Published: July 12, 2008 11:48 pm      

Many hands make light work

Church members pitch in to build Habitat components

RACELAND — A visit to Raceland Christian Church Saturday revealed God is a deity with many hands.

Young hands and old ones, big hands and little, some skillful and others clumsy — and every one of God’s hands can swing a mean hammer.

About 50 church members spent the morning and part of the afternoon on the sizzling church parking lot, assembling wall components to be assembled later into a Habitat for Humanity house.

The church members worked on the house as part of a mission project.

“We’re just the hands doing it,” said Melissa Ratliff, whose husband Jeff is chair of the church missions team. “It’s not a gift from the church. It’s a gift from God.”

The Almighty also got some assistance from the Louisville-based Crossroads Missions, which shepherds building projects for churches, schools, camps and other groups. Crossroads also has projects in Mexico and Louisiana, helping residents still homeless from Hurricane Katrina.

Crossroads has refined the building process over scores of projects with congregations such as Raceland’s, where experienced carpenters swing hammers shoulder to shoulder with neophytes. Church members are responsible for bankrolling the lumber purchase and a Crossroads team rolls in with the rest -- tools, plans, the works.

The building process is broken down into steps, making it understandable for even the rankest beginner. It started the day before, when volunteers marked and cut raw lumber into predetermined lengths, then numbered and stacked the boards in order.

Saturday, church members divided up in teams of six to eight, each with an experienced carpenter as team leader. Each team received a plan for a wall component with each board numbered. Drawing boards from the appropriate stacks, they assembled them into modules and toted the modules to the corner of the lot, where other workers sheathed them in plywood.

By midafternoon, the modules had been temporarily assembled into what was recognizable as a three-bedroom house, albeit with no foundation, floor, ceiling or roof. The walls were to be left up for a Sunday morning ceremony, after which the modules would be taken down, packed in a truck and taken to Fleming County where a Habitat crew would reassemble them and finish out the house.

“They’ve got the system down to a science,” said Jim Matthews, pastor of the church.

Whole families worked on the walls Saturday. Derick and Stacy Bradley were on one team together.

“I’m fortunate to have a house, so to help someone who doesn’t have one is a blessing to me,” Stacy Bradley said.

Especially in a recession.

“In this day and time with the economy the way it is, and people struggling to get their bills paid, it’s hard to make a house payment,” Derick Bradley said.

Their 11-year-old son, Kyle, said children like him can hammer nails and carry tools. “Then the big stuff comes easy.”

MIKE JAMES can be reached at mjames@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2652.