On February 20th,  Jesse, Dad and I went with an MDS group to Jamestown, Colorado to work on rebuilding homes. Jamestown was a mining town way back when, so it is situated by a small mountain creek.

Back in September of 2013 James Creek turned into a raging torrent that flooded the town, requiring evacuation for everyone. So, now in 2016, MDS is finishing up their work in the town, and we went to help. MDS is working on 2 houses, 1 nearing completion, and another, just recently started. Here is some before and after pictures of the house we were mainly working on.

I don’t have pictures of the concrete being poured into the wall forms on Monday or preparing everything for the trusses on Tuesday but this is what it looked like Wednesday at 1:00 p.m.

 

Wednesday at 5:00 p.m.

 

Friday afternoon! The first sheet of hardy board is up! We left work a little early on Friday to do some hiking, which I will post about later. This area was already shaded and cold. Up across the valley we hiked in the sun!

 

One of the ladies we were building for used to live in this house which was mostly carried away in the flood.

 

Another house in town that got the side washed out!

 

The group leader that brought us down from SK, slipped and fell on the icy streets as we were walking to the job site the morning after it snowed over 8 inches! He ended up having a problem with his back, so Dad went with him to Boulder hospital twice during the week.

Here are some pictures of us working.

Jesse helping to sheet the roof (he’s the one handing the sheet of OSB up in this picture).

Dad nailing hurricane clips to the rafters. Yes, I did work too, but was the one who took most of the pictures:) I worked on papering and strapping the house, insulating in the attic of the other house, clean up, etc.

 

The other house (they are side by side) is nearing completion. it was started in the beginning of January. Dad and Jesse spent a day and a half in the crawl space that was barely big enough to crawl in, spreading poly for radon barrier.

 

The truss truck was stuck! One of the tires on the far side isn’t even touching the ground. A track hoe fortunately was digging the sewer system, so we got it to come pull it out!

Coming up the hill.

A lot of the houses in town are up on the sides of the hills. Including the two we were working on. After it snowed, it was very icy, and the trucks were trying to get up the hills and would be slipping all over and getting stuck!

 

A house on a hill!

The scenery was just beautiful and we were thankful to God to have this great opportunity to serve here.