Archive 2003

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March, April, May (2 entries), July (3 entries), September (3 entries), October (5 entries), November

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Buying the House

Date: Friday 7 March 2003

Deb and I have exciting news... after 2 years of wanting a home for street boys we have finally purchased a home. It is in Jimbolia, Romania and is about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from Timisoara.

It is a 6 room house with about 0.6 acres of land plus we will have over 5 acres of farm land that goes with the home. The kids are excited and are asking how we will choose the boys that will go there. (I bet there will be a lot of boys on good behavior!) It will be very hard for us to choose the first group of 4 to live there. There are so many that really want a place to call home. As we raise up workers and funds we hope to have a maximum of 10 boys at the home, we feel that this would be the max we could have and still maintain a family atmosphere.

Please pray that Deb and I will be able to raise up enough workers and to be able to fund the remodeling and the daily operation of the home. We are hoping and praying that the home will be open and receiving kids by the middle of the summer! PTL!

Thanks for all your prayers and support, Take Care and God Bless!

Steve & Deb Bishop.

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Demolition and Stripping

Date: Saturday 12 April 2003

They are demolishing the ceiling and stripping the walls next week. We are going to turn the front half of the home into an apartment/loft. We are also going to be making a new wall/foundation for the rest of it.

Click on a photo for a larger version. Photos added 15 April.

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More Demolition

Date: Monday 5 May 2003

The demolition continues, and we have a garden.

Click on a photo for a larger version.

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Change of Plans - all in a day's work...

Date: Thursday 22 May 2003

The weather here has been particularly hot as we work on the boys home. The day starts at 6:30am when we leave to meet the workers from Jimbolia at 7:00am and ends when a very tired and dusty group returns back at 6:00pm.

The heat must have been getting to Steve - he bought a Dacia! For those of you who don't know what a Dacia is, it is a car that is made here in Romania. It is based on a 1969 Renault R12. They have been making the same basic car since then! It is much like a Ferrari but without the performance, styling, comfort or grace! But the one thing it does have in common with a Ferrari is that girls like it! Every girl from the ECC team* has wanted to ride in it and drive it! Of course this made the boys jealous and they insist on getting time behind the wheel!

Seriously, we needed a second car for the camps and God provided the Dacia, it has been very dependable (very uncommon for a Dacia!) and a blast to drive and should keep us motoring until we are able to purchase a "proper" car/truck.

As most of you know that know Steve, when he starts a project it tends to get out of control. The same has happened at the Boys home only God is in control! We started out just wanting to repair a few walls. However, that plan grew into tearing down the walls and rebuilding them, and then the engineer said that we should take the roof off to make the rebuilding of the walls easier and while we were at it we could put a newer style roof on! Basically the back of the house will be all new! We will now be able to have two bathrooms downstairs and two small bathrooms upstairs, one for the workers and one for the boys.

(Note from Steve: It was the engineers and the architect that increased the "scope" of the project!)

Last week we met with Paul and Sherry from "Food for the Hungry". This couple was interested in becoming the house parents for the Boys Home. They are a wonderful couple and they have a background of being foster parents for boys with problems (emotional, drugs, abuse etc), this experience will be excellent for them as house parents, not to mention that Paul is an auto mechanic by trade (Steve and he will get along great!) Please pray for Paul and Sherry as they consider taking on this tremendous task!

Please pray for the workers at the Boy's Home, for the continued support for the project, the boys who will stay there (especially Florin and Cosmin) and for the workers.

Your friends in Christ,
Steve & Deb Bishop.

* A recent team of volunteers from the Evangelical Community Church in Indiana in the United States who dug some of the footings and cellar for the home during the two weeks they were here.

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Progress

Date: Saturday 19 July 2003

We are already considering buying the home next door, if it is God's will, even before we have finished the first house. One of the reasons is that it is in much better condition than the first house was, so if we do buy it, we will just clean up the inside of the house, and use it as a stopgap home while the first house is completed.

The cellar excavation has at last been completed. The Jimbolia team started digging the cellar in the last week of the ECC team's visit in May. Thanks to the effort by this team a large section of the cellar was dug, but on the last day that this team was able to work (further work that week was halted by rain) we were given the bad news that the cellar had to go down another 50cm.

The week following this news the Jimbolia workforce was able to complete this task, only to be told the cellar had to go down again, this time another 40cm (just as the two boys, Florin and Cosmin, were going on camp). But not to worry, help had arrived in the form of Ian (from New Zealand). So Ian, Andrew (from the USA), the two Romanian workers and A Mad Brit* set to work. By the time the boys returned from camp we had dug a fair amount, but not wishing to deprive the boys of a job we still had some to do. So after three weeks, with numerous halts due to rain or no driver we had finished.

Then more demolition work began. Thanks to a mistake by the architect the house will be longer than was originally planned, which meant the pig pens and store rooms had to be taken down. This took four days to complete, and when that was finished we started to dig the final trenches. The last four trenches were the same depth as the cellar (to give us the option of extending the cellar later) and took about a week to dig, but after three months of demolition and digging the ground is ready.

2-3 days were spent preparing steel for the foundation and last week the wood arrived. Monday the 7th was spent building wooden structures to be used later for the walls of the cellar.

The team said goodbye last week to Andrew, who is taking a well deserved break for six weeks in America. Andrew has been a digger, the driver and translator, and his help has been much appreciated.

Last week plastic coverings were laid in the cellar to protect against any water, since during the digging of the cellar we reached the water table. From left: Tim, Miti, Florin, Misu. (The names Miti and Misu are pronounced "Meetee" and "Meeshu".)

Deb's mother Blodwin searching for carrots.

Deb's mother and stepfather were also out helping for a few days last week, mostly in the garden. The garden had gone wild with weeds, many waist height. Unfortunately the potatoes planted have all died. Those that could be found were dug up but provided just tiny potatoes. The garden became overrun since the workforce was only concentrating on the house and until recently had no time to spare for the garden.

Ian has now replaced Andrew as the driver for Jimbolia, and the team will be reduced by another member in two weeks, as Tim leaves.

Tim.

* Tim, the author of this report.

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First Concrete

Date: Tuesday 22 July 2003

A truck arrived yesterday with 50 bags of cement. Poor old Tim* was sent up onto the back of the truck to shift the bags so they could easily be taken off the side of the truck by the delivery people. After shifting the two and a half tonnes of cement he said his back hurt. No kidding. I'm just glad he moved them one at a time.

Today we set to it. Using a very large concrete mixer, three wheel barrows, and at least seven people - we started off with a couple more - we poured the floor of the basement/cellar. The Romanian workers calculated (or guessed) that we needed 20 of the cement bags (ie, one tonne of cement powder) and that turned out to be exactly right.

We finished early in the afternoon, and because that was all we had planned for the day, we had a nice restful afternoon for once.

Ian.

Click on a photo for a larger version.

* Actually still a teenager, Tim has a habit of keeping himself poor by buying breakfast for the Romanian boys. God bless him.

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Preparing the Basement Walls

Date: Friday 25 July 2003

The plastic has gone up around the walls of the basement and the reinforcing is being prepared.

Click on the photo for a larger version.

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Ready to Pour Floor

Date: Wednesday 17 September 2003

We've finally finished pouring the footings and foundations - quite a huge job that sadly took longer and cost more than expected.

Click on a photo for a larger version.

1. The basement walls needed reinforcing steel and "shuttering" before the walls were poured. Space has been left in the near end for a door and a window. More plastic sheeting was laid around the outside of the walls.

2. After the foundations were finished all the struts, supports and shutters were pulled out and replaced by poles, rafters and planks to hold up the ceiling when it is poured.

3. The Romanian workers were introduced to a handy device known as a water level. It's simply a clear hose filled with water. Because the water at the two ends of the hose are at the same level it can be used over much larger distances than a spirit level. (Bonus corn photo.)

Rain prevented work for several days last week - the first rain for about six weeks - and the photo below was taken just before that.

We've poured the first section of the floor, shown in the photo at the left. That section of the floor is at the same level as the existing floor in the hall of the original house (just to the right of the people). The rest of the floor is one step higher and is now ready to pour. We've got it covered with steel mesh reinforcing, and the plumbing is all in place. The basement is covered by planks, held up by rafters and poles which will be taken away after the concrete floor is hard. We added a bit more reinforcing above the basement after the photo was taken, then yesterday (Tuesday) we started pouring the floor.

Ian.

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Boys Home gets off the Ground

Date: Wednesday 17 September 2003

After what has seemed like forever tearing down and digging, the Boys' Home is finally rising up out of the ground (see picture). It is great to see the concrete going in place, it has been a long time tearing down walls, getting permits and digging the basement! We are hoping to have the roof on before the weather turns bad here, it will be quite a race!

Most of the foundation is done and starting next week we will start putting the exterior walls up. The foundation was the slow part, it seems that the architect made the basement a little bit bigger and forgot to put in stairs to access it!  Now that all that is sorted out we are expecting the job to move at a much faster pace! :o)

We are still raising funds for the home and just as God has brought us into a relationship with Him one person at a time He is also giving us funds as we need them, sometimes one brick at a time! :o) God has been faithful and has more than met our needs at every turn but somehow Deb and I have not learned the art of not worrying!

Paul and Sherry Schnell (and their son Sheldon) will officially be joining Deb and I in the Boys' Home project this month, they should be here by the 20th of this month. Paul will take over the task of overseeing the construction and Sherry will work at setting up house, etc. We are praying about having a few of the boys stay in Jimbolia this winter and are thinking about renting an apartment to house them in.We are excited to have another couple here to hang out with; Paul and Steve get along especially well since they are both motor heads!

Steve and Deb Bishop.

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Basement Open

Date: Thursday 25 September 2003

Just before I left Romania, Cosmin, Cipi and I finished digging the steps down to the basement (or a rough approximation, at least). Then all that remained to do was for Steve to decide if he was going to use his Leatherman or my Swiss Army knife to unceremonially cut the plastic sheet - he says he was never in doubt - and we were inside the Boys' Home for the first time. All the poles and planks inside will be removed later.

Ian.

Click on a photo for a larger version.

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Walls Started

Date: Saturday 4 October 2003

We are moving ahead with the boys home and we have now got some of the back wall up. I have some pictures of Florin setting the first stone

We had a young man from Canada join us, he was just a random volunteer who heard we had a need for manual laborers! He will be here for about 5 weeks.

Steve.

Click on photo for a larger version.

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Wall Progress

Date: Monday 6 October 2003

The wall now extends down to the far corner and is up to 4 rows in some places. We are waiting for our window opening sizes to go any higher.

Steve.

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Walls On the Up and Up

Date: Saturday 11 October 2003

Work is going steadily, we did not get much done this week due to rain. We are able to put up about 80 blocks a day, but I think that number will go up the closer we get to the pile of bricks and we start using more of the smaller ones. We have 2/3 of the first room up. We made it about 30cm larger than it was originally going to be.

Steve.

Click on photo for a larger version.

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Wall Progress

Date: Monday 13 October 2003

The work goes on! We have most of the first load of bricks up, about 400 or so, and the second load is due in tomorrow.

Steve.

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Walls Further Up

Date: Monday 27 October 2003

Things are moving along with the home, we are almost ready to start framing the forms for the columns and beams. The stairs to the basement are almost ready to pour also.

Steve.

Click on photo for a larger version.

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Walls Further Up

Date: Saturday 22 November 2003

All of the first floor walls are up and we are expecting a bid in next week to pour the second floor.

Steve.

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