Two weeks in Hobbs, NM

This has been home for the past couple weeks. Our little camper along with five other larger rigs parked in a big empty lot near a dead pecan orchard. We are Care-a-Vanners - a subset of Habitat for Humanity. This was our fourth build experience with CAVs. We met some new folks and got reacquainted with others whom we have worked with at other builds.

 We had some crazy weather. Over two inches of rain in one day and less than a week later many hours below freezing and even a few snow flakes. 

The work was the usual variety. We had all kinds of projects - painting, mudding drywall, tiling floors, framing, finish carpentry, etc. I spent most of my time building closet "innards". Here are a couple of my accomplishments. 

 Today I helped hang some doors and install baseboards. 

 Dan spent most of his time next door and saw lots of progress - 

Last Saturday above - one week later below: 

 I helped on the framing just a bit. In the picture above I am using a Ramset, it is a kind of gun that I hit with a hammer to drive a nail into the concrete slab below the framing. Every strike and bang of gunfire set the neighborhood dogs to barking. You may notice I am quite bundled the temps that day while we worked ranged from 21 at the beginning of the day to a high of 30 when we quit in the afternoon. 

 Here is the ice on the water faucet at the campsite. We had it running to prevent broken pipes. These were the coldest nights we have ever spent in the camper. 

There are times when my muscles ache and I am tired and cold I wonder why I am doing what I am doing... Today I was privileged to share a moment with this woman and to remind myself  of the answer. 

 This is Victoria and two of her children. She is standing in here future front doorway. As I showed above there was a lot of progress made on her house this week. When she saw her new home for the first time this morning she "welled up" with joyous tears. I lack the words to describe it, but that was what I call a "kingdom moment". And that is why we do what we do. 

CAV Crew with future homeowner, Anita. It was Anita's closets and pantry I was building shelves in. Anita is in front in blue; if the CAVs keep on schedule she will be in her home by Christmas. 

For most of our travels it is just the two of us so it was lots of fun to spend time with these new friends. When weather permitted we had afternoon "happy hours". Several evenings we went out to eat.

Here are Dan & Scotty holding the table for the rest of us at Dickey's Barbecue for our final evening together. 

Our work days begin with a devotion and prayer circle which concludes with all of us together saying - "Habitat is not a hand out, but a hand up!"

Good times with good friends make good memories. 

Happy trails to all.