From Both Sides
*Author’s Note: Shelley here! I am so very proud to get to welcome my husband to the blog today in his debut post. He is currently on a construction mission trip. But this story is something very precious to his heart. I hope you enjoy it. Please welcome my husband, Don A. Wilburn.
“GOD IS ABLE!”
This is one of the first things I learned when I met the Chilton Baptist Builders from Alabama. God Is Able. It is their mantra; the truth they live and work by. But before I go farther into that, let me start from the very beginning.
In 2002 I was pastor of my first church and we were in the one thing almost every pastor dreads – a building project. We had heard about World Changers, Carpenters for Christ, and many other building crews and groups. We didn’t have a lot of money to get done what needed to get done, so I started looking for a crew to come help us.
It wasn’t long and one night my phone rang. I found myself speaking with Tommy Bishop, President of the Chilton Baptist Builders from Alabama. We hit it off right away and I knew God was getting ready to do something amazing. Of course, there was a small crew who had to come and check out everything ahead of time, Tommy being one of them, then they would pray about it to see if we (meaning our building and project) were a good fit for their group. So, we scheduled for them to fly in and meet us to look over the area.
The first time I met Tommy, my wife and I, along with another couple from our church, were standing in the airport waiting for Tommy and two others. I didn’t know the people we were waiting for, so I didn’t know whom to look for. We watched as passengers began filing into the airport. Then, a man walked up to me and said, “Hello Brother Don, I’m Tommy Bishop.” I knew then that I had just met my spiritual brother and God had bonded us together.
The Chilton Builders came to our church in June, 2003. As a pastor who is also a carpenter, I wanted to help as much as I could. However, there were so many questions from so many of the builders, they told me I was going to have to put my hammer down and answer questions for them. Therefore, during the week they were at our church, I ended up walking around the site making notes and getting answers to those questions.
The men began pulling in the Friday before they were to begin working. Watching guys unload air compressors and nail guns, ladders, scaffolding, and various tools, I began wondering, how do they know what size nails I need to buy. Then I watched in amazement as I saw that everyone who brought nails guns, brought their own nails!
I then realized, these guys aren’t just people who got up one morning and decided to go build a church. These men, who not only pay to come so their meals and motel are taken care of, also bring their own vehicles, pay for their own gas, their own supplies, ladders, tools, etc. and sometimes they even bring their own material.
When I met with Tommy and Talmadge (who was overseer of the meals and motel rooms), I drove Talmadge to the local grocery store to order food for the days the builders would be with us. The Chilton Baptist Builders have a cooking crew who get up just as early as the men, cook breakfast, make lunches, and then feed dinner to the entire group after they’ve worked hard all day. They need a good menu with good, homecooked food.
As I drove Talmadge to the grocery store, I watched as he ordered steaks which they reward the men with on the last night of the work week. I watched as he wrote a size-able check to pay for the meat. Then, I drove him to the motel where the men would be staying and listened as he negotiated a fair price for the block of motel rooms. It was when I watched him write a $15,000 check to cover the rooms that I had to ask, “Where does the money that you’re using to pay for all of this come from?”
“It comes from the men.”
“You mean they pay to come on these trips?”
And then Talmadge said something I’ll never forget: “They not only pay for their room and meals, they also pay for their own tools and even some of the material to build with. AND they give to bless the church they’re building for.”
What kind of people did we have working on our church?!
From the side of the pastor whose church is being built, it’s humbling to watch a crew of between 75 to100 men pile out of trucks, strap on their tool belts, and start working. I wanted to work with them. However, as the pastor, I couldn’t work and answer questions at the same time. I mentioned that above, but let me explain.
Between the building of the walls, setting the roof trusses, running the electrical, and various other things, people had questions. So as was my custom, I grabbed the closest scrap board and began making notes, in order to find the answers to their questions, reminders to order various supplies, and things like that.
I ran around my church praying, “God, what am I going to do? How am I going to answer this?” We didn’t have blueprints. We had a rough sketch on a piece of paper… okay, a napkin… and that was it. So, when the guys asked questions, they were pretty serious and legitimate questions. Therefore, as the questions came, I wrote them on a block of wood, praying over them as I ran back and forth, and as God answered them, I scratched them off my list.
The week went by quickly and soon we were celebrating a successful week with the Chilton Baptist Builders. They invited us (pastor and wife) to eat steak with them. I have to add, they always go the week of Father’s Day, which also falls on our anniversary. When the builders came to our church, my wife and I were celebrating our 20th anniversary. We couldn’t think of a better way to spend it, nor with better people than these men and women.
We enjoyed what we witness in these people, so we decided to go with them the next year. We took a few people from our church and traveled to Joplin, Missouri. I was so excited to get to be on the other side, and couldn’t wait to get to bless this church and their pastor, because I knew how much not only I was blessed, but the people of my church as well!
I remember standing in the fellowship hall one evening after a meal, listening as two older women of our church were doing dishes. One said, “I can’t believe they didn’t know anyone here but they came and helped us out!” The other agreed saying, “Maybe we should find people in our community to help and tell about Jesus.”
I had been preaching for six months about the same thing – then the Chilton Baptist Builders came and without knowing it, showed them. Now, here I stood, in Joplin, Missouri, ready to work for the LORD and give back what had been so graciously given to me. Having been on the pastor side of it, I was more than ready to be on the opposite side, the giving side. I was about to learn a huge lesson.
As we began the work, I’m assigned to set the steel on a carport. Quickly, I realized the anchor bolts were an odd size. I needed a deep well, inch-and-three-sixteenths socket. I asked Tommy what to do and he said, “Holler around the site and ask if anyone has that socket. God wouldn’t send us up here without sending the tools we need along with one of the guys.”
Well, okay.
So, I began walking around, yelling out, “I need a deep well, inch-and-three-sixteenths socket!”
Suddenly, someone yelled back, “Yeah! Go look in that yellow truck over there, behind the seat! I left home, and then went back to get it because I thought, someone might need that.”
Things like that happened all week long.
Another time, I was on scaffold raising walls 24-feet tall. We had a scissor lift I was using to push them up. One day, the local news crew came by to do a story on what we were doing. They put a lady reporter in the lift with me and I took her up to get a view of the entire work area. She leaned over and snapped a picture of a couple of men on the floor, then looked at me and asked, “Can you give me their names?”
I said I didn’t know their names. She was baffled and asked, “How can you work with guys you don’t know?”
“So far, I haven’t needed to know their names. We just go to work and do our job. Those two guys are here to serve God, same as me. We’re all on the same team.”
It was the same when the builders were at my church. One of our local radio stations had a show called Sound Off. It was on for an hour on Wednesday evenings. It was a chance for people to call in and have a discussion.
A guy called me and asked if I would have Tommy to call in and talk about the Chilton Baptist Builders and what they were doing. He did.
Tommy was interviewed on that radio show and got to tell about so much God was doing. But because of that call, not only was our church blessed but so were people who listened to stories of what these guys did. As the result of the radio show, the next month our church got several checks in the mail from people we didn’t even know, who heard of the sacrifice people made, and they too wanted to help.
Even one of my own church members contacted me, wanting to make a sizable donation, but insisted it be anonymous. So, I got a deposit slip from our treasurer, gave it to the church member to take to the bank, and asked the bank to mail the receipt to the church. The donation was $5,000.
These are just some of the blessings God works as the result of people giving their time and talents back to the LORD.
There are so many things about the Chilton Trips (as we’ve lovingly come to call these mission trips) that I can’t even begin to include them all. But don’t think it’s always serious business. Although these guys can and do work hard, they also pray and worship hard… And they also play hard.
Safety is always first on the job site. However, when they sit down to breakfast and lunch, always served on the job site, the water shenanigans begin. Expect to get wet. No one is immune. It may be a cup of water down your back or over your head. Or, it may be a bottle of water in your lap. Since we’re working outside in the heat, it’s really more of a blessing than a hindrance.
Some of the younger guys bring Super Soaker Water Guns. Those come out after dinner, after dark, usually on the parking lot of an ice cream place. It’s so much fun to see people having a good time, laughing and enjoying just being together. You may get wet but, afterwards you also get hugged and told how much you’re loved.
Something else I learned from the pastor side of these trips. Every morning the cooking crew delivers breakfast to the workers in Styrofoam containers. I met with them every morning and noticed they would get scrambled eggs, sausage or bacon, a biscuit, sometimes gravy, and grits. Always grits. At the time, I did not like grits and made the mistake of voicing my dislike for them. So, the next morning, my container was marked as one of the ladies of the Cooking Crew handed me my box.
“Here’s your breakfast, Brother Don.”
I had a bad feeling about that. I opened my box and sure enough… five pounds of grits. The next morning I got grits again, and again, until finally someone enlightened me: “Brother Don, you’re going to have to eat grits.”
I had no idea that to a Southern lady, it was an insult to decline or even to state your dislike for grits. However, I learned really quick that week. Fortunately, one of the other guys came to my rescue and literally taught me how to make them tasty enough to eat.
I’m happy to say that I now like grits.
I mentioned earlier that when the Chilton Builders were at my church, I carried a board to write notes on in order to answer various questions about concerns on the job site. Every day I had a different block of wood, because every day there were different concerns. I spent my days walking around in a huge circle around our building. There was a lot of stress for me, because there were at least twenty questions or problems each day. Each board represented one afternoon of guys asking me questions.
I would take that and say, “I’ll go get the answer and be right back.” As I went I would pray, “God, give me the right answer to give these guys.”
About six weeks after the Chilton Baptist Builders left, I had a different problem. Not with anything they had done. I really don’t remember the problem, but I remember I had a very serious concern. It’s a problem that pastor’s often get, but can seldom discuss with anyone in the flock. I was heavily burdened and needed to seek the LORD for the answer. So I went to the church to pray. I walked in and told the church secretary, “Don’t disturb me. I’m going to the altar.”
I always liked to walk around the sanctuary as I prayed. But this day, I went to my knees at the altar and asked God to take care of the situation and asked if He would. The last thing I asked was, “God, would you give me a sign to know You can do this?” I then got up and walked away from altar.
I don’t know how long I had been in the sanctuary praying, but when I came out, standing in foyer was the secretary holding some sort of package. She handed me a padded envelope and said, “The mailman just handed this to me through the door. It’s for you.”
I took it and immediately noticed a name and return address from one of the Chilton Builders from Alabama. Curious, I opened the package to find a block of wood. On one side of the block was written every problem I had had on the job site one day. At the bottom was a note taped to the block which read, “Your notepad was found and we put a note on it for you.” I turned the block over and routed on the other side is the message: God Is Able.
My prayer had just been answered. God taught me that day that no matter how many problems I have, or what comes my way, if I’ll pray and give it to God, He is Able to take care of every concern I have.
Sometimes when you have a huge burden… and you ask God for a sign and an answer… He has already had men of God prepare that answer and send it to you in the mail so that the minute you stop praying and stand up, the mailman hands you the reply.
I mentioned earlier that when I went on a Chilton Trip, I went with the expectation to bless the people of the church and their pastor. The lesson I learned was this: Whenever you go to work for the LORD, always go expecting. And what ultimately happens is that YOU are the one who gets blessed. At this writing, I’m currently on another Chilton Trip, though my stay with them will be short this time. Still, I’m honored to get to serve what time I will have with a great group of brothers in Christ. I also know that, in the couple of days that I can serve, it will be I who will be blessed as I do my best work for the LORD in order to bless the people of the church I’m working on. It’s humbling.
Also, I still have that block of wood the Chilton guys sent me. I look at it often, even carrying it in my work truck to job sites when I’m building. I’ve used it for encouragement many times, including once to stand on it in my sock feet to preach a difficult message. And every time God reminds me of the power and truth of that statement:
God Is Able.
