Wednesday, March 18, 2009

God is Good! (and His people are pretty awesome too!)

At this moment my husband and his best friend are up on our roof working their tails off. A friend who will come up from Mobile and spend several days roofing your house is a good friend indeed!

Some of you know that our roof has been leaking horrendously... it rains in our house. Some of you also know we have been in financial difficulty, which means there has been no money to fix the roof. Well, let me just say that God has done everything except the actual sweat of the physical labor for us, and I am going to say He gets credit for that too.

For 6 months we have been collecting shingles from every source possible. A friend even advertised on Craig's List for us. Another friend with lots of connections collected up a large truck load for us. No, they don't match. We will have a patchwork bit of art up there. Another friend, a contractor, wanted to supply the felt and the nails. That just left structural replacement which we wouldn't be sure of until we got into the roof, and our pastor informed us of some very vague source of money to help with that.

Now it is spring break, unpaid vacation for my husband, so the time is here for the work. Yesterday they stripped off the shingles and found a depressing sight. The shingles were thin and old, the felt underneath was in tatters (and had been put on the wrong way), and the decking was 1 in thick rough cut oak scrap. With nails sticking up into the shingles. And rotten places. All the decking needed to be replaced, not just patched.

A quick call to Lowes gave me heart failure... nearly $700 for the decking. But I remembered our contractor friend who wanted to help, so a call to him and he got the decking for us at his cost, saving us HALF the money! And he put it on his account so it doesn't need to be paid until next month!

They have now repaired the rotten places and are driving in the nails that are protruding. The decking was delivered and they will put that on top of the old decking, making a lovely flat surface for the felt and the shingles. By the end of the week we should have 1/2 of an excellant roof.

Several months ago I could see no way to get a new roof. It was physically impossible. But God had a plan, and He had people in place to pull it together for us. And I know the other half of the roof will come together soon.

Thanks God, for Your provision and Your people!

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