This year's team is again a multi-church group:

• From Otterbein
• Jack McMillen
• Flek Stoehr
• Greg and Vicky Miller
• From Beach City
• Myron and Brenda Allen
• Larry and Carolyn Ricer
• Ray and Ila Troyer

Keep tuned for details and pictures of our adventure. Thanks to everyone for your support! This is a real team effort.

After the service, we packed up Myron and Brenda and they headed north. Jack and Flek left at 6 this morning. Larry, Carolyn, Ray, and Ila all pulled out a few minutes ago. It's getting very quiet around here! We'll be pulling out in a half hour or so.

Thanks again, everyone, for sharing this adventure with us. Thanks for your prayer and monetary support. We've seen Jesus this week in so many faces and places. 

Later this evening we're having our closing service. We've already been talking about the trip home tomorrow - starting to pack up and make exit plans. We're all kinda anxious to get back home, but its a bittersweet feeling. We've had a great time this whole week working together and getting to know each other better. The folks that run the camp are wonderful, passionate people. The other work campers are just like us - from Indiana, Delaware, Tennessee (LOTS from Tennessee) and Ohio. Leaving Red Bird is like going home after a week at summer camp.

John (far right) is our crew leader and a Cummins retiree. So we started the day with a little diesel lesson. Did you know that the turbo in the 2003 Dodge Cummins starts to melt when the EGT reaches 1375 degrees? And did you know that when Cummins first designed the engine thats in Greg's truck and Jack's truck (the "6B"), they projected yearly sales of about 5000 units? Millions of Dodge trucks later...

OK - sorry to bore you.

Jack (top) and Flek (bottom) climb atop one of the Red Bird dorms to patch a leak with some tar.

Myron (hidden), Flek, and Ray installing the end cap on the house we roofed yesterday.

Myron, Jack and Greg working on the end cap on the OTHER end of the house. We had to use the screws with the heads on the opposite end for this side (an inside yoke).

Jack and Myron adjusting the roof vent. The roof was still wet from intermittent rain this morning, so the only way to cross the roof was on the ridge. Brenda couldn't watch. Note to Jan: both came down safely.

Now we're on the topside of the Cardinal House, where Flek, Larry, and Ray rebuild a couple shutters. 

Ray and Larry hinging the new shutter. You can see here the condition of the old ones on either side of the new one. They are in pretty bad shape.

 

In the center is Dennis, our Work Camp Director. He seemed to be everywhere during the week, always ready with a joke, smile, and encouragement.

This is inside the worship room at the Cardinal House. 

Now to our afternoon cleaning assignment. Apparently the folks left in a big hurry, leaving food on the table (now rancid and full of gnats), and dishes in the sink. Our job was to get the one-bedroom apartment cleaned up enough so that another team could come in next week and paint.

Ila and Vicky cleaning up the place. Jack and I bagged and boxed personal belongings for storage and cleaned up the trash.

Later tonight we get another fire department ice cream cone, then gather back upstairs for the work camp talent (?!) show.

Since we were working in the camp, transportation was a bit more relaxed.

We're putting new steel roofing on this duplex on the Red Bird Queendale campus. Part of the front of the house already started. Here's Myron and Greg putting down the first couple sheets while Ray poses for the camera.

Pulling the next sheet up. We had some extra help on this project from some folks from Fairfield Glade, TN.

All done! Looks great!

I heard from one of the regular volunteer team leads that tonight's talent show was one of the best he's seen in a long time. We have to agree.

Carolyn "defuzzes" a sweater. She became quite an expert at defuzzing this week.

Separating pricing labels.

Gotta for lunch in the rain. Notice the exquisite homemade rainbonnet.

Clipping all those labels we send in. We don't know these folks, but I'm sure they are having fun, too.

This hangs in the lunchroom. Pretty much sums up the Work Camp process.

Did you know that Daniel Boone's most famous contribution was his finding and mapping a way to get through the Appalachain mountains, opening the way for 300,000 people to settle the west (Ohio included)? The Cumberland Gap National Park exists to celebrate this monumental accomplishment.

 

Today Flek, Jack, Vicky, and Greg visited the park to learn what we can about the Cumberland Gap. After watching a couple videos, we enjoyed the museum and Appalacian craft store. Then we toured the Hensley Settlement.

 

Turns out that these two guys - Hensley and Gibbons - lived a dream where they took their families to a bald knob near the Cumberland Gap in 1903 to live totally off the grid. They built homes, raised crops and livestock, and only came down off the mountain to go to the city on "trading day". At their peak, there were over 100 people on top of the mountain. There was a K-8 school on the farm with 39 children. Slowly the family died off and moved off the mountain, with Mr. Hensley finally leaving in 1951. Very interesting story. Here's what we saw.

 

 

We just got out of an E-ticket 4x4 van ride straight up the side of the mountain to the Hensley Settlement. (Flek took the picture.)

 

 

Monday started out rainy and the skies turned beautiful blue by the time we got to our worksite. On Tuesday, the opposite happened. Carolyn worked in the community store today (we'll get her pictures posted later.) Larry, Ray, Ila, Myron, Brenda, Flek, and Vicky went back to Russel's house to install the linoleum. Jack and Greg went back to Jackson's to replace his camper toilet with a real flusher. We all got done with our jobs early and made it back to the camp by about 3:00. Some of us then went into town (a two-hour round trip!) for some various supplies. After supper, we had ice cream at the Fire Department. Tonight's program include Craig Dial (Red Bird's Director of Economic Development) on dulcimer, and George Cherry with a presentation of the multiple mission efforts at Red Bird.

 

Vicky found a longer broom! Here she's making her final rounds before the linoleum glue goes down.

 

 

 

Ray and Flek get about as much glue on themselves as they get on the floor. I hope they aren't gluing themselves into a corner!

 

 

Myron and Larry are ready to push the first half into place.

 

After supper, we visited the craft store where we all bought new T-shirts.

There are 140-some people here this week. Last year there was closer to 100, so the place is really full. Got to spend some time with our crew leader "John". He's from Denver, and spends every October here camping with his wife and is a Cummins retiree who knows lots and lots about the B series engines. God is soooo good!

 

Here's the team!

 

We're transfering all the clothes you sent into Jack's trailer. Then we took everything down to the Community Store warehouse - WE FILLED FOUR PALLETS with all the clothing you donated.

 

We're standing by the row of painted stones, memories left behind by past work campers. This year we'll place two stones ourselves.

 

 

One for last year's trip...

 

 

...and one for this year. Note the Buckeye shape!

  

Our neighbors. At least THEY won't make much noise and keep us up late at night! That's Ray and Ila's camper on the other side of the bury patch.

 

1) Upgrade the plumbing in one home. Sounds like that involves a new water header and maybe a new toilet.

2) Rebuild a bedroom floor in another. Don't know any more details than that yet.