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https://jimjessbaker.com/linky-wednesday-09-07-16
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THE AMERICAN DREAM!
So… I noticed a couple of weeks ago that the tile in the bathroom near the toilet seemed “squishy” I wondered if maybe it’s always been like that. I took note of where it seemed squishy and told Jess about it and said that if I felt like the squishyness was expanding that I’d take a deeper look into things. I checked in the basement under the bathroom and found lots of orange and black mold. I removed the insulation and wiped it down with bleach. A couple weeks later Jess said she was noticing the squishyness too so I went back down to the basement and found that where the toilet pipe came down the wood had cracked.
I’ve not a handy man bone in my body. We asked a friend to come over and look at it for us. He thought we could just cut out a small area of mold in the subfloor and be done with it. But as he got into the project he realized that joists needed to be replaced and this house has just layers of stuff built on top of one another, so under the moldy subfloor was another layer of plywood and underneath that was tile in concrete. All of this had to be torn out. The bathroom floor was so uneven, more than an inch off from corner to corner.
When we asked him how much he wanted to be paid for the work he insisted that he would not charge us, and “that’s what friends are for.” It’s so humbling to be on the receiving end of a gift that you couldn’t pay back. If we were to hire someone to do this work it would have cost thousands.
We needed a jig saw so I called a neighbor to see if he had one, he didn’t, but called another neighbor who I had never met, and he walked it over to our house. It was amazing to see the outpouring of neighborly generosity. Our neighbor with the jigsaw stayed for a while and shaved a ton of time off the project. We had the electricity turned off because we had to replace some of the joists and running through those joists was electrical wire. The neighbor brought over wire testers for us which allowed us to get the electricity back on. And then although he could not physically help a lot, he gave direction to us on how to get the joists up using 2×4’s and leverage instead of just trying to hammer it into place. I was so blessed to see the outpouring of neighborly love, and the generations working together. The older neighbor sharing his wisdom, which my friend received with the typical southern honor of “yes sir.” The neighbor came into check on us again and complimented my friend “You’re doing a good job, son.” It was beautiful.
I’ve been sick twice in the past month… I think I know why. We’re making good progress and are hoping to be having things back up and running soon.
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We go through seasons where things are REALLY slow… and then seasons where things are slamming busy. September is BUSY. We just started 3 new RED SCHOOLS, tonight we are kicking off the local one in Clarksville TN, and last week we started one in Livingston TN and Russellville KY and are wrapping up a 4th in Elkton KY.
Here’s a photo of Jess teaching Inductive Bible Study in Elkton Kentucky.
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Bought this guy on amazon recently. The mosquitos are CRAZY this summer.
Please remember we’re AMAZON AFFILIATES. 
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OH MY GOODNESS! After 7 months we just posted a NEW episode of Doing Ministry Well. Click below to hear the episode and check out the new webpage
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