Katie’s Beer

Yesterday afternoon, on a whim, my family visited the site of the 100th episode of Extreme Makeover - Home Edition, rumored to air on November 25th. It’s just a couple of miles from our house. The couple are teachers from our local high school. On the surface, they are not a very typical choice: after all, they lived in a 4 year old house in a nice, but older, Minnetonka neighborhood with their three (soon to be four) children. They also recently adopted her sister’s four children who in the past couple of years have lost their dad and then their mom. The story of this family is not new to Minnesotans. The murder of their mom by her ex-boyfriend was a huge news story.

The crowds walking to and from the job site are steady. Along the way, there are security guards and volunteers helping the neighborhood to maintain control. The path is already very well worn, but the show promises to restore the area. Several neighborhood children have lemonade stands with signs promising all proceeds going to the family. People gathered on someone’s large hillside lawn, but doesn’t mind because he knows he’s getting a new lawn out of it.

It was fun to see neighbors and others we knew with the blue volunteer shirts and white hard hats. I saw my neighbor’s daughter and granddaughter, a mom and daughter we used to know in Girl Scouts, a hockey dad and coach who is also a volunteer fireman and many others. A fellow baseball coach who helped side the house from 3am to noon on Sunday told my husband yesterday that it was a nice brand-new home…so new that the woodwork and windows were salvaged for future use.

To stand behind the barriers and watch the crews gave me a near-overwhelming sense of wanting to help. Five days into construction, trucks and vans were making continual deliveries - plumbing supplies, home theatre, furnaces. The crowd chuckled when toilet after toilet was carried into the house and cheered when a large bathtub was unboxed and carried through the front door. My husband, who was pretty busy finishing up a summer construction project last week, kept saying to me, “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. I want to be a part of it.” My daughter and I just kept laughing and shaking our heads at the thought of ANYONE living in the Twin Cities and NOT hearing about this project. It’s all over the radio, television, newspapers and the surrounding area is well-marked with signs. It would have been fun, though not possible, to have enough advance warning of the project so that we all could have all taken off time from our jobs to be a part.

Another highlight of the afternoon was watching Michael Moloney carefully work his way up the long line of people watching the house being built. He was relaxed and friendly. He made sure to talk to everyone. My daughter and I quickly made our way to a spot to shake his hand and take his picture. I was able to make eye contact with him, shake his hand and thank him for doing God’s work. He stopped and looked at me and said thank you in a soft and firm tone of voice that told me he knew it was true. He wore a cross around his neck. Later, when I looked at my pictures on a larger screen, I discovered the sun shining on the house, the volunteers and on Michael in a special way. I ordered a print online last night and will try to give it to him today with this quote:

All our work in the field, in the garden, in the city, in the home, in struggle, in government–to what does it all amount before God except child’s play, by means of which God is pleased to give his gifts in the field, at home, and everywhere? These are the masks of our Lord God, behind which he wants to be hidden and to do all things. –Martin Luther, “Exposition of Psalm 147″

Tags: Minnesota, EMHE //