St. Peter's Habitat Blog 2005

The 2005 St. Peter's Habitat for Humanity trip to Buffalo, NY, held June 26 through July 3, is now over. IT WAS A SMASHING SUCCESS! We completed substantial renovation of a home, there were no injuries or illnesses of consequence, and the members of the team had a great time. Most important, however, is that the team did something truly important for the body of Christ. As the team worked to help others, it helped itself in equal measure. During the next several weeks, as new photographs and reflections become available, they will be added within the site, so visit often. If you would care to make an addition, send it to the Webmaster. We will be returning to Buffalo in June 2006 to continue our work with this fine organization.

Monday, June 27:
The St. Peter's Habitat for Humanity mission trip is underway, the 20 participants are well and safe, and a tremendous amount of work has already been accomplished on the Buffalo, NY home of Shawntrell Johnson, shown below with her fiancé, Joe Patton. This is St. Peter’s fifth annual Habitat for Humanity work trip. This week-long service project is, at its heart,  an experience that seeks to provide St. Peter’s youth with a broadened understanding of how to serve God through hands-on volunteering in an environment that is both spiritually fulfilling and transforming. Adults in the parish participate, offering to our youth a model of how to live a life in Christ.

The home on which we are contributing so much effort, called 28 Millicent after its address, is the 150th house built by Habitat Buffalo. They are an extraordinary volunteer organization, the best Habitat organization this parish has ever seen. Be sure to visit their website at www.habitatbuffalo.org

This blog will be a work-in-process. A good place to start are some pictures taken on Sunday, June 26th, as we departed St. Peter's Church in the Great Valley for an eight hour trip to Buffalo, and the warm greeting which awaited us by Ron and Margaret Talboys, and Thomas Drescher, of Habitat Buffalo who provided us dinner and a briefing on the workweek to come:

Here also are the first two (of many yet to come) reports by members of our 20-person team. The first blog, dated Monday, June 27th, is from Grant Dovey:

 With all the Habitat leadership that I possess I figured I would write first. NOT!! Jill has actually forced me into writing. Well from the looks of things, we are definitely not in Franklin, West Virginia anymore. We have made a drastic move from the rural area to the streets of Buffalo. With this move to the streets we must follow a strict curfew of 10 o'clock to prevent getting shot by two year olds with sticks. (Yes, believe it or not it happened.) As you all know we left St. Peter's around 11 and did not get to Buffalo until around 7:30.

The adults took the tamer, slower van while listening to Frank Sinatra, but they missed out on the many scenic overlooks that Ken decided to visit. They missed out on speed, back roads, and many different varieties of music. Our van played everything from Shania Twain to Kenny Chesney to 50 Cent to Led Zeppelin to AC/DC. Melissa Kornhaus and I read the directions off the Road Atlas we were given and actually got us here safely. (Well there were a couple of close calls.)

As we arrived at Canisius College we almost ran over two kids and as I stated previously, got shot at by a two year old with a stick. However the dorm rooms are really nice. It is more like a mini apartment. They consist of 4 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a common room, and a kitchen.

The Habitat leaders met us at here at the campus with pizza and soda pop as they call it. Then we had the pleasure of having our first encounter with the public security officer. The officer basically told us what to do around campus and what not to do.

Last night the adults went out shopping while the kids stayed home and played poker, betting with M&M's. That ended well with millions of them all over the apartment...It was getting late so everyone went to bed minus Melissa, Bryan, and me. Our next brilliant idea was to torture the new guy, Jay. "Initiation" we called it. It wasn't that bad though, he was only locked in his room by a closet and many chairs for the night.

UP EARLY the next morning...thanks to Jill who marched around the rooms shouting commands. Breakfast wasn't much; just cereal...and then we were off to our first day of work.

At the work site, we received a few instructions then went about learning how to either drywall or install siding on the house. I was assigned to siding outside which I luckily have already had previously experience with. I work with Melissa, John, Jill, and Elizabeth pretty much the whole day. We sweat, bled, and accomplished a lot for our first time on the site.
Grant

The second, also dated the 27th, from Devon Geyer:

Hi Everyone,
Today is 27th day of June, and it is also a Monday. Yesterday we completed our seven and a half hour drive somewhat successfully, keeping the "driving in circles" to a minimum. When we arrived we were assigned our rooms and then consumed delicious pizza and scrumptious brownies, all the while being introduced to the people we would be working with and the tasks that would be assigned to us. We made plans for today , and then Jay and I played a 45 minute game of ping-pong which I won 100 to 95. For us kids, the morning began at 8:15 with Jill's lovely voice ringing through our halls. We hastily ate our cereal and set off for the work site. The tasks assigned to us consisted mostly of dry-walling the upstairs and putting up siding on the house. Other smaller tasks were to dry-wall the bathroom (giving more privacy to its users) and installing windows. We were also privileged with the presence of Shawntrell, the future homeowner, who aided us in dry-walling and insulating the upstairs. We plan to finish the drywall and put mud on the walls so that the rooms can be used by Shawntrell and her family. It was really nice to be able to meet Shawntrell because she is a wonderful woman and really is a joy to have around. It also provided us with even more desire to do our jobs because we were able to identify them with a good person and family. Having her there really added a lot of meaning to all the work we were doing. We ended the day by carrying more dry-wall upstairs (to be used tomorrow) and made our way back to the campus. After some confusion as to when we would be allowed to use the pool, Jay and I played another two games of ping-pong, both of which I won (the first 111 to 70 and the second 25 to 18). So far everyone seems to be really enjoying themselves, and I know that this is going to be a wonderful experience that I will never forget. I would love to keep writing, but we are having lasagna for dinner (many thanks to our splendid chef, Her Highness Suzanne) and around here the motto seems to be "if you snooze, you lose." I will enjoy my slice of lasagna (and this entire experience) with all of you in mind.
Devon Geyer.

More photos and blogs will be posted Tuesday evening.

Here is a great photo of Shawntrell and Joe, along with her children Mya (4),  Emonni (5), and Jason (11), taken on Tuesday at our daily noon Eucharist. It was such an incredible privilege to work side-by-side with Shawntrell, Joe and Jason. On Tuesday she and her family graciously purchased pizza and soda (people in Buffalo call it "pop") for our lunch, a symbol of the bonding occurring between these wonderful people and St. Peter's Church.

Wednesday, June 29:
Morning all! More blogs are coming tonight, but here are some more pictures from last night's dinner in the courtyard of Canisius College where we are staying, including some of our "executive chef", Suzanne Casey, enjoying her first S'more.

 

The Rev. Jill Wilson, our mission trip coordinator, leads a noontime Eucharist

Late Wednesday evening, June 29th:
Here is a second blog contribution from Grant Dovey, dated yesterday but received this evening:

I had originally though that this would not be as fun as the past Habitat trips have been. However, these past days have been some of the best of my life. I have gotten to see Shawntrell's life changing right in front of me. She is so appreciative of everything that we have done. What impresses me most is that she is there for all of it. If we need assistance in any way, Shawntrell is there to help us out.

She also provided us with five pizzas and sodas today for all the hard work that we have put in. Shawntrell also brought her three children so we could meet them and there was nothing like the smile on their faces when they were looking at the new rooms in the house.

According to the Habitat full-time workers we are probably one of the hardest working groups that they have dealt with. Siding the house and putting up drywall are still the two biggest projects going on, as they have been going nonstop on Monday and today. The back and both sides of the house are currently being sided, j-channeled, and everything else you do not want to know about siding. All the math I have been learning about in school is finally paying off! Melissa Kornhaus, Dave (Habitat worker), and I have been busy siding the right side of the house. Jill Wilson, Elizabeth Foster, and John Tampa have pretty much completed the back except for about ten feet due to a new window that has to be installed. Meanwhile the other two Johns - John Attaness Sr. (John Tampa's step-father) and John Attaness Jr. (John Tampa's brother-in-law) have been busy working on the left side of the house.

Upstairs, Carrie Vaisman, Jay Geyer, Devon Geyer, Brian Joyce, Ken Fleischer, Rachel Field, Andrew Field, Tom Brehm, and Rip Tilden have been quite busy putting drywall on the walls. It started out with a wooden frame and now two rooms are completely drywalled.

Roger Thorne, Hugh McLennan, and Suzanne Casey meanwhile has been busy with the important projects. Thank God they drywalled the bathroom because it was pretty weird standing behind a tarp. Ha ha.

THE PRANKS ARE STILL GOING ON...THERE HAVE BEEN SOME GREAT ONES!

1. While everyone was playing Hearts, Melissa Kornhaus tied the hose on the kitchen sink with a rubberband and asked Andrew Field to get her a drink. Sure enough Andrew turned the sink on and it shot Ken in the back.

2. Before that we stole all the keys to the adult rooms and went into Rip Tilden's room. We also did the rubberband trick with him and he did not realize till 6 AM this morning when he went to wash his coffee cup out. That woke him up a lot more than the coffee did. Haha.

3. Jay Geyer is still being tortured by all of us because he will not cooperate with the "initiation" process. (Melissa is next but she doesn't know.)

4. We securely tied the door of Jill Wilson to the door across the hall, but big surprise, just like last year, John Tampa untied it for her.

5. We blew up 25 balloons and put them all in John Tampa, Ken, and Rip's room and wrote notes on them.

Well that is all for now. Hope everything is awesome back in Pennsylvania and we will be back soon.

Until next time.
Grant

A contribution from Melissa Kornhaus :

I guess today technically started at midnight, but so much happened between then and 5am this morning that I'll skip to our wakeup call.

7:53am All of us make angry faces at a singing, insane Jill as we wakeup to a breakfast of waffles and sausage.

9:00am On our way to the worksite, we enjoy more great music as selected by Grant. Upon arriving at the worksite, we set up and get to working with the same project groups on either siding or dry-walling. I worked with the old folk on bending aluminum, but soon tired of their cautious pace and moved back to installing siding. We accomplished much both inside and outside...plus I got to live on the edge. Literally. I was hanging off a roof most of the day.

Lunchtime After a few hours of the hot, hard work lunchtime rolled around. We ate pizza as provided generously by Shawntrell and simply returned to our work. I spoke to her for a while and found that she is one of the nicest people. I really loved talking with her and became excited about finishing this house for her and her beautiful children.

***Due to the fact that Jill just informed me that I needed to write a blog about yesterday, some information may be distorted or lost in the process of staying up for the third night after 3am.

And a blog written by Elizabeth Foster:

Our yearly Habitat for Humanity trip is always a trip to remember. We work, we pray, we sweat, we smile, we sleep, eat, and enjoy each other's fellowship. We learn to love each other when we are working together, eating together, and even as we play endless pranks on each other. Because honestly, what fun is there in going on a church trip without airhorns, water fights, marsh mellow guns, Vaselined door handles, prank calls, M&M battles, etc.? Members of St. Peter's certainly have a gift for making our Habitat trip unforgettable for all participants, and beneficiaries.

Habitat for Humanity is a project we are all proud to be a part of. We spend the week doing something truly meaningful for people who have not been as blessed as we have been, and we are given the opportunity to take the focus off ourselves, and give it back to God. This trip took us north to Buffalo, where we worked to improve an old house for Shawntrell and her young family. We've been absolutely delighted to have Shawntrell there with us, and while I personally have not yet gotten to spend much time with her, (my work being outside, and hers inside,) I am quite fond of her. The joy in her eyes, and that radiates from her entire being as she stands with us during Communion in her front lawn with her children and finance, is truly a gift to behold. Looking at this beautiful family, knowing how they deserve a house they can call their own, and that they will get it, is truly amazing. I now thank God that Jill literally got down on her knees before me and begged me to go! Trust me: our priests know what they're doing...so when they beg, don't just "smile and nod!" They see opportunity, and how to find God...and Suzanne's chocolate!!!!

Jill and I have been partners for most of this week. We have been working outside putting up siding on the house, which means that we make like monkeys and shimmee up 30 foot ladders and nail in pieces of siding, only after measuring and cutting them, (which John and Suzanne helped to do.) In two days, Jill and I sided the back side of the house, up to the window (about 25-30 feet up,) and about half of the side of the house. Today, we nearly finished the side of the house, (with Grant, Melissa, and John,) with only one mishap with leveling the siding, due to the...rather NOT so level, original walls. We have had a few scrapes and such, but all together, a rather massive success that we are proud of, and that Shawntrell is ecstatic about. We made a very good team, to the point that Jill started grunting for me whenever I was doing a strenuous task. Hopefully God is pleased with his hammer-bearing monkeys.

So, of course, we've been having a blast. Good, satisfying work is being done, we're all becoming very close, and we're having SO much fun playing tricks on one another. We steal each other's keys to leave little...shall we say, surprises?...in each other's apartments. Jill confiscated one key from each youth apartment, so that she can get in to wake us up in the morning, with her rather notorious song, which she takes a rather sick delight in singing. The adults laugh and find her joyful obnoxiousness amusing, while her victims find it an unusually cruel torture. (After waking up, we follow the marsh mellow trail to Jill's apartment for breakfast, and then off to the site.) We have water fights on and off the work site, the latest attack coming from Ken, who graciously placed a cooler full of water on our apartment floor, ceiling, and walls...but only in retaliation for his rather pathetic failure at trying to shoot us with his marsh mellow gun. All his West Point training got him was a lot of water in the face, and a "walk of shame." And we're only half way through!!! It's OOOOOON!!!!

So love to everyone back in Philly - we certainly wish you were here to share this amazing time with us. Enjoy the blogs and pictures...and I hear much commotion in the next room, and don't want to miss the fun! Peace!

Thursday evening, June 30th:
Our last day of 'production' is over. Never has a St. Peter's team delivered greater results during a week's mission project - not only in the sheer amount of work delivered to make a family "warmer, safer and drier", but the increasing 'chemistry' of Christ's love between a St. Peter's team and Shawntrell, Joe, Jason, Emonni, and Mya. Thanks be to God! That evening the St. Peter's team invited the family to join us at Canisius for dinner and a time to get to know them better:

Here's a blog written by Andrew Field at the conclusion of this last work day:

I wanted to write a short blog to reinforce many of the same themes that others have written before me.  Working for Habitat creates a tremendous feeling of accomplishment for those of us on the trip.  We can see the results of our labor in the work that we accomplish, in the skills that we have learned, and in the faces of those who will eventually live in the house on which we worked.  I think Habitat is a tremendous experience because it gives me a chance to witness God in action at ground zero, helping to establish new communities.

Although there were some signs of past struggles in the neighborhood where we worked, it was really amazing to witness signs of rebirth in many of the houses along the street where we worked.  Fresh paint, new siding, flowers were all signs of a caring community working to reclaim an area on a house by house basis.  The Habitat house was an important part of this rebirth, but it was certainly not the only part.  Signs of community building were present everywhere.  Cars slowed as they drove down the street.  We were constantly met by curious neighbors.  Neighbors who wanted to know what we were doing, where we came from, and if we were getting paid for our work.  Children who remembered the house before it was damaged by fire came in to see how the house was getting fixed up.  On Wednesday, we met a man who had helped with a renovation on the house several years ago.  In each of these occasions, Shawntrell met them with a big smile and we were fortunate to observe community building in action.

The community building that we experienced goes much farther than this, however.  We from St. Peter's had the opportunity to learn a little more about each other on this trip. Through our conversations, through our daily chores, and through play, all of us were enriched by the presence and unique contributions of all.  We were strengthening our own community all week long!  We should all be proud of our senior youth group at St. Peter's.  They are inclusive of all; they are perceptive and have been having a great time.  Make it a point to introduce yourself to one after the trip and I'm sure they will each share a story that will make you feel proud.

And let us not forget that our experience on the "front line" could not have been possible without the support of St. Peter's back at home.  I would like to thank all who organized and participated in fundraising activities - your generous support was instrumental in financing the activities for the week.  In response to your support, we will be bringing back lots of stories and newly found energy (as well as some dirty laundry) to be shared with all of St. Peter's.  It is my hope that the community building experienced this week will continue throughout the remainder of the summer and into the fall as we anticipate the dedication of our new parish building.

Jason Johnson receives a little help in making his first sheetrock cut-out. It fit perfectly.

Here are three more blogs written late Thursday which reflect our week of work together:

From Rachel Field:

The day started as usual, way too early. Reverend Jill woke us up with a smiling face at 7:45 amidst many groans of displeasure. When we arrived at the worksite we determined that it would be a three-twinkie day because we had to make significant progress on the siding and try to finish dry walling the upstairs. We worked all morning and almost finished the dry wall in one of the upstairs bedrooms. Ken and Rachel worked the power drills to hold the drywall onto the sides of the house, while Bryan, Rip, Jill, Carrie, Jay, and Devon labored on the measurements and the fitting of the pieces to be screwed onto the wall. At lunch time we practiced Eucharist in front of the house. We started by telling some of our experiences to the group and commenting on the positives and negative (there were very few negative) aspects of the work trip. Then after Eucharist we rested beneath a tree and ate lunch. It was wonderful to watch the friendships that formed over the week and people who had never talked to each other were sitting on the same ground, eating together and joking. Through the work of the week is group has grown very close it was a bittersweet moment when we finished dry walling the last room of the upstairs. Over the week of work we took a house that was only a series of wooden planks and put together new walls for the inside and out. The siding crew; Elizabeth, John, John, Father John, Jill, Grant, and Melissa finished the back the house, one and a half sides of the house and a quarter of the front of the house. The downstairs drywall crew: Roger, Andrew, Suzanne, made significant progress on the master bedroom. And the upstairs drywall/plaster crew: Tom, Rip, Carrie, Jay, Rachel, Bryan, Jill, Ken, and Devon finished two bedrooms and a sitting room. The efforts of the group threw the progress of the house foreword and the family moving in were so nice to us that they came over for a cookout to celebrate with us. So the day was very productive and we only had one or two setbacks. The second bedroom was very difficult to dry wall, and the siding went crooked in one spot. After lots of teamwork we fixed most of the problems and the house is well on its way to being finished in time for its deadline in a month.

From Jay Geyer:

Today was another bright and pleasant morning. We woke up at 8, having gone to bed only three hours earlier. We got to Jill's room for breakfast and were scolded for our bundles of pranks played on the adults during the night.

When we arrived at the worksite I thought about it being last day of work and how much hard work and sweat we put into the beautiful house and how far we had progressed. We started out doing our siding and dry walling, which took us the whole day again. We finished a lot of the siding with a few minor problems and a few frustrating mornings. Inside we got three bedrooms done and we finished putting on the first coat of mud. Ken sweated off another five gallons again and dripped on everyone.

We headed home at three thirty (we worked a half an hour overtime to in order to completely finish the upstairs) after a long day's work and we were out. Jay, Bryan, Rev. Jon, Rip, Devon, Grant, and Melissa all went out and played a home run derby. Bryan threw a bat through the window (accidentally) after the bat slipped out of his grip while swinging at a wonderful knuckleball from Jay. Tonight Shawntrell and her family will join us for a cookout which should be a lot of fun!

From Carrie Vaisman:

The last work day started slowly, but as we were energized from the awesome waffles we were looking forward to making a great effort on the house. When we arrived at the work site, Carrie met up with Tom and Hugh to work on mudding the finished rooms, while Bryan, Ken, Devon, Rachel, and Rip grudgingly went to work on the second bedroom which had been causing them many problems the day before. Their efforts were not in vain, after much sweat and frustration, the drywall was finished for the third room, leaving the nails holes to be covered by master mudders Rev. Jill and Carrie. The outside crew consisting of Elizabeth, Jay, Melissa, Grant, John Sr., John Jr., and Rev. John, did an amazing job with the siding, with few acute mishaps. At the end of the day, everyone was tired and sore, but greatly satisfied with the work we accomplished: siding on all sides of the house, insulation and drywall on the second floor, and three complete dry walled and mudded rooms on the second floor. To end our great day, we're having dinner with Shawntrell and her family - and of course, there will be more pranks tonight, because we all know sleep is overrated, but we do have an eight hour car drive to look forward to on Saturday, which will provide plenty of time for the youth to catch a few hours of much needed sleep after an demanding yet successful week in Buffalo.

A partial group shot. The others had probably collapsed from heat stroke

The complete 2005 St. Peter's Habitat team

Friday, July 1 (Canada Day):
After four full days of steady reconstruction on 28 Millicent, and to comply with Habitat-Buffalo's wishes, the St. Peter's team took the day off today and traveled to Niagara Falls State Park and across to Canada. Included are a few pictures to convey our splendid day relaxing together:

The group got to sleep in a bit later as we did not have to work that day. Instead of working we took the half an hour trip to Niagara Falls and parked on the New York side. Before we left however we had to say goodbye to our new friends John Sr. and John Jr. as they were going to start making the trek to Maine. When we arrived in Niagara Falls the adults took the job of getting us in order as they bought us "passports" that contained tickets for each of the attractions.

After we were settled the adults and kids split up as we always do. I cannot speak for the adults, but it was a really fun day. Of course I was with the kids and we first went on an overlook to check out the falls when we saw a sign for Cave of the Winds. Cave of the Winds happened to be in our "passport." We took a walk down the steep hills to the entrance where we got special sandals, bags, and ponchos. There was then an elevator that took us down 175 feet to the entrance and got off the elevator and went onto the patio. Bascially on Cave of the Winds there are three decks and pathways to each. However there is one special one. The tallest deck is right under the falls and you can actually stand under them get absolutely drenched. That part of the falls counts for 1%. But let me assure you that it is a pretty heavy 1%, as I stood under it.

By the time that we were done at Cave of the Winds we figured out that we were hungry and we all decided on Hard Rock Cafe (on the American side). The group walked over their and we looked around for a bit because it is always fun to see who has been to that one. We actually sat at the same table as the Goo Goo Dolls whenever they come.

After Hard Rock we had the brilliant idea of walking to Canada across the Rainbow Bridge. That was really cool because we could be standing in Canada and the United States at the same time. We also had an excellent view of the falls from the middle of the bridge. There was not much to do in Canada. We did a lot of walking and decided to walk back to the United States. By the way, if you ever want to do that it costs fifty cents to get back to the United States.

We got back at our meeting spot and split up again. Some of us went home and some of us stayed at the falls to see more. I was one of the ones who went back to the college where we showered and then went to dinner and to the movies to see "War of the Worlds". By the time that was over it was around 12 o'clock so we headed back to the dorms where the kids did not sleep at all because we were leaving at 4:00 am.

Grant Dovey

Saturday morning, 7:45 a.m., July 2:
After a wonderful day of relaxation at and around Niagara Falls yesterday, the Habitat week draws to a close. We're heading home! The kids, in a van driven by Ken Fleisher, actually departed at 4 a.m. The rest of us will depart within the hour. Please pray for traveling safety, and that we may be able to share Christ's love with others . . . . in unexpected ways. Hope to see all in church tomorrow. Thanks be to God!

The kids had some major cleaning they had to do before they could leave. That ended up getting done with a lot of time to spare. After the cleaning we did a lot of sitting around watching movies.

At 4:00 am, Jay and I started throwing everything into the van and then Ken and I did an "inspection" of the rooms. Of course after the departure we do not really remember much because we all slept until we dropped Jay and Devon Geyer off at the rest stop with their parents. We then arrived back at St. Peter's around 11:15 am listening to Sir-Mix-A Lot in the van.

Grant Dovey

Sunday, July 3:
The Habitat mission trip is over, but the blog site lives. Over the next week or two many additional photos will be posted within this site, as well as reflection pieces about the trip and its impact. The first of these is today's sermon by Fr. John, with a special contribution by team member ( and cook extraordinaire ) Suzanne Casey. If you would care to make an addition, send it to the Webmaster.

FEEDBACK:

July 2, 2005
This past week with all of you at Habitat Buffalo has been one of the most rewarding that I have had in the fifteen years I have been volunteering for the project. This group is certainly the most memorable for me. I had a great time, and really enjoyed working with the youth on the siding of the house. They are a great bunch of kids! It was also the first and only mission group which has celebrated the Eucharist while on site. That was a very rewarding in itself.

Jill is a great leader, and the young people clearly love her. She is a great asset to your church.

Give my love to all of the group. They are a great group of people!

  Dave Kurtz

July 7, 2005
This trip was probably one of the best I have ever been on. I made a lot of new friends at the worksite. It was also great getting to know Shawntrell and her wonderful family. My favorite part was probably when we were all together on Thursday night. Shawntrell's family and our work group just having fun playing football and cooking on the grills.

  Grant Dovey

July 13, 2005
To all,

My father and I cannot thank you enough for the honor of your company and the privilege of sharing your mission; it was truly a memorable and rewarding experience.  Each day, we go back over the photographs of the group engaging in the various activities of the day, and thoroughly enjoy the flood of memories which the pictures bring back. 

Thank you all again for the opportunity, and hopefully we can do it again.

With our warmest regards,
  John (the elder) and John (the younger) Attanas