Construction & work progress

Hello everyone!

To start things off it is important to give you a realistic view of construction here in Wallkill.

Yes, it is chock full of concentrated effort and sweat and stinky work-boots and  focused skill and  safety overseers making sure your hard hat and safety glasses are on and friends in high visibility vests and shirts walking among rackety equipment just outside all the open windows.

But let's not forget the warm camraderie that develops between crews standing in the lines for cafeteria style lunches served at 12 and 12:30. That looks like this:

Or the fun of getting your whole crew together at a lunch table or meeting new people when you sit solo in construction dining (which looks like a sea of high visibility shirts!).

 

There are occasional requests to attend a class to perform your work safely. Like our Ergonomics class last Tues taught by a Bethelite physical therapist.



And reminder boards to discuss at the 8am safety huddle.

 There are opportunities to develop Bible principles and show respect for other person's PERSONAL belongings.

Out of the blue a window of time may open up for a break with your team....  And that happens with whatever crew you may be on!  {Tile on the top and laminate crew on the bottom}  Coffee breaks are taken quite seriously here and most crews have a  "coffee cart" to roll where ever the crew goes.

 

 

THEN you spot an old friend, one that has moved from Maryland to North Carolina and now shows up for two weeks in electrical at Wallkill!  (anybody in Williamsburg remember Angie?)

 

 

 

 

 All the while you are working on and it progressess all around you... 

Here is the E Res personal laundry area with a drain in the center. After you can see Elvis working with the tile guys to spread self-leveling cement to make tiling easier.

 Followed by an industrial coating to minimize movement and joint cracking

Tile begins and before you know it ...

The room is fully tiled and grouted and electrical, plumbing and ceilings are right behind you.

 

 

Elsewhere in the basement the new location for the commisary is in progress.  A ribbon design was a part of the floor decoration and WOW did it catch everybody's attention!

 

So it's really a joy to be a part of construction here. So many willing hands makes it easier for the publishing and advancement of kingdom interests to grow. And that's productive work!

Things Have Changed

Before we go into the unsettling talk of change, lets talk about tile work! :)

 This past week was a blur of tile!  And here are some photos to show off Jeremy's work:



 He found another locker room in the basement of E Residence to tile! (I was on grouting duty on the 3rd floor)  So Jeremy and some of the crew knocked out the laundry department's mens and womens locker/shower rooms.  These showers were super tall. About 8 feet high.

 As most of you know, we returned to work immediately after our flight from Knoxville. This was Monday after lunch. That is when we learned Jeremy had overtime along with the tile guys all week. So after lunch, they returned to work until 7pm. Tile overseer, Chad, ordered up a baggie dinner for the guys to be delivered  so they could eat while working. We wives wanted to be supportive so we supplemented dinners with Mt. Dew, Little Debbie snack cakes and Goldfish (pizza flavor). There was also a mandatory Saturday workday too. Happily Jeremy didn't have to work on our Thurs meeting night.  

As you would expect, Jeremy was a tired little fellow Saturday night.  But we pushed for a good service morning before our Sunday 1pm meeting and were rewarded by finding all our return visits home and spotting these (we didn't personally spot up the fawns, they showed up that way):

This is a bit gross, but how strange we happened to see it! In case you want to know, the frog made a herculean effort and escaped the snake and the snake was finished off.





So that was LAST week.  This week I was told to report to our overseer's overseer, Saul.  He told me (along with the other two sisters on the tile crew) we have been permanently reassigned to another crew!  Oversight feels tile work will be winding down in the next two months and the crew we have been transferred over to has a little time to train us before their next deadline.  So Monday morning we met with our new overseer, Dan and began training.  Training for what?!  Installing laminate wood flooring.

So, I gave up my tile tools and have a much simpler tool bag.  It's sad not to work with Jeremy anymore but nice to learn a new trade. 

 

 So here is my first day installing laminate.  All the residence rooms have either carpet or laminate or both and the crew is really small so they seem happy to have help.  Even inexperienced help like us.  But it is easy to learn and certainly cleaner and NO MESSY BUCKETS TO WASH OUT! 

 Now I'm not sure if the overseers thought this one through because I am using table saws and miter saws and pneumatic air guns.... and someone is probably gonna get hurt somewhere down the line.....

But this is something new and exciting and likely the tile clan will be splintering off as the tile work for the E Res finishes off.  It will pick up again when other projects are getting off the ground but that could be several weeks.  Apparently it is common for crews to swap out to support other crews at times.  So it's possible Jeremy will be farmed out somewhere too. 

Time will tell.   :)    And the blog will too!

Good Times with Fresh & Familiar Faces

Last week was our circuit overseers visit in Milford, hence lots of extra activities in the congregation and no time for blogging.  Technically speaking he is a sub CO and he and his wife are commuter Bethelites too!  We thoroughly enjoyed the talks and were happy to be included in the pio meeting too.

We are very happy to report (about that visit) that for a congregation of about 120 publishers, 84 joined in for the ministry that Saturday morning!  Three were'nt there for the meeting because they had flat tires, but once it wasn't flat they were with the group!  HOW ENCOURAGING IS THAT?!

Following the ministry that Saturday morning we joined quite a few of the congregation and Bethelites for a stroll about the town of Milford.  The Milford Music Festival was that weekend and all sorts of bands were on the sidewalks and near restaurants playing their little hearts out.  We did find it tragic on one street that a mellow, acoustic, bluegrass band was playing directly across the street from a classic rock band featuring Greatful Dead songs. (sigh) This is the mellow band.

   We found the youth in our group were not all about the music. This is the entertainment they preferred once we landed in a park.  This certainly destroys the concept that Bethelites are all business. By the way,  no one threw up. Yay. 

And  all you pet lovers out there you will surely appreciate this!  More than one communal water dish was out for the general need along the streets of Milford.  What a nice town. :)

 We actually stayed the weekend in Milford thanks to this hospitable couple: Richard and Kristine.  Here is Jeremy making friends with their dogs Ferrari and Mercedes.












Following THAT eventful week was the rush to fly down to Knoxville, TN for our Regional Convention!  Even though there were over 13,000 people there, how glad we got to see most of our Williamsburg friends!  It was especially encouraging to see the Decker family, Margie, Missy, Robert and Brooklyn attend their first convention!

Plus it was really

 wonderful having Barbara (Erin's mom) fly down for the program.  She is so glad she doesn't have to remind me to sit still during the program anymore!  I've finally grown out of that!  Apparently I was the worst when I got the chickenpox halfway through one convention. (she won't ever let me forget it either.) It is important to note the photo on the left is Barbara's first selfie. Before this shot she didn't know what that was. :)














So now we are back to work in Wallkill.  And Jeremy and I are doing NOTHING but working!  Believe us! :)

Well, maybe there is a moment or two for a quick laugh.  Two of the sisters (Roberta and Abby) are in tile and the other (Keri) is in carpentry. This was made for International delegates to "get involved" in the work scene here at Bethel.    And clearly Jeremy is up to the same foolishness.

 

More on some actual work next time!

Tile setting 101

Hello to all!  For several weeks we have worked on and off the tile in the residence rooms of E Res.  A lot of the tile floors in the rooms were set by short-term temp workers. 

These short-term temps are here for a week or two. But a few are available to work longer, like six to nine weeks.  In any case, they drop their secular work, wave goodbye to family (those who have families only stay two weeks), and work as hard as they can.  As we get to know them we are really built up by their faith.

Take Eusebio (standing in the dead center).  He went to prison in Cuba at the age of 16 for taking his stand on neutrality. Once his wife and four children came along, he was interrogated, thrown in prison and his family harassed as the work was banned. Witnesses were made to feel as if they were worthless citizens and they were essentially kicked out of the country.  Once in the US, Eusebio did everything to train his children to love Jehovah and happily all four are in full-time service of some kind.  He speaks VERY little English, yet he was aglow with enthusiasm to serve here at Bethel even with the challenges. He wanted to work with both hands every minute of his two weeks here!  Grinning all the time.  He learned some of those who were also imprisoned in Cuba as youths were serving as temp volunteers at Warwick this week too!  His daughter, told me the reunion brought tears to her eyes.  The brothers kept saying to eachother:  "Can you believe we went from those prisons to now serving in Jehovah's house?"

 

Or Steve (in the white t-shirt in the center), he and his wife just recently returned from three weeks in Nicaragua and are learning Spanish as they live quite simply in a silver bullet style rv.   

 

 We could go on, but that would be a lot of stories for one blog post. :)  In any case, we are really privileged to meet and work with these faithful friends!  Five of the brothers in this shot are short term temps.

But I digress!  These temp brothers put down much of the floor tile and the longer temps (such as ourselves) are working on showers and tub surrounds.  So here is the way the showers happen:

 

 

A fiberglass board (similar to drywall) is roughed in on a cement floor. You can see the shower drain waiting for some action

 

Stewart is creating a shower curb and making a concrete sloping shower pan so that the drain is the lowest point.  He is also coating the walls with thin set (tile mud) and pressing on the orange Kerdi fabric.  Kerdi is basically a water proofing method.  The shower pan will also have a Kerdi layer.  You may notice the bright blue floor.  That is a coating that they paint on the floors to absorb motion so when the tile is set on top of it, it is less likely to crack under stress.

 Here is Kerdi finished shower and you can see the floor tile has been set too.

Next the ceiling of the shower is put in on a diagonal.  And then the  mosaic floor tile is put in.  Here Jeremy is starting the wall tile.

He is almost finished now!  Just a few more cuts for the walls and then he will tile the shower curb.  These showers are also given two simple shelves (also made from tiles).  Each shelf is handmade so each one is a slightly different size which can make fitting them properly... fun.

This shower is finished now and the carpentry crew has come behind us and put in the vanity already.  Now that the vanity is in, I can come behind and put in the right size pieces of tile baseboard along the walls and we are on to the next bathroom!

So this is the cycle we are currently a part of.  But there are other tile projects going on around the E Res too.  More on those later!

 

The Way Wallkill Bethel Welcomes...

Since the United States is a host country for several International Conventions through the summer, the three Bethel locations are receiving thousands of the delegates as they come to tour the facilities.  It is remarkable how many delegates schedule extra days in this foreign country just to see the US Branch.



Happily Bethelites who speak French, German, Japanese, Italian, Albanian and other languages all are assigned as the tour guides and walk the groups through explaining everything clearly. Then all delegates are provided hospitality for either  lunch  or dinner depending on what time they tour.  We all know who the delegates are because they are wearing their tell-a-tale badge cards.  French and Italian brother and sisters are on the left and right (respectively). 
Never did find out the country vistors below.

Bethelites were invited to join a singing chorus class just so they could be trained to sing for the delegates.  This has involved three practices a week for the last six weeks for those accepted.  They perform after the meals when delegates are here and everyone gathers to listen.  The conductor is a professional who is also a Bethelite.  Today I took video of all five songs hopefully I will soon be able to post at least  two. (today it's not working for me)

 

 

Bethel has welcome / hospitality / interactive displays all over!  Here are only a few of them:

 

Electrical invites visitors to put a push pin on the map of wherever they are from. Or peek thru the windows!

 

The Service Department is actually a little store full of supplies for most of the trades.  They carry all sorts of eye shields, nitrile and latex and leather gloves, vacuum bags, paint brushes, rollers, sandpaper, hair dye (for the beauty shop)...  They aren't really a "tour stop" location but they wanted to get in on the hospitality mood.

 

This is in the dining room.  Can you see all the different languages saying welcome along the outside perimeter of the sign?

Guess you can figure out this department.  Again, they aren't on the tour, but if a straggler came through- they could put on the high vis outfit to the left and pretend to paint - if that floats their boat.  {The interiors shop is actually the tile department's home base.  We are here for a meeting every Monday with the rest of the interior people- not really sure what crews that includes yet}

There is more all around the branch but I've not yet got it to share.  I'll post them when I do. 

Enjoy the historic convention spirit! Enjoy the conventions!

 

Work & Rest

Over the last few weeks we have been at work on several different tile projects. So for those of you who are extremely curious about what we actually labor at through the week, this is your update. :)

To start we worked with the whole tile crew one morning in the kitchen. No, we weren't peeling carrots or chopping cabbage, this was stage 4 or 5 of kitchen tile update.  We have one more kitchen job some time in the future, but the kitchen crew can't handle the tile crew tearing up their whole kitchen for any length of time ( it isn't like they can close for repair or remodel ).  The tile work has to be in doses that can be contained where kitchen crew can work around us.  So after walls and ceilings crew put up a temporary surround and the boys put down the tile for the soup station, Jeremy and I were a part of the grouting party. {a grouting party is the hyped up name for when everyone is needed to pull a big, time-sensitive job.  personally I don't call something  a party unless cake and balloons are somewhere in the mix. and there was none of that on this job}

 
   



However, it is something to behold when your crew can grout 600 plus square feet in approx 3 hours.

Especially considering the grout is an epoxy - the consistency of chewing gum - that must be mixed for exactly 2 minutes, spread into the tile joints for precisely twenty minutes then initially scrubbed and followed up with a heavy handed final wash requiring about 30 buckets of clean water and at least a dozen new sponges.

Whew! 

Jeremy was involved in initial scrub and I was a final washer. And as you might imagine we had QUITE a safety meeting on protecting our skin just before the "party".

 

 

  With a tile crew that can work like that you'd think we labor non-stop!  But this crew takes advantage of moments of down time, just like everybody else!  Technology anyone?

 

 

 

 

 We have also found ourselves spending lots of time this week in the basement of the E Res tiling the women's locker room. 

 



 
Earlier the crew put in the floor. Jeremy came in on the shower work and I came in when it was grouting time for the showers and the baseboards. Following that we are now into caulking everything that wasn't grouted.

 

 

So when Sunday came around this week we were happy to take a break from the inside.

After service and the meeting, two of our sisters in the congregation took us to some scenery at the Deleware Water Gap National Park (15 minutes outside of Milford, PA). 

 

Here is where we hiked to Dingmans Falls with a few other Bethelites.

 

So that puts us back around to a Monday. :)  See you next week!

 

Sliding into South

Our new congregation is the south congregation in Milford, PA.   The drive is very pretty from Bethel to Milford and that makes the hour it takes a little less lengthy.  Once on the highway, we climb a small moutain and enjoy the beautiful scenery of the valley that carries the Deleware River.  Our territory includes part of Pennsylvania and New Jersey which seems odd since we live in New York.  Here in service with Julie and Danny we stopped at a section of the Appalachian Trail (also in our territory). 

But the important thing to know about it all is that gas is approx 30 cents cheaper in NJ.  Plus  the state law is the gas attendant has to pump it - so getting gas to or from the congregation has some highlights.

 

 Sorry this map doesn't have the clarity to show the roads, but this is our congregation territory map and everything in the highlighted areas are neighborhoods that are closed communities. This means phone territory is a staple for the friends. Just like in Williamsburg, it can be 45 minutes or more from the hall to the boundary areas.  They also do public witnessing every Saturday at the post office.  Here our jazzy Bill and Jill Lane (long-time Bethelites) are manning the post.









Here is the Kingdom Hall. There is the North and South and American Sign Language Milford, PA congregations meeting here and  both English are good size groups of well over a hundred publishers. (Not sure on the ASL size)  There is a second school too! Jeremy has already given an impromptu #3 talk back there!

For quite a while the  congregations have been looking to build a new hall in a better location.  This one needs a lot of attention and they know it would be better to build new.

 

 

It is taking some serious effort to remember everybody's name!  Here is a picture of just SOME of our young people under the age of 18 in the hall.  Just about all of them participate in the meetings too.  We love that!

There are 15 or 17 Bethelites assigned to our hall so we have schedules made up for who carpools with who on our Thurs mid-week meeting at 7:30. So all the Bethelites who have a car either take a turn driving or contribute for gas and we all pile in at 6:15ish and get home around 11ish. It seems like an adventure each time!


Our Sunday meeting is at 1pm.  That allows us to meet for field service in the am and already we have a couple of return visits!


Lovingly some of the friends in the hall have taken us in and included us in a BBQ last Sunday.

(and of course we had to have a "toppings" picture when the ice cream came out)







  Today we enjoyed REAL New York style 26" cheese pizza!  It was soooo good we decided to try the sausage/mushroom pizza too.

{of course we had left-overs}

 

 

Another huge highlight of this week was seeing Becky, Jen and Phyllis and other friends on their bus tour of Bethel.  We only wish we had more time with them!  We love you guys!