Roofing Life University

Friday and Saturday we finished roofing Life University.  A guy that is a good friend of Steve’s and has helped itec out a lot, David Nickles, owns a metal roofing company and he flew down to oversee the job.  He brought one of the crew in the plane with him, and the other two guys drove from Birmingham.  They needed a fourth guy to help on the job cause David Nickles was working on other stuff with Steve, so I helped.  I had a great time getting to know them, telling them about the Maverick, and what we do at itec.  When we went back to itec for lunch, we showed them everything in the front room (the museum) and the Maverick. 

The “museum”  is a room full of artifacts from the Waodani, Aunt Rachel’s chair, pictures of Nate Saint, models of the itec plane and Nate’s plan, a 20ft long Anaconda skin, a Jaguar hide, a bookshelf with all the books and DVDs that we sell, and much more.

We were only able to get about half of it done on Friday cause the wind was blowing 15 – 25 mph as the afternoon arrived, and we thought it wise to stop rather than one of us loose our head in the process of trying to control 20 ft sheets of metal roofing.

Since we were unable to finish Friday, we worked Saturday.  As it turns out, Saturday was the 55 year marker for the day that Nate, Jim, Pete, Ed, and Roger were killed on Palm Beach, and I was able to tell the roofers about it.

 Steve and David Nickles came over and took us to lunch, and while we were there we some how got onto where we were all born.  Well, when Steve told them that he was born in the jungles of Ecuador, the guys just looked at him for a moment, and when he continued to explain where he grew up (in the jungles), one of the guys, also named David, said that he wasn’t sure how much to believe him.  While we were all about to get in the van, Steve told me to remind him to give the guys some of the movies and reading material that we have.

Steve and David Nickles rode in Steve’s car, while I rode with the other three guys (Pete, Todd and David) in the van.  When we started heading back, I told them about Steve’s life.  How his father was killed with 4 other missionaries 55 years ago to the day, how his Aunt Rachel and Elisabeth, one of the widows, were invited to move in with the very tribe of Indians that killed those missionaries, and that when Aunt Rachel invited Steve to stay with her, he was adopted by the very man that killed Steve’s father.  I then told them that whatever Steve gave them as far as books or movies go, to read or watch them and not let them just sit on the shelf.

David was the main guy that I worked with, we were the guys that made the cuts on the ground and handed the tin up to Todd and Pete.  So we got to know each other pretty well.  David and Todd are not Christians but Pete was.  I asked David a little bit about it, he said that his mom used to make him go to church, so he did.  He was a pretty good kid, but when his mom died several years ago, he just went wild.  It was a pretty hard blow for him.  He had worked for a company for a year and a half without missing a day, but after his mom died, he took two weeks off.  We exchanged numbers before he left and I told him next time I am going through Birmingham I would stop in.  I should be going through there when I next go to the Village for my mom’s wedding at the end of February.  He sent me a picture of his son playing in the snow and he called me the other day. 

There is a picture of all of us who did the roof with Steve.  Life University is right behind us.  FYI: I thought that Life University was simply a nice name for all the programs that we are doing in that building, but I found out last night while Steve and Jamie spoke at a church that Life stands for Living Intentionally Focusing Eternally.  I thought that was pretty neat.  The website is not up yet, but when it is up ill post the web address.  Also, I realized that I gave the wrong book title on one of my previous blogs when I was talking about Missions Dilemma, it was made off of a book called “The Great Ommision” I had said that the movie Missions Dilemma, was made after a book called Missions Dilemma, sorry about that.  I was with Jamie behind a table selling books at a church after he and Steve had spoke the other night when I realized my mistake.  

Also, big prayer request is to pray for Mincaye’s wife.  She was bitten by a Bushmaster, a venomous snake in the Jungles, and she has been in the hospital for a week.  Her kidneys failed yesterday and they transported her to another hospital I think today.  Steve has been trying to get people to pray all over the country.  He has done a few phone interviews and was on a radio program last night.  Please pray for her.

Thank you so much,

Your brother in Christ,

Austin