. Mike, Ben and I got up at 6:30 to pray. My voice sounded froggy, but it was a great time for us to lift the group up in the Lord.
8:30 we headed over to the girls house to start out trek to the camp which was 30 minutes past Park City, Utah. We had prayed that my cough and such would go away and it did. The Lord is good!
Now, after I learned what laying sod was, I expected that area we were to be working in to be like a playground, park or small rest area. When we pulled up to the camp, there was this huge dirt area that was the size of a football field. I looked at Mike and said "We're going to sod all that?” For those of you who aren’t familiar with what "laying sod" is..It’s this: Small square pieces of grass that you lay in an interconnecting grid over a large area to create a beautiful lawn.
When we got there they had about 5 rows done. Each row was about 100 yards. That covered about 1% of the entire area that was to be sodded. Being a technical support/sales guy, the thought of all that manual physical labor made me rethink the idea of a work day. But nonetheless, we got the troops rallied, and headed out to get to work.
I think only one or two of our whole group even knew what sod was, let alone how to lay it. Ben, being the "multipurpose can do almost everything kind of guy" got right to work. He's from Wisconsin, and they do that kind of thing out there apparently. The rest of the team fell into line real quick.
We were working with another missions team from California which had about 10 people. They had been there already for about 1.5 hours and seemed burned out already. Mike wanted to make sure that our team presented a good witness in our work, so we made sure the team knew that we had 4 hours to work hard and bless the camp.
About an hour into the work, the main water main broke. Again, if you know anything about sod, you know that the ground you lay the sod on has to be damp. Without water, we couldn’t lay the sod. The guys that worked at the camp quickly fixed the problem and work continued.
Shortly thereafter, it was lunch time. I was happy. The camp had provided lunch for us which contained sandwiches, chips and punch. As I was talking with Russ East, the coordinator of the work day, I found out that there was a guy named Nicolas with him that needed a one page website put up. Nicolas is a native from Gana who has been traveling the world as a missionary. I was blessed at the opportunity to help him and agreed to do so. Wow, twice in one trip my computer talents have been able to come into play in blessing others.
At lunch, Russ and I were discussing some tactical options on getting the work moving faster. The Lord brought a plan to my mind and I shared it with him. He thought it was great, and after lunch I was asked to implement it. So I got to organize the work crew into teams that would carry sod, roll sod out, tuck the sod and so forth. As the plan fell into place the work speeded up tremendously. The whole time though I felt bad cuz I was up on a hill directing 26 people on where to go at what time and what to do. The Lord spoke to my heart that it was ok, to direct, as direction is what the whole team needed to get the job done.
I need to let you know about Nathan Hendrick. Throughout the day, he carried and carried sod up and down the rows and never complained once. Not only that, but he didn’t slow down either. He has a gift of putting on a good attitude that positively affects the whole team. I was blessed watching him work.
At 3, we wrapped up our team, said our goodbyes to the other team still there and headed home. Understandably, we were all dirty and muddy, so we rinsed off as best we could before getting into the RV. When we got home, everybody showered and we met at the girl’s house for dinner and debrief.
I got the read the whole blog to the team so that we could all refresh our minds on what had taken place over the last two weeks. We laughed, and shared memories of the things that the Lord had done. Ben was especially blessed as Billy, one of the high schoolers, shared at how Ben had become like a big brother to him. You see, Ben has the gift of encouragement. Almost every time you see him, he tells you he loves you and smiles. What a great dude!
Anyway, we got to bed early because we were getting up at 4:45 to head back home in the morning. This trip has been wonderful and I'm so glad I came. God has done things beyond imagining and has spoken in ways that simply bolster my love for Him.
More tomorrow....
- nathan
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