We are in the middle of a renovation project on one of our buildings at The Lord’s Ranch, and part of that project includes redesigning the chapel there. Our goal has been to create a tranquil and quiet place where people can spend some time in prayer with the Lord.
As is often the case in the history of our community and ministries, the Lord confirms that we are on the right track in attention-grabbing ways. That has been true for this project in that we have had two multiplications of building materials during the remodeling phase.
Javier Alvarez, the architect and general contractor in charge, ordered 7 ½ yards of concrete to pour the new sidewalk surrounding the building. His daughter told us, “My dad knows concrete down to the penny. He has worked with it for so long, he knows exactly what he needs, exactly what to order, and there is never any waste.”
He had his men lay out the 2”x 4”s for the frame of where the concrete would be poured. The truck arrived and the process of pouring and smoothing began. “You hear a distinct sound when the concrete is coming to an end in the truck,” Javier told us later. “You hear gravel rolling around. But after we had filled in the framed area, there was no gravel sound.” He asked the driver, “How much is left?” The man shrugged his shoulders not knowing.
Javier always has his workers frame out an extra section just in case there is extra concrete. So they moved over to that. Still not hearing the emptying sound, he yelled to his men, “Move it out, extend the frame. Quick!” They hammered down wood frantically ahead of the pouring spout of concrete.
In the end, Javier estimates that about 10 yards of concrete was poured. He asked the truck driver, “Let me see the ticket to see if I made a mistake in my order.” But no, the invoice showed that he had ordered only 7 ½ yards. He asked the driver, “Do you know why we got more than we ordered?” “Maybe the company decided to donate more to you because you are a church group.” Javier said, “No, they wouldn’t do that without letting me know because they know we wouldn’t have been ready for it. So why do you think this happened?” The driver, who had delivered concrete to us in the past for other projects, simply responded, “Because things like that happen here.”
As a result, we now have a nice extended porch area that we had not planned and that we didn’t have to pay for. We’ll share the other multiplication story in a future month.