Settling into Simsbury: "MATE"ing in Maine

Last week, I went up to Maine with my church to repair house for those living in and around the Farmington, Maine area. This is my third year going with the church. The organization is called MATE, Mission at the Eastward. It was a good time. The weather was nice in and around the 70s all week. Wednesday was hotter and we had some thunder and rain storms throughout the week. We stayed at the Univ. of Maine, Farmington and ate meals at a Baptist church. One of the pastors from the Needham church made our meals. There was about 25 people from the Boston Presbytery from Needham, Boston, Waltham and Burlington churches.
We arrived on Saturday around 3:30, went to church on Sunday at the Fairbanks church, had a light luncheon with some of the congregation, we went to one of the members house to look at his woodwork (he turns ornaments, wine goblets and peppermills). We then got to look at all the job sites. The rest of the week was pretty much spent working. Breakfast was served at 7Am. Work started at 8:30 - 4:30. Dinner was at 6:30. One night we invited the families we were helping to dinner and had a chance to talk and spend time with them. One evening the adults went out to a local pub, while the teenagers watched movies.
I worked with a crew of 4-7. We were supposed to put windows in a trailer but the windows never came in so instead we finished 4 projects. Our first was to design an awning of sorts. Half of it was up and we had to finish it and put on the tin roofing. I was in charge of cutting the wood with a circular saw. ( I love power tools!) The next day we did 2 jobs. We repaired a leak on a tin roof and painted a small porch. The tin roof required us to remove the old roof to figure out where the leak was coming from and then to fix the leak. I was in charge of unscrewing the bolts at the edge of the roof and helping to remove the tin pieces. I don't know why I got the end of the roof (as I HATE heights) but I did it. After fixing the roof we went over to the other site to paint the porch. This porch was in the "front" in a dog pen which is used as there bathroom site...not the best place to stand and paint. Our final job which took us 3 days was to insulate, drywall, mud and prime the stairwell walls. This was very tight quarters and required inventive ways to get to the top without using a ladder. My first job was to carry in the insulation. A very itchy job. My next task was to measure and cut all the drywall. The house was built in 1830 so nothing was straight. I measured at least 4 times and cut once and each piece fit beutifully!!!! My next task was to mud the wall in the highest space. Which required me to climb up the rafters and position myself between a 6 inch ledge and the chimney. Get up was fine, down was another story. The next day I primed the wall I mudded and then did painted the edges for the other walls.
I really enjoyed the work that we did, however, some of it was hard to handle. What you and I would think was disgusting, was the way of the life for most of the families. The houses were piled with junk, too many animals to count (dogs, cats, and goats), leftover food, dirty litter boxes, unkept areas and smells you and I could not live in. It was hard to imagine why the families would want to live the way they did or why they didn't ask for help to clean their house or manage their lives better. Even though the week was spent helping others, in turn I learned alot from them. It was a week full of hard work, reflection and great company!