Thanks to all two of you who have probably checked back here since my initial three posts. I got all psyched up about this blogging thing and then didn't do it for a lot of days. I'm not sure what the proper protocol is on how often to blog. There probably isn't one. Anyhow, over the past few days I was pondering what the next story is that I'd like to share. Without further adue delay (because I don't know if the previous word even exists), here it is.
I enjoy going on mission/service trips with my church and have been doing it since I was 16 years old (until recently when children entered my life!). I've been to South Carolina with Habitat for Humanity and more recently, Mississippi to help with Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts. About 4 years ago I traveled with a group of people to help rebuild a church in Mississippi and had a wonderful time with many great memories.
On the last day of work (which happened to be my birthday, March 17) I thought it would be neat if I could learn how to drive a backhoe. So, with the help of Doug Frombaugh I drove this backhoe back and forth around the worksite doing various tasks. At one point I decided to take a shortcut under the front porch of the church (instead of going an extra 2 minutes around and through the driveway). It definitely looked like I had plenty of room to maneuver this large piece of machinery - which I had never driven before in my life - under the porch and out the other side.
I'm sure you know where this is going but I may as well finish. As I was driving up the driveway (under the watchful eye of men on the trip - Steve Lehman Sr. and Rich Love) and up to the porch I see an alarmed Justin Poe reaching out in slow motion "STOP!" At that point it was too late and there was a very loud crash. Then I stopped. One of the more experienced drivers came out and said "OK, now just lower the bucket and back down." Riiiiiiight. Apparently that piece of information was going to be included in Lesson 2 of Learning to Drive a Backhoe.
So...I got off of the machine, bawled like a baby, and let someone else get it out of the mess. The interesting thing about this whole situation is that one of the men was going to remind me to lower the bucket when I went around to the front of the church but "figured that I knew what I was doing." And the two other men who were watching me drive around the front were having a discussion about whether or not they thought I would make it under the porch.
This is a picture of the dog that roamed around the church as we worked. The picture below is a piece of wood that we were using to replace the ceiling of the church. We ended up cutting this down to size and giving it as a gift to the pastor of the church.
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