NEW PALESTINE — Ally Guernsey points a nail gun at the door frame. Wayne Cooksey shows her where to drive the nail.
“This is for the hinge,” Ally says, speaking of the reinforcing wood and nails at the height where door hinges will be attached to the frame. “We had to do this for every door.”
The 13-year-old says this is the first time she’s done this type of work. But Jack Honea says he’s seen many people, with guidance from experienced builders, learn construction skills they never would have imagined before.
For more than 30 years, Honea and his twin brother, Mack, have led teams of volunteer builders around the country to help churches construct their buildings. They incorporated as the Mississippi Nail Benders in 1994.
Now the group is in New Palestine, wrapping up Week 2 of a five-week building blitz to help New Palestine Bible Church add onto its building at 5954 W. County Road 300S.
The Nail Benders organize weeklong work teams who come in successive weeks to a site. Volunteers pick their week based on when they can take time away from work and what type of task they prefer to do.
Before work begins, the Nail Benders haul equipment to a site in two 16-foot trailers. There are tools, of course, but there’s also a stove and a disaster-relief-style trailer with two showers, two clothes washers and three dryers.
Each week’s work group is like its own church camp, gathering for breakfast and 7:30 a.m. devotions beside the building under a large white tent, where the group eats its meals. Some of each week’s volunteers are cooks and grocery shoppers.
Around the table, and amid shared accommodations, members of a work group really get to know each other.
“It’s like a family reunion,” Jack Honea says. Last year, when the trip to New Palestine was canceled and the Nail Benders didn’t make a big trip amid COVID, was miserable, he adds. “It’s such a part of our lives that we don’t want to miss it.
“You talk about crying — on Friday evening when it’s time to go home.”
Regular volunteers may work with the same people year to year, as they often choose the same week each year. Doing the same task for a week each summer, specializing in a certain part of the process, can help the team work more efficiently over time.
There are enough volunteers with building experience — some of them retired tradespeople — spread among the teams to give newcomers guidance and instruction.
Some of the Week 2 newcomers are teens. About 25 of the 60 or so Week 2 volunteers are youths from Arkansas, making a a week of Nail Benders construction into a youth group work trip.
Pam Savage, a junior high teacher, has seen a number of her Mammoth Spring students go on building trips over the 10 years she’s been a Nail Benders volunteer. She’s seen students who come to serve gain something themselves: confidence as they pick up construction skills.
“It gives them more courage to go,” Savage says. “They realize they can be of assistance, even if they don’t know much about something (to begin with).”
When the Nail Benders leave a site, the work is often about 70% done. Brick and flooring will still remain to be done at the New Palestine Bible Church building, for example.
Yet the influx of work is a jump-start to a congregation’s building project. New Palestine Bible Church senior pastor Brett Crump notes it’s also quite a cost savings — about $350,000 to $450,000 in labor.
The congregation is meeting at 27 W. Main St. (U.S. 52) in New Palestine, but the growing church anticipates moving to the property on County Road 300S.
Its journey toward an expanded facility has included COVID-related delays and price increases for materials. Yet thanks to a John C. Lasko Foundation Trust grant and a bequest from a late church member, the project will still be completed debt free, Crump says.
“For the Lord to provide the way for us to get there is really amazing.”
The Nail Benders’ work in New Palestine began May 31 and will continue to July 3. After that, Marion and Ana Lou Glenn will head north to Alexandria, to see the New Day Baptist Church building Nail Builders built in 2017 before they return home.
The Glenns connected with the group around 2013, when it built a new building in Diggins, Missouri, after the rural church the Glenns attended had burned down. The new building, on a new site, gave the church room to grow.
“It meant a lot, because we had been talking for two years on what to do, Marion Glenn said.
The Glenns began to travel with the Nail Benders, becoming the only volunteers who stay onsite the whole five weeks. The Honea twins say it’s valuable to have someone who can read blueprints and explain to an incoming team where the previous team left off and where it needs to pick up.
The Missouri couple has made a point of visiting all the past Nail Benders builds. Most volunteers leave a site at the end of their stage of the work and never see the finished product.
Even Jack Honea hasn’t seen them all finished. He’s gone to a few dedications later on, some time after the group’s trip, but often he doesn’t. A congregation tends to “dote” on Nail Benders if they show up, he says.
“This isn’t about us. It’s about God’s kingdom.”
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An addition to New Palestine Bible Church’s ministry center at 5954 W. County Road 300S will triple the building’s square footage. It will allow the church to worship in one service there instead of the two services that take place at 9:15 a.m. and 11 a.m. Sundays in its building at 27 W. Main St. (U.S. 52) in downtown New Palestine.
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