Saturday help

A group of men from a near by community spent a Saturday with us installing the exterior wall sheathing. He said this is the only shirt he owns, poor guy!

Setting the roof trusses

These trusses are 72 feet long plus the over hang on both ends makes the 75 feet long. Thank goodness they are 4 / 12 pitch, so they are only 13 feet high. If you just did the math and it didnt work out for you, well there is a 12 inch "energy heel" at each end, to allow for more insulation over the exterior walls.

Interior walls

The interior bearing walls are built and ready for the trusses. The rest of the interior walls will be set in place after the trusses are set.

Wall Raising

Say a prayer and raise the walls. About 40 members came and in an hour they raised all the exterior walls about 250 feet of 2 x 6 framed walls, and of course ice cream afterwards!

Local TV News

Here is the link to the local news station. You will get to met Clarence our manager. Terry in the green hat is a member at Peace and is also the construction co-ordinater at Hope Village in Minot for Lutheran Disaster Response. Not sure how long the link will stay up.


http://www.kxnet.com/story/19005710/peace-lutheran-rebuilds

Decked

The floor has been decked and we started building walls. The HVAC contractor installed all the under floor supply air ducts just ahead of us as we managed to complete the 5000 plus square foot floor in 3 days, totally glued and screwed, and still had time to build a few walls.

The Crew

Well here we are on a Sunday morning after church before we head to town for brunch.
From left to right as couples, Rich and Lindsey (full timers) from South Dakota, Clarence and Marlene (manager) from Pennsylvania, Bob and Fern (full timers) from Texas, Jim and Chris from Texas, Roy and Elaine from Texas, and Steve and Carole from Missouri.

Mike

This is Mike. He is a member of the church and he is as faithful as they come. He has been here everyday since we started back in May. Here he is helping to anchor the floor trusses to the crawl space walls.

Installing floor trusses

The day we placed all the trusses, we had some help from the air base. One of the members of Peace is stationed there and they have a volunteer program were they come into the community and volunteer for a worthwhile cause, and this was. Four of them were here for about 5 and carried in ALL of the trusses and held them in place while we anchored them.

Floor Trusses

A whole semi load of floor trusses arrived in the afternoon from a local supplier in Minot. They were unloaded by a church member, Rocky, with his skid loader.

Short walls

These walls were built and bolted to the footings. They will support the floor trusses. All were construted out off 2 x 8 treated lumber and are 24 inches tall.

Time off

Had to go fishing on a day off and came home with enough to share wth the camp. The other 3 were just a tad smaller and waiting in the cooler. Northern on the left and walleye on the right. Caught them in Lake Darling about 15 miles north of Burlington which is a dam on the Mouse River. Tasty!!!!

Concrete foundation

That pumper truck really makes life easier! Again the Mission Builders placed all the anchor bolts in the top of the foundation wall that will hold the building in place.

Foundation wall

The foundation wall will be concrete and the foam blocks are used as forms for the concrete. The red spacers hold the sides of the foam together and it is also used to hold the rebar in place. These foam blocks are 12 inches high and 48 inches long and will hold 8 inches of concrete. They "snap" together like legos and are quite rigid when complete and ready for concrete. The long wall on the left side of the picture actually has a brick ledge formed in the foam that will hold concete to form the ledge.

Footings

The contractor placed the concrete for the footings with a pump truck. Always fun to watch. Mission Builders placed all the anchor bolts for the interior support walls

Carole and Seaman

Carole and "Seaman", the Newfoundland that traveled with Lewis and Clark. We stopped at the interpretive center at the south end of Lake Sakakawea an hour or so south of Minot.

Excavated

The area for the addition has been excavated. They only plan to have a crawl space under the addition for mechanical installation and a heated space to help keep the floor warm.

Helping a member of Peace

These signs are all over the area letting everyone know their intent. When they move back they tape over the word coming. This home had 42" of water above the main floor. When we arrived all the drywall had been removed, all new electrical and insulation had been installed. We hung drywall on the ceilings and walls, taped and finished the home ready for the owner to paint. I know just enough to be dangerous and the Mission Builders that went with me, well they got hands on training for their first attempt and when we were done, we barely had enough drywall dust to fill a small dust pan. Very happy home owners!!!!

Rich, Jim, Roy, and home owner Karl. Steve took the picture

Hope Village

Volunteer groups from all over the country are coming to Minot to help in the rebuilding of the area after last years' flooding. Hope village is where the Orphan Grain Train organization has set up their camp for all of the groups coming to help. If you are not familiar with L D R and Orphan Grain Train. they set up a disaster camp with portable buildings for restrooms and showers, sleeping quarters and a dining tent complete with a full kitchen that can feed over 200 at a time. They also have a co-ordination office that qualify families for assistance from the group and then dispatch volunteers to do the work. All of the work the Mission Builders have done in flood damage repair has been assigned by the L D R coordinator. If you would like to get away from it all this summer for a couple days or a couple weeks, and help in this effort, email us and I will send you contact information.

A visit from synod assembly

The North Dakota synod assembly was in Minot this past weekend and they stopped by to see the project, a hole in the ground, and to listen to Clarence give a talk on who the Mission Builders are and what we do.

Relaxing with the crew

The crew is all here and this is our first official "Lutheran Hour"! For those new to the blog, it is a time to relax at the end of the day, and since we are all lutherans, it fits. Although it may not be for an hour and sometimes it is longer than an hour. That is Marlene showing off her skills at ladder golf, or redneck golf or whatever you call it in your part of the country.

Pre-construction work

Along with setting up the campground, we are also doing some pre-construction work. We are removing the brick so it can be reused on the front of the new addition and the outside entrance needs to be removed so the excavation for the addition can begin.

Most of the campground will be on grass, which is great when it rains. All that wonderful grass to the right of the camp is a local cemetery that the church helps to maintain.

Addition to Peace

The addition to the church will be on this end, the north side. They sustained major damage to the basement and decided to add about 5500 sq. ft to this end of their building. The flood waters did not rise above the main floor so they are still able to use the building. The addition will be used for classrooms, food bank, after school programs, and day care. The bathrooms and kitchen will also be enlarged.

Temporary camp

One of the duties of the early arrival crew, Clarence and Steve, is to set up and install the campground for the crew by the first week in May. While we do this we have to set our campers in a temporary location. We are in the parking lot of the church close to water and power, reduced power, until the new camp is ready.

Early arrival

This is probably the earliest start we have ever been on. We were asked to be on site the third week in April. Carole stayed behind in St Louis for a couple weeks to complete all of her appointments before joining Steve in Burlington

Burlington, ND

It has been a very busy spring for us. The entire crew is here and we have started the Mission Builder project for this year.
We are in Burlington, ND which is about 10 miles northwest of Minot, ND. The church we will be working on this year is Peace Lutheran. The building sustained damage to the basement in last years' flooding in the Minot area. The entire basement had to be gutted, mucked out, sanitized, and the members of Peace decided not to rebuild the rooms in the basement, instead they will be adding about 5500 sq. ft. to the building to replace the classrooms and office space lost in the flood. Members were telling us that the water level in the basement was within a couple inches of getting into the floor joists. As devastating as that is, they are thankful they can still use their building. Thousands of homes and business were total losses and are in the process of rebuilding and many have just abandon their homes and moved on.
The project here at Peace is off to a slow start so we are working in the community helping others who have been qualified to receive help through Lutheran Disaster Response.