Today we leveled the flooring, put on decking, and built a wall. Tomorrow: more walls. I like walls. I miss walls. I'm sleeping in a bunkhouse with thirty other men. What are the odds you can pick thirty men more or less at random and end up with none that snore or fart while they sleep? I think about the same as a bunch of monkeys typing up the complete works of Shakespeare. And come to think of it, thirty men crammed into a bunkhouse are about as smelly as a bunch of monkeys.

There's a man here named Conrad. He used to be a contractor, and I think he can build or fix anything. He shows up at our site at exactly the point when we're confounded or about to do great harm to ourselves or the project, and sets us all straight without making anyone feel stupid, without drawing attention to the fact that he could probably build it faster without us.

He came out to volunteer, then went home, shut down his business, and moved his family out to live in a little trailer on the Lagniappe Church site. We moved his trailer to build the bunkhouse. He's still working as I type tonight, installing an ice machine. This is a great and wonderful thing, because tepid Gatorade just does not hit the spot.

I see men like him and realize how little most of us do, even when we think we are sacrificing. In a week I'll go home to my comfortable house and bed. Every night he sleeps in that trailer, after working twelve or fourteen hours.

What is it in these men? They fascinate me, that they can give up so much, that they can be so patient with the van loads of people who roll in here for a few days of bending nails and getting underfoot.

I've read about commitment like this, but I've never witnessed it up close. It's humbling.

Oh, and because I know you're all wondering: yes, the boy got dinner. With dessert.