So, we love our church. We searched for a church for years, and finally found one that made us feel like we were right where we needed to be. We've been going to Crossroads for almost 4 years now, and have felt at home since the first service we went to. Last year, they started this event called "Project One"; we were unable to participate then, but really wanted to. As soon as they announced the date this year, we put it on the calendar. It was May 3, and it was a great experience.
Project One – 2008
Team 90
- Mark Maboll, Team Leader
- Beverly ?
- Stephanie Schumacher
- Bri Roskamp
- Danielle Roskamp
- Tami Roskamp
- Bob Nelson
- Seth Pickett
- Melissa Pickett
7:00 am The first indication that this was bigger than we had imagined: when we pulled up to the church, the lots were full. We’ve never seen so many cars there at one time. We parked in the dirt lot, and went inside. We picked up our shirts, name tags and donuts, and headed into the sanctuary, which was packed full of people. Looking around, we found the sign for Team 90, and sat with two nice ladies, Beverly and Stephanie.
7:15 am
Getting nervous – it’s still just the four of us representing Team 90, and we know our “To Do” list is pretty extensive. None of us has experience laying carpet, and that’s just one thing on the list. Worship starts, and as we sing along with “Wait Upon the Lord,” Seth looks around the sea of people. Suddenly, he points to a sign in the crowd…Team 90, across the way, being held high by a man anxiously scanning the crowd. Beverly, our sign holder, walks over to the man, and we all watched his face as he caught sight of another Team 90 sign walking toward him. His face changed from anxious, to surprise, to relief – Beverly points out our little group, and we all wave. They head back over, with 4 other people trailing behind. Yea! Our team was complete, and thankfully, a lot bigger than we had thought. Team 90 was whole at last.
7:30 am
Announcements, information, and prayer complete, everyone in the sanctuary heads out to the drop-off area in front of the church. 1200 people, wearing blue Project One t-shirts, crammed together for a group photo. The brave photographer and a couple of staff on top of the church roof to take the photo, shouting directions through a microphone and megaphone…and, we’re off!
8:00 am – 12:00 pm
Betty is our host today. She’s an elderly woman, formerly a prison warden at a maximum security prison in Canon City. We all instantly felt a warm connection to her – she expressed her frustration that she couldn’t help us, and her gratitude for the willingness of strangers to serve her. All of us could tell she had a genuine love for Christ, and a real need for the assistance. 
On our list: laying new carpet, replacing a storm door, cleaning windows, mowing the lawn, weeding the flower beds, raking, replacing the range hood, and replacing a light fixture. We divide into groups to tackle as much as we can at once.
The carpet group, the largest, begins moving furniture, and discovers that the doors in the little mobile home are too narrow for some of the furniture. We move it wherever we can – to the other rooms or outside – as we begin work on the living room carpet. There were holes worn in the 30 year old carpet, worn all the way through to the pad, and as we pull the pad up, it disintegrates in our hands.
**God sighting: after our morning worship at the church, during which we sang “Wait Upon the Lord,” we had been humming the music as we arrived at Betty’s house and began working. While moving furniture from the living room, Seth noticed that the picture & scripture next to the front door was the same Bible verse, Isaiah 40:31, that the first worship song we sang that morning, “Everlasting God”, is based upon!**
The old, aluminum storm door isn’t coming off without a fight – a crowbar and hammer system is needed to pry it off. The range hood is likewise unwilling to leave gracefully. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to work, washing the exterior windows and working on the yard.
There was another team working at a mobile home across the common area from Betty’s home. They finished early, and took our trash to the dump for us – thank you!
12:30 pm: Lunch break!
We ate lunch together in the mobile home park’s common area, just across from Betty’s home. The common area had a nice little pavilion with picnic tables, and we enjoyed the beautiful weather and the chance to rest. After praying together, we spent the break eating pizza, and talking about ourselves and how we got involved in Project One. We discovered that Bob had been involved in last year’s Project One, that Bri and Danielle are Tami’s daughters, that Beverly and Stephanie were friends from work, and that Betty was nominated by her dear friend…who lived at the house across from Betty’s, and who was the other Project One beneficiary that day!
1:00 pm – 5:15 pm
We continued to work on our projects, and ran into a complication. The storm door was too tall for the doorway – Mark and Bob cut it down perfectly, and it was the last item completed from our list.
We finished the living room carpet before lunch; now, it was time to move the furniture around again to replace the carpet in the two bedrooms. Whoever ordered the carpet and pad did a great job – we had very little leftover.
Betty told us about her daughter, who was murdered a long time ago in Cancun, and two sons with whom she doesn’t speak anymore. It felt like we all said a silent prayer for her as we learned these details. While she had obviously had tragedy in her life, it was amazing to hear her talk about the Lord – she truly loved Him with all her heart, and trusted Him to guide her life.
5:15 pm
We headed back to the church, and enjoyed a dinner of hamburgers, chips and cookies. Exhausted, dirty, but happy, we all went our separate ways, thankful for our good health and ability to help someone who needed it, and thankful for a church that provided such a great opportunity to give back to our community.
By the way, in case you're wondering, I'm not that much of a freak - I'm wearing a mask because Seth had to cut stones with his saw, and it created a cloud of dust that I didn't feel would be beneficial to inhale. The stone-cutting part was also an adventure - the first time, Seth tried a blade that was supposed to cut stone. What it actually did was wear away until it locked up his saw and basically broke it. He had to buy a new saw, and ended up buying a diamond-tip blade, which rocked. It cut the rest of the stones easily, and was worth the price.
We devised a plan to extend our original design...and we still had stone leftover. We went as far as we could, and got to the point where we would not have enough stone to do anything nice, so we stopped. I wore through 3 pairs of gloves, and my hips and back ached for 2 weeks, but it looks good and we don't have to wear shoes to take the trash out, so we're happy.
Thanks to Seth's mom and brothers for helping with the "patio" under the kitchen window. We had a bunch of big red stones from a little path we had put around the yard when we first landscaped 5 years ago. Not wanting to just toss them, Seth had the idea to use them on the east side of the deck. It turned out great!
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