Flood Update: Part 14

~Tuesday (February 22)~

Nothing new today, except that Mr. A emailed and said he may have to divide his time tomorrow between a new job that he got called for. Hopefully he’ll still be able to finish the work that needs to be done here!

~Wednesday (February 23)~

Around 9:30 a.m., Mr. A arrives to start work. He goes down to the basement to begin prepping things for painting. Mr. L arrives a few minutes later. They move everything in the basement so they can access all the walls. Then they start painting. Mr. L said to us, “I overheard you mention someone named the R’s. Do you know B and D?” We said yes, they’re some of our very best friends! And they take worship dance lessons with us and they brought over the delicious dinner last week. Apparently, he has friends that know them well, but fell out of contact when they moved. What a small world!



Our basement being prepped for painting.



At 1:00 p.m., Mr. L comes upstairs to borrow the microwave to warm up his lunch. Later we thought we should have asked him, “Would you like us to put in another movie for you?” (See previous entry about him and the Princess movie.) J

We leave for piano lessons. Mr. A comes upstairs to work on fixing the floor while we’re gone (it needed re-doing in some patchy/dull spots.) Mr. L continues painting in the basement. The cats are so mad that they have to be closed in the “cat room” (the unfinished part of our basement.) L I feel bad for them!

We arrive home from piano lessons around 4:30 p.m. to yet another unexpected surprise…the floors look even worse than they did before. Grrr. I’m trying to be patient, but I really just want the floors to be fixed for real! We will have to call Mr. A tomorrow and tell him what happened.

I go down to check on the cats and chat with Mr. L for awhile. I mentioned that I never noticed how bad the walls had looked, until we painted a few walls and moved all of the furniture. He said that was probably a good analogy of how our view of “good” doesn’t match God’s standard of holiness. I never really thought of it that way, but he’s right! We may think something looks fine, until we look at God’s standards. We may think we are “good people” but when we compare ourselves to God’s holy and perfect law, we fall grossly short. Mr. L seems like a very solid Christian and we’ve enjoyed having him work for us! I noticed that he had a devotional sitting with his lunch box and his pen had the name of a church on it.

I responded with the analogy of how such a small hole in our pipe caused such massive problems. It’s like sin that goes unchecked in our lives. It starts small, but over time, it grows and grows until it’s out of control. We need to ask the Lord to reveal to us areas of our lives where we may be sinning, and ask for His help to conquer those sins before they destroy us and others.

We also talk about our friends the R’s. He asked how we met them, and I explained a bit and gave him an update on the family. I still can’t get over the fact that he knows of them! God works in so many ways! I also shared our story about Miss L at the hotel and how the Lord worked it out so we would meet her and swap stories. What a mighty God we serve! He loves to work out “divine appointments” with certain people at certain times to bring us encouragement.

Mr. L packs up to leave around 5:30 p.m. This will probably be the last time we see him. We will miss him! He has worked very hard for us, and is very honest. Dad catches him as he pulls in from work and they talk for about 45 minutes! Daddy finally makes it in the house and we enjoy our dinner and the rest of the evening together.



The basement walls after they were finished being painted.



Daddy talks on the phone with our friend Mr. S after dinner for quite awhile to get his opinion on what happened. (Mr. S is a strong Christian, who built our neighbor’s home and is a very meticulous builder.) Mr. S doesn’t think that the polyurethane was damaged by being stored in the garage. I’m not sure what else he said, but they talked for quite some time! Daddy also talks with Mr. M (a friend from church), since he has done a lot of wood working. He may try to come out here in the next few days to take a look and give us his advice.

Mrs. R calls and chats with Mom quite a bit. Apparently she does know Mr. L’s friends! She knows them through their church somehow. She is looking forward to getting the CD’s Mr. L left for us to give her.

. . . To be continued. . .