The Metaphor-Free Blog Post

Nine times out of ten, I don’t know what a week’s blog topic will be until the Wednesday morning phone call. Sometimes I play a game with myself and try to guess. The frontrunners generally include:  pastors, motorcycles, coffee, backpacks, sponsorships, sister churches, family, bridge construction, visiting teams, or a visit to the U.S. This week, the frontrunners lost out to constructing a building. No, that’s not a spiritual metaphor. It’s about the new building that’s going up on the Sowers’ property, at this very moment.

Russell and four or five crew members are currently laying blocks for the new building, which will include an office, a bunkroom for male interns, a private bedroom for Ben, a locker room/break room for the farm guys, and a warehouse/storage facility. If this were a spiritual metaphor, I’d point out that they are laying on the firm foundation that the team from Lighthouse Church poured, during their recent visit. No building on the sand for these missionaries! If this were a fairy tale, I’d point out that they’re definitely more like the third little pig. No amount of huffing and puffing will blow it down. But, since this is just a story about building a new facility, let’s just get on with it!

According to Kelsea, approximately ¾ of the building is now about a block high (the photos in this post were taken about a week later than that conversation, so you can now assess the speed of the progress). Russell is hoping to have the project completed by mid-November--in time for the arrival of the shipping containers. In another week or so, the blocks should be high enough to put a roof on the building. It will eventually be stuccoed, though that may not happen in time for the arrival of the backpacks. The plan is for electricity and plumbing to be completed by mid-November, but there could be some wiggle room on that.

Kelsea laughed that Sowers4Pastors has a pattern of not using buildings as they were originally intended. Russell and Iris are living in a building that was meant to house visiting teams. Allen and Trish are living in a warehouse. By next year, the plan is for everyone to be in their own homes and for each building to be used for its intended purpose. Living the dream!

 - posted by Christi