Faith

So what do you do when you have a porch that looks like this?

Most contractors said to tear it out and start over from scratch, but Grandpa E. believed it could be repaired.

The first thing Grandpa did was give it a lot of thought over a period of many months. He spoke with a lot of knowledgeable people about it, and asked them about their thoughts and opinions. He watched a lot of YouTube videos, and researched concrete products. He would not have done all this unless he believed it could be repaired.

Eventually, we set up a date to attempt the repair. Since Grandpa lives several hours away, he had us take pictures and send measurements so he could begin preparing the forms for the concrete. He bought some special cement - the kind they use for airport runways.

When Grandpa arrived, he went straight to work. And we helped him. Forming, reinforcing, mixing, pouring, and finishing cement is not easy work, especially when it sets up so quickly. We worked hard for several days.

When we first took the forms off after the concrete had set up, it didn't look so pretty. But we kept working at it. We mixed up more cement and filled in the voids. Then we mixed up more concrete with a special polymer bonder and painted it over the surfaces to make them appear uniform.

The finished result looks amazing!

See that wood trim? Grandpa thought of that even before he came down to make the repair.

I think this is a good example of faith.

• First, Grandpa believed it was possible to repair the porch.
• Next, Grandpa did a lot of pondering, research, and homework to see how the repair could be made. During this process, he came to have a vision of how the finished result might look.
• Then Grandpa prepared everything he needed and set a date to make the repair. He was not entirely sure how it would turn out, but he had hope enough to make the attempt.
• Grandpa worked really hard on the project for several days. He didn't give up when he was tired, or his muscles ached, or when things weren't looking so good.
• We seemed to be blessed with 'Help from Above', such as good weather, and being able to purchase just the right amount of material.

Thanks Grandpa!