Final week at Chatham, Illinois

 In our final week at MMDC in Chatham, Illinois, we continued with many of the same jobs although different people did some jobs.

Here Joyce, Ray and Stel are recruited to wrap finished unassembled desks for shipment.

Individually wrapped desks are stacked on a palet.

John and Ray are sanding repaired boards before assembly in desks.

Esther is cutting desk parts with the radial arm saw.

Some continued with the same jobs such as:

Jodi has a goal...

to drill every little block before she leaves.

Ray with the assistance of Jodi continues cleaning the dryer vent in the basement of the duplex.

Yet, there were a number of new tasks undertaken.

Jake hoists Larry over the new warehouse doors...

and Larry then installs numbers over each door..

so that delivery or shipment vehicles can easily be directed to the correct entry point.

Jim and Larry began dismantling shelving in the old warehous

and moved it to the new warehouse.

Stel is adding weatherstrip to the "man doors" in the new warehouse...

and adding rain diverters over the doors.

Lary and Hank repair a chair from the chapel.

Karen and Gloria began working in the sewing machine area to repair donated sewing machines or identify problems.

Donated goods arrive in packed crates...

Dave and Linda take inventory of the donated goods.

Other volunteers were at the center again this week and packed flood buckets.

We ended the week by celebrating the birthday of one of our own.

Surprise?

We made Kitty wear this to work all day.

The week and the project are over and time to say goodbye to new and old friends...

or "here's a hug 'til we meet again.

Weekends in Chatham/Springfield, Illinois

After our first week of work, we hit a rainy spell but it was a great opportunity to visit the Lincoln Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill.  There were lots of representations of key events in Lincoln's life and Presidency and the whole thing was extremely well done.  We managed to learn a few new things in our visit.

In addition to the current visitors, the Lincoln family was present at the model white house.

The younger Lincoln is portrayed at his boyhood cabin.

Abe and Mary depicted relaxing in The White House.

The Lincoln/Douglas debates were also depicted.  Many other events were also shown but you get the idea.

This past weekend was much cooler but also more pleasant and sunny so we were "off" to see some of the outdoor sites.  First, we visited the Lincoln home but were surprised to learn that the US Park Service had purchased and restored houses within a block of the home in all directions.

This was the home of Abe and Mary Lincoln and their children until 1861 when they all moved to Washington.  It had originally been a one and a half story home but after several additions, this is the way it looked in 1861.  They never returned and the son, Robert, eventulally gave it to the state of Illinois who later turned it over to the National Park Service.

The front door says "A. Lincoln", just as it did after he bought the house for his wife and their first child.

This is how the rear looked in 1861.

This house is one of those of his neighbors at the time,

and this is another view of the neighborhood in 1861

and so is this

and this.  It is a very lovely area all owned and managed by the US Park Service.

About 3 blocks away is where Lincoln made his farewell to Springfield speech as he boarded the train to Washington.  He was already receiving death threats which may have made that speech more emotional.

This is the Lincoln Depot where the speech was given.

A few more miles down the road is our final stop in the city of Springfield.

The tomb of President and Mrs. Lincoln and three of their children.

Our last "tourist" event was a visit to the Lincoln Memorial Gardens which is closer to Chatham on Lake Springfield.

The entrance to the gardens showing the many hiking trails.

There are beautiful views of the Lake from the trails

and of the homes on the far side of this nature center.

Just to prove that we were acutally here, is Stel

and Jodi.

Now it's time to go rest up for our final week of work in Chatham.  Talk to you soon.

Midwest Mission Distribution Center - week 1 & 2

We arrived at MMDC in Chatham, IL on Saturday, 9/24/16

Most of the buildings in this complex were either constructed for or completed by NOMADS over the years.  Now NOMADS mostly provide volunteer aid within the complex.

Main Office and warehouse at MMDC.

The first building is housing for staff at MMDC. Next is the Gift Shop, followed by the chapel and 2 volunteer staff duplexes.

Next is the campground that was set up for NOMADS use on Drop IN and scheduled projects.

This is the Dorm for volunteers who come from around the country to help with work at the center.  It currently houses about 30 people and includes showers, kitchen and laundry facilities. 

This is our workgroup for the 3 weeks.  From the left in front are Larry, Gloria, Joyce, Karen, Avis.  Second row from the left are Ray,  Esther,  Stel, Jodi, Linda, Kity and John.  Back row from the left are Roger, Jim, Gary, Hank, Dave, Betty and Dave. 

On Monday (and every work day) we begin with devotions in the Chapel.

This is the greeting at the front of the center as we enter to work.

A tour of the facility gives you an idea of the size of the facility.

Remember those flood buckets that are packed at the local church level?  They end up at a distribution points like this one where they are unpacked, checked, sorted, repacked and loaded onto skids for shipment to needy locations.  When we arrived, there was only 1 skid up on the shelves.  Now look.  Jodi and other volunteers from the area contributed the restocking the shelves.

Donated bicycles are stored here for staging to repair or dismantling.

The biggest job here is building school desks for needy children in the US and around the world.

The sawing room is where parts for desks are cut to size.  Most of the wood is recycled from school bleachers and is ripped and cut to size in this shop.  Hank is preparing to cut the boards to the proper length.

Jim is drilling according to patterns

Dave and Jim are cutting blocks to attach the parts.

As you can see, every operation is planned so that while cutting the blocks, they are fed across the table and drop into a box.

Here Jodi is drilling those same blocks so that screws can be attached.

Finished parts are collected on pallets for transport to the desk building area.

Some boards have holes or gouges from dismantling so holes are plugged, filled with putty and/or sanded before assembly.  Roger and Joyce combining efforts  in the repair process.

Screws are inserted before sending to assembly.  Jodi is getting really good at it.

Hank is predrilling the angle braces.

In the assembly room, those blocks with screws are attached to the appropriate board.  John has become an expert.

Then the desk construction begins with the top being most critical to be made square, glued and clamped so that legs and braces will fit properly.  Gary is instructing Stel on the process.

Esther and Gloria receiving instruction on assembly of the desks from Gary.

Several desks are built at a time.  Stel trying her hand at the process.

The finished desk is checked for level.

Each "joint" is labeled so that the recipients can reconnect them without instruction.

The desks are then disassembled and shipped up to the sanding and sealing room.

In the sanding and finishing room,  Betty is sanding all the parts

and so is Karen.

After sanding, the parts are given 2 coats of polyurethene.  Karen and Hank have a good system at work.

Kity and Avis are also applying polyurethene and then the parts are placed on the racks behind them to dry.

Avis, Larry and Jim and wrapping each finished desk in step 1 of preparing the desks for shipment.

Hank and Jim are loading the wrapped desks onto a skid for the next phase. 

The skid is lowered by forklift to the warehouse floor where 

the entire skid is shrinkwrapped for shipment

and loaded onto the warehouse shelves.

There are many other jobs here but NOMADS get special assignments while on premises.

In addition to desk building, they have asked the NOMADS to make a few repairs around the center.  This dedication stone was hit and damaged by the mower.  We are to dig it up and move it to a safer location.

Ray is repairing this fence and preparing the ground in front of it to accomodate the stone.

Linda is preparing the ground for plants after the stone is moved.

Larry is also helping with this effort.

The final fruits of their labors.

Ray and Roger also spent some time in the bike shop where repairable bikes are fixed and unrepairable are dismantled for parts and/or salavage.

Roger is getting instruction from a regular volunteer at the center on  repair procedures.

Ray also working on one of the bikes.

Hank working on repair parts.

Larry getting in on the repairs

as is Gloria.

Another of  those special jobs involves the rotted out threshold at the back of the dorm.

 Larry and Stel were asked to repair it.  

We were also asked to install gutters and downspouts on the front of the gift shop.

Stel, Ray and Hank laying out the project.

then install gutters

and downspouts

add caulk to the seams

and then it is done and those entering the gift shop will keep a little dryer on rainy days.

The dryers were not working properly so Ray set out to fix the problem.

The first problem is clearly excess lint.

The dryer vent was too long also so Ray moves the dryer to the outside wall and replaces flexible pipe with rigid.

 While the gutters were being installed, the folks noticed how big the shrubs had grown so they asked us to trim the shrubs at the gift shop, the dorm and the sign at the front entrance.

Ray trims,

Stel clens up the cuttings, 

and Jodi does the raking.

One special job we were given was to pray over the shipment that was being loaded onto trucks to head to Mexico.

What a blessing to be a part of this effort.

It's been a busy 2 weeks here in Chatham and we look forward to our final weeks activities.