Vision

I remember the day i showed this picture to some good friends of mine, excited about the purchase of the piece of land we now call "Gateway". The comment was:"boy you must have vision to see anything in that ugly barn. So after a long almost 3 year journey, studded all along the way with many moments of revelation and mind renewing flashes of Jesus unending kindness we hit a major milestone this week. Isiah 25 v 6 - 10 has been the passage that we have camped on and fed on for the past few years. So from a rumpled cobbled together barn in a tangle of trees, we see a home rising above the trees to take in the magnificent view of the valley and hamlet below. The milestone was the roofing of the house, and as the house started with a crowd of friends pouring the foundation under the barn, the roof was put on by a crew of men working hard to get it all done before the snow begins to fall, with my friend Aaron topping it off with he final layer of roofing. So here's a little photo essay of the journey sofar.


This is the Barn and property before we bought it in the Spring of 2006 (April for the S hemisphere folks)

Earl the logger, cuts down the first tree, clearing away for a good view

Good friends Art and Lisa camp out for a week of hard labor digging a foundation under the old barn. Note the Jack hammer to break up the concrete state of the clay in summer. When it rains it turns to soupy mess.

Getting the forms ready to pour concrete. My right arm's tendons were so inflamed from digging in the hard clay that i could do no good to help on the day of the concrete pour, but that's what friends are for and they showed up in droves to help out.

Father and son, Greg and Stephen manouver the big elephant hose of the concret pump truck


Note Becky's bold moves in the background

My three helpers dive in for a few minutes here and there to pull nails and pick up stuff.

Skye earns a penny a nail picking them up and is currently at about $15

Tim helps out with building the well house on top of the 1500 gallon storage tank on a trip over Last summer

By way of explanation, Gateway is about 3 hours drive from Anacortes and we would come over about once a month or so to work on the property until we got back from South Africa in April this year. We felt certain that it was time to move to Plan permenantly, even though we had not yet sold our house in Anacortes. We lived in this 5th wheel trailer, kindly lent to us by a friend, from April till October. Our house sold in October and the day after we recieved the offer we found a place to rent for the winter. Once again, Father's timing is always perfect.

The long drop (actually a prety short drop as i dug the new hole in the summer by hand!)

The black domes are infiltrator panels for the massive drainfield system that we have to have for the septic. 270 ' of trench, two 1000gal tanks and more electronics and pumps than you could imagine, just to deal with poop!

Finally the roof comes off and work on the house begins. Our Anacortes house still has not closed, but we feel Father blessing the move to go ahead with the framing, so i subcontract it out to my framer friend Rob.

Walls going up ( the good kind)

My Little red helper gets unloaded 3 days after the Anacortes house money is in the bank.

This baby will dig ditches, plough snow, grade roads, move logs and lumber and generally save me hours of backbreaking work.

Beams go up on the day of our first snowfall!

The race is on to see of we can get it roofed before the snow comes to stay.

Framers race to sheet and paper the roof while Aaron is hot on their tails with roofing shingles going down at high speed.

The view from the roof as the rain and snow fall all around us. I asked for a miracle and we had no rain or snow the whole day we were working on roofing. as we pcked up for the day the sleet began. The next day was dry too. Yeah God!!!!

Now here is a man sized saw. Jason helps me cut beams and posts for woodhenge, the porches on each side of the house.

Thar she be folks, the house as of 4 pm today. Future home of the campbells and anyone else that may need a home, place of feasing, fine wines, veils being removed, blindness, deafness and brokenness healed and the exclamation " this is our God for whom we have been waiting and longing" Isiah 25v 6 - 10