Down in Soowwth Carolahhhhna

--2:30 am, Saturday the 18th: a fifteen-seater maroonish van quietly rolls out of a farm lane and heads south. The morning is dark, but one can just make out a balding gentlemen behind the wheel, and nine figures buckled into various seats. All is quiet; no one speaks, and the only sound is made by wheels sloshing through snow.
--4:00 pm, Saturday the 24th: a maroon van lurches down the freeway, rocking back and forth and bouncing on its axles. It pulls into Lona Station, careens down a farm lane and skids to a stop. Ten kids burst from the van, and a fire immediately erupts.
What caused this massive transformation? The answer lies across a week and 1500 miles...

Intrepid Mr. Westy was the brave chaperone/leader/chief hooligan of the group; the already scanty hairs may have dwindled a bit across those seven days.
The group was heavy on the Westy factor; Dave, Tim and Lydia came too. Then there were the Luit.s; Sarah, Kara and Derek. Mike VM, Scott K. and myself completed the party.
Here's a picture of the newly-purchased seminary building. It was built in the 40s, I think.
The guys' job was to surface-grind the mortar for re-mortaring.

The girls were to clean and rescue as many bricks as possible for re-use.
Things got interesting when we discovered that many of the bricks were set, not in mortar (as any sane builder would do), but in cement... eighty year old cement :)
A definite selling factor for working were the great JIG lifts... and whereas in Canada you might need special training to go up 10 feet, in SC the sky is the limit (figuratively speaking.)

More toys...
Our most valued worker there in the centre :)

All in all a great trip! Thanks to the Westys for their planning, driving and these pictures (some day I will buy a camera!) Sarah L. has many more pictures on her blog. And I haven't mentioned the other, huge motivation for my going down there: to see Curt, Jen and Phillip. More on that in the next post :)