Today started week two of our three-week commitment. It goes quick.
A chilly morning outside, 37 degrees. The sunshine promised to warm it up rapidly, however.
During devotions, one of the group shared her background, and how her coming to know Christ would put her at odds with her family. She struggled with this for a while until she read from Matthew 10, starting at verse 35: For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.
A hard passage to read, but one that clearly defines our priorities.
The lift was fixed over the weekend. Dave found a loose wire. I guess he knew which loose wire was the right one, because when I looked inside the control panel, all of the wires on that rat’s nest looked loose, and there were many that didn’t go anywhere.
But before I continued with the lights outside the buildings, Bo wanted the wiring in the storage room behind the kitchen put back together. We had taken this all apart last week to allow the concrete guys to come in a bust an opening through the wall into the kitchen. And, oh by the way, could we add a light in the narrow passageway next to the big freezer? Sure, no problem.
It took a while to collect all the necessary supplies. The camp didn’t have any rigid conduit, but had hundreds of feet of flexible armored cable, so we’ll just use what we have. What supplies we didn’t have were ordered from Ace Hardware to be delivered later in the morning.
It took Denny and I the entire morning to mount boxes on the wall, bore a hole from one room to the other through the block wall, connect lights and switches and plugs. Just before lunch, we were far enough to give it the smoke test. When I threw the breaker, it immediately popped. Something was not right. And the breaker prevented us from burning the building down.
After lunch we set about to figure out why my wiring job tripped the breaker. I disconnected a few things and tried again. Denny threw the breaker and I heard a loud snap from the storage room. Still not right. We started pulling the switches back out of their boxes and measuring for short circuits. Nothing. Everything appeared fine. When Denny threw the breaker again, all the lights came on and everything worked.
I really don’t like it when a problem goes away without an obvious cause. That means it can come back at the most inopportune moments. I had moved some wires around while we were testing, perhaps that was it. Denny started on fitting the door while I put all the switches back into their boxes.
When the last switch went in, there was a bright flash and a loud bang and all the lights went out. There it is! A closer look revealed that one wire, when pushed into the box, was pushed against a sharp metal edge, which bit through the insulation, causing a short circuit.
Having finally figured this out, I helped Denny fit the store room door. As always, when you have an old building and a donated door, adjustments have to be made, including shaving the concrete to allow the door to close.Deb helped Debi paint a mural on an outside wall, and some of the other women organized a bunch of cleaning supplies that were donated to the camp. And there was always cleaning to do, especially since there was a group here this past weekend.
I recall seeing Sand Hill Cranes at Waterloo State park back when your boys were "into" birding. They were a rare site back then.
ReplyDeleteNowadays we have about a dozen that hang out in the fields behind our house. When they fly, I love how they look and sound like a Pterodactyl. (as I imagine how they might have sounded! :-)