Dear PET-Kin,
The home is quiet now. One set of grandkids have gone skating with their Mom and Dad; The others have yet to arrive. Our 19th shipment left on 3 March and our 23rd on 8 December. If my math is correct, that counts 250 PETs shipped this year. Our 1000th PET will move from WCPC to Colbert Presbyterian Church on Wednesday. If they are willing, I think we’ll stable it there until the Spring celebration with Dave’s band, barbecue, dancing and more. All of this has been possible because of the incredible team God has gathered together for this ministry. We may think we are building a machine but when they arrive in the villages of Mongolia, Central America, or Africa what we’ve really done is help some one build a new life up out of the dirt and into a life of dignity. Thank you to all of you who commit this part of your lives to PET. There are 2 things I’ve learned from 6 years of working with steel, wood and tools: (1) If you change one thing find what else as also changed; (2) One thing not done stops the process until that is completed. An example of (1) is when we extended the frame, it changed the way we pack: of (2) The lack of a brake handle means the PET can’t be completed. Thankfully, we haven’t had much of these as we have more than doubled production without even trying. A book by Dov Seidman “How: ..” seems to explain this: It’s not so much WHAT we do but HOW we do it that makes the difference. As I’ve read the book (And I recommend it), it seems that we’ve followed what he teaches without knowing that’s what we are doing. Our focus seems to be HOW we keep going or HOW we solve big problems; for example, the need to make our own pedal posts. Thinking this way, will bring many other examples to mind.
Our 7th year starts in February 2012. It’s been a fun and rewarding 6 years. Getting to know all of you and many more has added density to my life and I thank you for that. Just this morning as I came back from a futile attempt to get into our church, I found three of our dedicated painters diligently and creatively at work on a massive pile of wood parts: density. The way Buck made our 1000th PET so dazzlingly “rainbowish” keeping with our theme is a dramatic new way: density. It will be hard to disassemble and pack that one when its time comes. The men and women of the companies that have been with us these 6 years and some very difficult times for them but they stayed with the ministry: density. If you “look” where you can’t see, the men and women in their own shops and homes building frames and cutting steel, cutting reflective tape, cutting and sanding wood parts, creating and editing our newsletter: density. We have been given the grace of filling up each others lives in ways we could never conceived of but God knitted us together in an incredible team for “the least of these”.
We are well into our next 50 PETs. On Monday, we had packed 1007 and John had 2 more being finished. We have all of the parts to keep going but may stumble here and there. The one problem yet to be overcome is the lost of the hardboard we have learned to use in so many ways. The one use needing replacement is the two pieces we put in the box to keep the frame and handles from punching through in shipment. Some kind of thin plywood or equivalent will do the trick. See you next year if not sooner. Thanks.
Dick Carpenter
