Chris's New Hobby

Hi everyone!

Over the break, I came across a hobby that I found I take great joy in: woodworking...in the most general sense of the name. It began because I wanted to make some Christmas gift for a couple of my friends out here and I wanted them to be special. I don't know why God put it on my heart to build things out of wood for them since I had nearly none of the proper tools for it and no experience, but He did. Thus began my journey with woodworking, and what a fascinating journey it has been! So full of learning and mistakes and yet, God has had His hand on it the whole way; He has provided me with tools via borrowing from others, He has provided me with wood via kind people or random pallets that I can salvage, and He has provided me with time to do it. Most importantly, though, He has blessed me with a wife that is supportive and loving and allows me the freedom to try my hand at these things... It has been great!

I started off with little gifts for my friends, as I said earlier: a couple of pipe holders (one a pipe holder, ash tray combo), a wall-mount bottle opener (not pictured), and a coat rack.

By the time I had finished these pieces, I had caught the bug. Haha... I like the pipe holders so much that I made one for myself. Then I saw an idea for a pencil holder, so I made a few of those too. I made one for my good friend, and pastor, Mike, that is moving to Corvallis with us to plant a church; I wanted to make him a pencil holder for his desk. Can you guess which one is his? I gave one of the other two away to a good friend of mine that is a high school teacher and Rach and I kept the other one.

I was really having a lot of fun at this point. It is really amazing the detail and beauty that God put into His creation. It is really cool to look at a piece of wood and see "imperfections" on the outside and know that after a little work, it will be beautiful on the inside. I love seeing the grains and patterns in different woods pop out after having put in so much work; it is fun investing your creativity into something and seeing it come to fruition.

With all of this time and experience under my belt (haha), I decided to try my hand at making a table. Why not, right? I wanted to make an end table out of a natural slab of wood and happened to know a guy who had a tree fall at his neighbors place. He was kind enough to cut me a few large chunks of it to play with as he was using the rest for firewood.
While working on this end table, I decided to make another one out of some reclaimed oak from shipping freight that I bought this summer. I learned a lot while making these two tables... I learned how to make something with a screwless design (and how hard it is to line the holes up!), the order of operations for conditioning, staining, finishing the woods, sealing the wood, making and attaching legs and spray painting them... It was an experience full of frustration and learning, but it was also very rewarding. In the end, a woman I work with wanted the other one, so I was able to make it to her specifications and add a smaller, removable shelf at the bottom.

Woodworking has been such a blessing to me this last month or so. It has completely re-kindled a creative side of me that I had nearly forgotten, it has allowed me to share a creative bond with my awesome wife and sparked conversations about how we would like to make and furnish our house someday -something I previously had left completely to her because I didn't care. It has allowed me to spend more time with a very close friend of mine, Alex, as this has become a hobby of his also;  and it has allowed me to meet and talk to and develop relationships with people I previously may not have ever met or talked to. It has been wonderful gift from God to be able to try my hand at woodworking and really fun to see how He has used it even in such a short time.