{"id":495,"date":"2014-06-03T15:10:57","date_gmt":"2014-06-03T20:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/?p=495"},"modified":"2014-06-03T15:10:59","modified_gmt":"2014-06-03T20:10:59","slug":"everythings-bigger-maybe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/2014\/06\/03\/everythings-bigger-maybe\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything’s bigger? Maybe…"},"content":{"rendered":"

We just returned from an amazing trip to Brenham, Texas. Bob, one of our supporters, not only gathered an astonishing amount of hand tools for our ministry, but he also spent several days teaching me various elements of woodworking, joinery, and construction. <\/span><\/p>\n

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"Perfect is close enough" when it comes to measuring.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I did my best impersonation of a Bob-Vila-shaped-sponge (that’s not a thing, is it?), while making box joints by hand, shaving\/drilling\/assembling a mortise and tenon platform from a fallen tree (using a shaving horse and a draw-knife), and employing various power tools. Blessed? Yes. Definitely.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Rynn gave our unfinished platform a good stress test!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Just Showing Off.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We all know God\u00a0occasionally throws an inside curve ball. Usually, he’s trying to get us to back off the plate, refocus, and wait on the right pitch (I know, I know, an imperfect sports metaphor…but hey, I’ve had too much coffee to resist…). Our solar electric system is designed off a rectangular floor plan I saw in a bush house last summer in Papua New Guinea, but our team recently learned that the Wantakians live in circular houses. The only people with rectangular houses are either foreigners or very rich. We’d like to avoid propagating those stereotypes, so we scrapped the rectangle house-plan.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Dilemma.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

What do we replace it with? A round house? We briefly looked into prefab yurts. They were cool, sturdy, and quick to construct, but expensive and devastating in regard to the relationship-building time that normally accompanies the house-building phase of ministry. The people’s round houses typically only last a few years before they have to be rebuilt, so that was out. We needed a middle option.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Light-bulb.<\/strong> <\/span><\/p>\n

What if we threw them a curveball by building an octagonal house? Not a rectangle…not round…but round-ish. This seemed to be the perfect middle-ground, but how would we build one? What would the floor-plan look like? How would we make a sealed octagonal roof from corrugated tin?<\/span><\/p>\n

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While in Texas, an architect from our family’s church heard about our dilemma, met with Lael and me for a few hours, solved our roof problem, and volunteered to draw up professional plans for our bush house! Again, God constantly shows us that this task is impossible apart from Him and His provision through the rest of the Body! So humbling, true, and encouraging!<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of you have said things like, “I could never do what you and Lael are doing.” Well, we can’t do it on our own either. We’re frail and fearful, but we’re willing to trust in God’s provision. Please pray that we continue to begin every day surrendered to God’s plans for our lives. That’s all any of us can do. Some of His plans are in our comfort-zone; some aren’t. All of His plans are in His comfort-zone.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

May we all continue to pray the most dangerous prayer, “Jesus, I’m willing to go anywhere at anytime to do anything for You. Show me what that looks like.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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We just returned from an amazing trip to Brenham, Texas. Bob, one of our supporters, not only gathered an astonishing amount of hand tools for our ministry, but he also spent several days teaching me various elements of woodworking, joinery, and construction. I did my best impersonation of a Bob-Vila-shaped-sponge (that’s not a thing, is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":947,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4,58],"tags":[649,1757,23184,23297,450,637,13114,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-495","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-family","7":"category-ministry","8":"category-prayer-requests","9":"tag-church-planting","10":"tag-house-building","11":"tag-jack-crabtree","12":"tag-lael-crabtree","13":"tag-new-tribes","14":"tag-new-tribes-mission","15":"tag-training-2","16":"tag-tribal","17":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/947"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=495"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/495\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=495"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=495"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/jack-crabtree\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=495"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}