Sweat Work of Love

Building a new playground at church takes work, and lots of people. Its called Sweat Work of Love, especially on days like today when it is so hot you can fry eggs on the sidewalk.


It all began when I first moved here. A member of the church was sitting with the kids at church while Bob and I went to something, can't remember what. The kids had gone out to play on the then Swing set. Apparently one of the kids got hurt on it. As the church member investigated, it was loose parts on the slide. We tried to fix it and couldn't. The church member suggested it might need to be torn down. I was a bit hesitant being the new Pastor at the church. So I told her she needed to follow the Methodist way of going to the trustees who would then discuss it and then bring it before the Admin. Council. Way somehow or another the head trustee gave the person permission to tear it down without getting Admin Council approval. The next thing I know the husband and grandson were tearing it down. He told me it was full of dry rot, and holes from wood bees. I got him to save the accessories because they were okay. That would be one less thing we would have to pay for when we rebuilt it. Now you need to know this set got lots of wear and tear. We have a community basketball league and a school league that plays in our gymn, CLC center. And the kids get out there and play and play. We have this little courtyard area that it is set in, and there is a little memory garden in it too. This same couple said they would pay for a new playground if it was moved out of the courtyard over to the side of the church where there is this big open area.


Believe it or not it took us until this summer to get the new playground going, and it has evolved. We moved over the older metal swing set, put up a fence. Then someone donated another metal swing set. But the plans were to replace the wooden swing set. So we began looking and pricing. Those things are expensive these days! But hubby found one at Sam's he thought was a good one at a decent price. And guess what we got enough money to buy it to start building it. So now we are in the process of building the swing set. My hubby has taken it upon himself as a project. He bought it, got a trailer to haul it back on from our neighbor. But he forgot to get people there to meet him to unload it. (He thinks he can do it alone, that was what he had to do growing up.) But there were five boxes, three of which were over 200 pounds, one over 150 and one at 35. I helped with the 35 and the 150. I told him that he needed to start calling to get a man there to help him. After calling a bunch of the men he was able to get one man there to help him. IN the meantime, I had the idea of taking the boards out of the heavy ones until they were light enough to pull them off the trailer. Which I might say worked.


Well, now everyday, Bob and some of the men are over there working on the boards. Its a lot of work. A lot of Sweat work of love. Now people when they drive by see the new playground, instead of not being able to see it. My hope they can see that we love children and we care about children. And that they see these men at work for the Lord.


Here's what the new swing set will look like when it is done. I'll get pictures of the whole playground and post them.