This blog follows my exploits in Hood River, Oregon through late October until Thanksgiving. For the next month my energies will be largely consumed by one thing: building a hand made canoe to give to Mr. John Childs so that I might ask for the hand of his lovely daughter Kristen N Childs in marriage.

Thursday, November 03, 2005


Tom's 87 subaru with the canoe strongback on top and the Hood River foothills in the back.


Noah has got nothing on me. Hood River has been flooding for the past 4 days and the forecast has no end in sight. If it gets much worse, I’ll be using this canoe before Mr. Childs ever does. Okay okay so Noah built his ark to save humanity all life on the planet, etc etc, and I’m building a canoe as a brideprice. Not exactly working to rescue humanity, but it’s nice work… if you can get it.

The problem I’m facing is that I am building a 16ft canoe in a 19ft garage. Not much room to wiggle around. And, there is a very important math equation that I didn’t realize until now: when you are stripping 14 foot boards you need 28 feet of space. You start at one end of the saw and push it through to the other. So, needed space = board length X 2.

I had been stripping my board outside until it rained but not anymore. If the boards get wet the wood expands and then when I am setting it on the canoe the wood changes shape. My friend Tom and I ran in to one guy in town who tried to build a canoe last year at this time and he said that he had put all his boards on the canoe but when it got cold and wet the wood expanded and the canoe snapped. I promptly bought a few heaters to place in the garage after hearing that story.

At any rate, there have been many unforeseen obstacles and many of God’s provisions up to this point. The guy above was one of those provisions from God, I think. We ran into him the day before it started raining and it is just so weird how he happened to have built a wood strip canoe this time last year. If he had not told us to be so careful of the temperature and moisture we wouldn’t have bought the heaters and the canoe would probably have been ruined before I finished it.

Second, there is this guy in town who builds wood strip canoes. We had left a couple messages with him about buying boat designs and some material from him. We never heard from him so we started to give up on him. But then the other day he called us. He had been out of town driving one of his custom canoes from here to New York. I told him about the brideprice canoe and my difficult mission and he tells us to come over to his shop that day and pick up some materials and he shows me some really helpful hints for canoe building. Saved me a couple days worth of work at least.

So now as this rain comes down and makes my difficult job seem even more difficult, I am reminded that God has already provided help in making this canoe happen. He has put his hand in it and now I pray that he will continue to provide for my unexpected needs and canoe building hurdles until the end. I’ve come this far and the rain will not stop me.

And the fact that I’m out here has God’s handwriting on it, if you ask me. Tom is a big example of that. Tom is the guy who God used to allow the building of this canoe to happen. I couldn’t build a canoe alone; I’m just not that handy. I met Tom this summer when I took classes at the University of Oregon. He lives here in Hood River and builds houses and is just generally good with things like this. When I started thinking of how I would build this canoe we got in touch again and he offered his shop up to me, his help, and a place for me to stay for the entire month. How many people can do that? Plus, he just happens to be on the west coast which is necessary because I would have to transport it to Tucson to present it to Kristen’s dad. From here, it’s only a 2 day drive. From Philadelphia it would be at least 5. I feel like Johnny Appleseed: “The Lord is good to me, and so I thank the Lord, for giving me the things I need, the sun and the apple seed, the Lord has been good to me.”


My friend Tom helping me set up...before the rain.

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