Dropping Trees: BCM Colorado Mission Trip

Here’s another update from VT BCM’s Spring Break 2014 mission trip to Sky Corral in Colorado.

Joe and Matt working on the splitter.

Today, we began by moving all the furniture in the rec hall to the opposite side of the room so that we could finish vacuuming and shampooing the carpet in there. After that, Matt, Joe, and Jim (Sky Corral staff member) worked on fixing the log splitter that broke earlier in the week. Apparently, having this part go bad is a known issue on this particular splitter, so we were able to find the replacement part without too much trouble. Getting the part onto the splitter, however, was a different story entirely.

Sharpening the chainsaws.

While the others were fixing the splitter, Jim’s son Luke gave those of us without much experience a crash course on running a chainsaw. Luke is a firefighter here in Colorado, and teaches classes at the fire department on chainsaw operation. One of the first things we learned how to do was to sharpen the teeth in the chain with a file. Each tooth has to be sharpened individually and the goal is to have a flat but angled leading edge on each tooth.


After the splitter was ready to go, we went and ate lunch, and then spent most of the rest of our day working on clearing the ridge behind the lodge building. For those of you wondering, I did get the chance to operate a chainsaw, and even dropped a few trees on my own. (Don’t tell my mother that I’m using a chainsaw!).

Sunset.

Please pray for our team strength and endurance as we complete our last full day of work tomorrow. We plan to continue working on the ridge, as well as sending a few people to do some light construction at the local fire station so that they can obtain their CO (Certificate of Occupancy). Pray that the Lord would protect us and give us safety as we work (especially as we operate equipment), and that our work would glorify Him.

We were told that the closest hospital is over an hour away.