Satan’s Doors

Should anyone follow my blog regularly, you will notice there are occasionally days that I don’t post. These are days that I don’t have internet access. Today marks three weeks since I left America, and I still don’t quite have it all figured out. There are two places I can get wifi directly–the Cana Center and the Children’s Academy. Unfortunately their internet connection seems to come and go. At first I thought when one was down both were down, but some days one will be up without the other.

More frustrating to me is texting. My Korta Family group chat (wife and kids) works just fine and hasn’t ever missed. I cannot get Noel Family chats most of the time, but occasionally one or two will get through. I was texting with my friend and former colleague, Terry Kathol, and all of a sudden I cannot text him. So, should you ever try to text me and not get a response, it is because my texts aren’t working 100% of the time. The last time I came to Kibeho in January, as soon as I hit American soil the texts all came pouring in (in no discernible order). I look forward to that moment after seven weeks away!

These are Satan’s doors. I just named them today. My story about these doors is not over yet, but last Friday’s chapter of the story is too unbelievable to not share while it is somewhat fresh in my mind. It helps illustrate some of the challenges of being in Kibeho.

As you can see, the doors are in rough shape. I figured since I had painted the classroom in just a few days’ time, I could probably have these doors painted in half a day. That was six days ago.

Kathy Lesnar had asked to have them stained, so last Thursday I completely sanded them using what I thought was the only sandpaper available to me–a rather fine grit. This served to rough up the surface a little bit. When I asked Callixte (my painting partner) for stain, he didn’t know what that was. Basa, who helps with all of my translating, also didn’t know the word. She kept saying “varnish.” Callixte brought me varnish.

I figured I would give varnish a try, hoping it might have some tint to it. As I applied the varnish on Thursday afternoon (after spending nearly six hours in the morning sanding by hand with the fine grit sandpaper) I quickly saw that it wasn’t going to do the job. It was essentially putting a clear coat on the doors, so the damaged wood still looked damaged, though now with a protective coat.

I then called Callixte over and explained the problem. Through Basa, I communicated that the wood was too damaged and that we needed to paint. In order to paint varnished wood, my understanding is that you either need to remove all of the varnish or use a quality primer (by the way, if you know what you are talking about and have ideas on how I should complete this project, please leave a comment). Cyriaque, the guy who is the brains of the whole operation and has the ability to get supplies, reports that “there is no primer to be bought until they get more in October.” I find that hard to believe, but I admit I have been surprised by other things.

I told Callixte, “If we are going to remove all of the varnish, I am going to need a much coarser grit.” He takes me with him to go look for the paint we need (in a storage closet at the Bible Center) and then to go find coarse sandpaper. The guy who has the coarse sandpaper is gone for the day at this point, so I will have to wait until Friday morning.

Friday morning I was up at 3 am to watch the Huskers beat Cincinnati, had breakfast and headed over to these doors with a song in my heart and a new hope. I was sure I would have painted doors by the end of the day.

The coarse sandpaper was there and I got started. I worked and worked but found that while I was getting a fair amount off, I was losing much more skin on my fingertips than I was losing varnish on the door. Callixte stopped by to see how I was doing, tried a little himself, and then disappeared for a while.

This is what he gave me. Of course my first reaction was “no freaking way” but he started using one on the door and I have to admit it was kind of working. So I started scraping away with my piece of glass, and the two of us are feeling a little better about life. If you have not scraped varnish with pane glass before, you would not know as I now know that the edge of the glass eventually starts to dull. The solution? According to Callixte, break the glass again (using your foot) to create a new sharp edge. The problem with his approach is that it is difficult to get a straight break, so sometimes I was using a curved piece. My enthusiasm began to wane.

Above the doors are some 12″x18″ windows. Though I had enjoyed some success on the doors, the varnish was extra thick on the windows and my glass edge was not penetrating. Further, I was now working on a ladder. Suddenly I heard my brother-in-law John’s voice in my head (he is a former operations guy at Pella Windows who paid attention to OSHA). I recalled the day that he chided me for being up in a pine tree in my flipflops, standing on one branch, bracing myself on another branch, while cutting a third branch with a chainsaw. I don’t remember the exact words, but the gist was that he questioned my commitment to safety. As I stood on this ladder in my sandals with a piece of glass in my bare hand scraping away at the window panes, I wondered if John would be okay with this.

At about 2 in the afternoon I couldn’t go on. My arms were tired from sanding and scraping, my fingertips hurt from holding onto the coarse sandpaper (of course no sanding blocks here), I had been up since 3 am, and the glass was clearly not getting the job done. I was defeated.

Yesterday Callixte stopped by with a new idea of something that might work. An electric sander. What I wanted to say was, “You brought me shards of glass before you wanted to give an electric sander a try?” Instead, I smiled pleasantly and thanked him profusely. Unfortunately, I couldn’t work on it yesterday because I went on several home visits, but this morning I was able to put in a few hours with the electric sander and it is going much better.

I don’t know where this story will end. I don’t even know IF the story will end. In America I would have run to the local hardware store and either bought some paint stripper, a sanding block, or maybe even just two new doors. Here you have to make do with what you have. Believe me, if those doors are finished before I leave here, you will see a picture in this blog. The doors might even become my profile picture. Satan, you may be winning the battle, but I am determined to win the war (God willing).

God bless us all.