Clap Offerings for God...

Got this funny little phrase of "clap offerings" for God from one of my favorite bible study teachers--Beth Moore, who does it anytime God does something good and just deserves some outward praise for it.
So anyway, the clap offering is in the camera department...you were probably all wondering how in one post our camera broke, and in the next, we had pictures again...
God has seen fit to use our amazingly gracious friends to not only donate to start a camera fund for us, but also to have one friend send her "oldie, but goodie" camera up from California for use on the jobsite to keep us rolling with photographing our house-venture. We have also been borrowing my parents, until we were able to drum up one for ourselves.
So--clap offerings to God and thanks to our loved ones for being willing to be used by God, to help provide for us. You guys rock this Irwin house!

Do you remember when there was nothing but dirt?

Or when it was just a foundation?

Or when it had all its walls? Can you believe that is our house. Tomorrow October 24th the trusses come to give it that halfway done skeleton look!!! I am really into the skeleton look (Donner party for dinner). If you get that joke please leave a comment. :)

Ahoy there little Noah...that is right a new little baby has entered the world...he came by boat.

(Pictured here with his music instructor and first mate)

The boat arrived at 7:11 PM. Cargo weighed 7 pounds 8 ounces. Captain Scott Evans was pleased with the voyage, but his wife stated "the ride was less than enjoyable." (Push...push...push...don't forget to breathe!) Though she is now resting comfortably with her precious freight.

Well, well, well, the house is on it's way. I am proud to say that I did basically everything completely on my own. With the slight exception of the five UVC seniors that came to help along with the three
or four Job Corp boys that did all the heavy lifting, or the ten to fifteen neighbors that built everything (hammering...nailing...and stuff)...other than that I did everything myself.

Comments...

PLEASE LEAVE COMMENTS on our posts!!

Will and I just love reading the little notes posted to us

by our loved ones.

When you get to the end of each of our posts,

you can click on the comments section

and leave us a word from the wise, love or humor.

We love hearing who is keeping up on our progress

and praying for us.

Thanks for your support!! -W & K

a few of the last pics...

Good and sad news today...the 2nd of our two digital cameras died. So we are without a camera to follow the rest of our home-building project until God sees fit to provide.
So the good news (interesting timing for the camera to die)...is that we actually started doing framing work of the exterior walls of our OWN home today!! Eli actually put me as the lead of the team working on it. Can you all believe it? I can't, from incompetent, clueless, just give me simple directions and I'll follow them, to the lead of the project. After I left Will said a volunteer that was working with my team even said I really knew what I was doing. I even used the nail gun the whole day! So it was a success of a day on the worksite and here are some faded-out pics (we think the lens is dying or something of the sort) to prove it...

Eli giving the team instructions for the day...

Me having my 2-hour (felt like it) course on how to properly angle the nail gun to make your "nail count". We don't want to waste a single one...

Me having to hand over the nail gun for another lesson...


Me getting a pep talk from Pa (Paul Glazner, who was told he could be my father from the way we looked alike)... He and Will pumped out some serious trusses today and 3 of the houses are fully trussed and 2 of them are ready for roofers to come take over. Yeah! Projected finish date from Umpqua CDC, MARCH 2007. Yikes, we'll see about that and just pray for God's perfect timing on it all.
P.S. Please pray for one of our families in the group, the project has taken a toll on their marriage and the husband is leaving the wife and their daughter, to do life and house-building on her own now. So sad. Don't we just all need Jesus so desperately? So, I'll be just filling you all in with written updates now since the camera is out of commission. Pray for God to provide there too, it's just one of our wants to help capture the moments of life, not needs, but we know God cares about every detail and wants us to bring them all to Him. Much Aloha, W & K 

Me & Katie Benton...

Just doing a little subflooring work on our next door neighbor's home on Saturday...

 

How's the house coming along?

The question of day these days! So here is the beauty in all her glory. Our new home...

The current status is that the subflooring is done, which Will and I got to do a bundle of. And the next step is the layout for the walls we will begin to start framing this week! There are 4 other houses that have the trusses all up and we are trying to get the sheeting on them so the roofers can come do their work so we will have at least 4 houses closed in before the lovely Oregon rain sets in. Then we can do interior work on these homes until the sun and light come back out to do the exterior work on the others. So here's the latest update pics...
My dad and I actually got to do this primary layout work together on this wall. What a special bonding time these work days are for he and I.
 

Check out my monkey man!!

Isn't he handsome and so courageous crawling around on those trusses like a monkey?
He loves it up there! I kind of think he's a wee bit crazy at times.
These shots were a couple of days before my feet lost the ladder underneath them as I was working on the trusses and I ended up dangling off of one of them
until someone could reposition my ladder for me.
Thankfully my strong man had secured the trusses well this night
or I (or a leg) could have been a goner.

 

We've decided-Volunteers Rock!!

We've been receiving SO much volunteer help and are so blessed by it each week. We couldn't be making our 35 hrs/week without the 10 per week that volunteers have been donating to us. It's actually a really cool witness to our neighbors too, as most of them have not a single volunteer. We've been able to share any volunteer overage hours with families that have had no help and have just been dying without extra assistance from friends/family, since we can only use 10 hrs/week. Paul & Jan Glazner came out last Saturday with Rick, their friend, and we wer able to give some of theirs to a couple of different families. What a witness to have your pastor come out and serve others. We're praying God uses these gracious and giving friends of ours and our witness of having so many loving friends to draw many of these families to himself. There are many families that keep asking why we have so many friends to help us (the list is up to about 20 volunteers). What an opportunity to witness about God's love and how it's shared throughout the body of Christ. Thanks everyone for helping us in our witness for Christ and giving so abundantly to us!!