Friday, our final working day in New York and our last day to make an impact on the community. Friday was a day of finishing up projects and a lot of clean up.
Matt Huenink and the people working on the door finished their project and installed the door by about 10AM.
Tom Tebeest, and John Dulmes, Katie Zimmerman, Aaron Wykuis, and John VanMaaren worked on finishing the painting job, and they completed that by about 2PM.
The Bell Tower / bird guard project was finished on Thursday so this was all set.
The Chandelier was finished and raised Thursday already, however for the second time in a row, a bulb burned out. Just one bulb. When this happened Thursday, they slowly lowered the Chandelier again, to troubleshoot whether it was the socket or bulb, and all they had to do was unscrew the bulb slightly, then it was fine. This would be done today, except by this time the pews have been put back in, and the area is not clear where the unit would be lowered. Also the sanctuary had gone under a lot of different cleaning projects like mopping the floor, wiping down all of the pews and beating the dust out of all of the seat cushions of the pews. Lowering the Chandelier was not an option.
Mike did have Tom Nuinhuis climb up onto a 16 foot latter, then try to reach with a 15′ extension poll up to the bulb, but even with that he was about 2 feet short. In the end, we just simply let that bulb be. All in all this project was still a success.
Scott and Robert worked hard again overnight to try to catch up on the stairs project. They worked with Brian and a few others all night and all day and all night, trying to get this project done as soon as possible. They worked right up until the end on this project, right before we cleaned up and picked up the tools. They got all of the dry walling done, all of the trim done, about 1/2 of the railing done on the lower section, and all of the steps in place. Not bad, considering what little they knew about the project to begin with.
Friday afternoon was a big cleaning / pickup day. There was a lot of things that needed to be cleaned up. Everything from mopping floors, cleaning the kitchen, wiping down all of the woodwork all over the church, cleaning out the alley way, pitching all of the extra wood scraps and extra garbage from each of the projects around the area, and storing the extra wood down in the basement.
I personally worked down in the basement, making piles of the different kinds of wood that we had left over from various projects. There was an old coal shoot / loading area that we opened up and people handed wood down into an exposed basement area, then I walked it into the other room and put it all on various piles.
Once that project was done, and the cleaning was all taken care of, we were free to do what we liked.
At about 4:30 Luke, Tyler, John VanMaaren and about 6 other Seniors packed up and headed out. Luke Tyler and John were getting ready to go to Colorado with RCYF, and many of the seniors had graduation parties to go to. They headed out to the airport around 4, and they were supposed to depart in the early evening. Unfortunately they ran into issues. We received word that their plane had some problems and they pushed things back until early Saturday Morning, some time around 5 or 6AM! They worked hard to get there early, and they got delayed terribly. We felt bad for them. When we get back to Sheboygan with the coach bus they will be waiting for us because they are taking the very same bus and driver out to Colorado with RCYF. I pray that their journey will be quick and efficient.
We all got cleaned up from working a longer day, then a majority of us decided to go into Manhattan to check out China town and little Italy. When we got off the subway, we knew immediately we were in china town. Chinese writing was everywhere, as well as a very strong Chinese nationality population walking around us. The first thing we saw was a soccer field that was fenced in, on top of very good looking grass court, where about 12 different players were playing a game. It was a very nice piece of field for being in the middle of a city. We walked up and down the street seeing a slew of street vendors selling sea food that was still alive, and grilled ducks and grilled chickens – that were grilled whole, even the heads! It was an interesting site to see, and to learn how differently they prepare food.
Another thing we noticed that a majority of the shops were already closed down, and we only arrived there at about 8PM. Apparently there isn’t much of a night life in China town, because about 3/4 of the stores close down. I walked around with several others and after being there for 10 minutes, we turned around and went to little Italy.
What a different culture, just a few blocks away! Little Italy was packed with Life! They closed down the streets so you could simply just walk through and check out the things that all of the street vendors were selling. Most of the street vendors were selling hats, t-shirts, and sunglasses, but there were also other things. About 50% of the area was shops full of cheap stuff, and the other 50% were very nice looking restaurants with indoor and outdoor seating. Most looked like they served wine and looked like something you would really see in Italy. It was very cool. We decided to stay, (Some of our group, about 20 people) later in Little Italy, so I called Tracy and told her that and we hung out for a while longer. It was a very cultured and diverse experience!
When we got back, we relaxed for a little while, and some people played cards, some just hung out in the sanctuary, and some went to Bed. Most of us tried to stay quiet for those trying to sleep, and it worked. I ended up staying up until about 3AM with 5 other guys playing 50 hands of Sheep head. It was very entertaining. At that point I headed to bed, only to awake again at 6:30.
