Guest House Gets Rehabilitation

Saturday morning is the time for worship team practice at our church, and I was sound guy this morning, so I headed into town with that as first on my agenda. Practice went fine, and, returning to the van, I lumbered off to estimate a job in North Park. These people had one of the largest decks I had ever seen in my life, including a 20-foot swimming pool. Hope we get the bid for that one...

But my real joy for the day was heading over to the new Nazarene Well House, which is a guest house for people who have come to Mayo Clinic for treatment and find themselves in the middle of an extended stay for which they cannot pay. For those of you who are locals, the building is west of Silver Lake and used to be owned by Zumbro Valley Mental Health. For a while they called it Circle Center, I believe. Anyway, the Nazarenes are refurbished this 7500-square foot former hotel into a guest house, and they are almost finished.

So how to I enter this picture? The Naz invited our church to a workday to get the caretakers quarters on the lowest level finished. Being sort of in this business anyway, and being acquainted with the fine people at Naz, and seeing that some of my fairly good Berean friends would be at the event, I decided to load up the van with my very best paints, rollers, and tools and head for the guest house.

Well, it was tons of fun! I think I had the unique position of knowing just about everyone from both congregations. (Schaeffer used to rent space from Naz in the old days, and I taught in their building. I would often be working late hours, which is why the Nazofolks know me so well. And of course several of them hadn't seen me in years. It was such a privilege to see everyone... a little foretaste of what heaven will no doubt be like.) So I painted a couple of closets in the basement and chatted with numerous people from both congregations. I was particularly impressed with the love and compassion that the Naz will be showing to people from around the world who are in difficult medical situations. They will be inviting in the stranger that Jesus spoke about in Matthew 25.

Around 4:00 I snagged my dad from his house and dragged him out to the farm to help me build a frame for the trailer. He does a great job but just doesn't have the perseverance he had 20 years ago. The boys helped me finish after Grandpa went home. Fortunately they are good helpers, so we got the thing basically finished and I can now haul just about anything without fear that it will fall out of the trailer.