Our story so far: If we couldn’t repurpose the things we found in our old church during demolition, there were three ways to get rid of items we had no use for: Throw them away, give them away, sell them.

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During demo, I made several trips to Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity’s Restore. Some furniture, light fixtures and even Christmas trees were our trash, but some other man’s treasure.

On an early trip to the Restore (which accepts construction materials and operational appliances and resells them for Habitat for Humanity’s housing program), I tried to talk the manager into taking the built-in cabinet and accordion room divider that had been between the sanctuary and the overflow space.

 

Tyler and the hired man St. Johnny loaded them into our pickup and secured them for the 20-mile journey to a new life, and I was assigned transportation responsibilities.

I pulled up to the drop-off just as a garbage truck pulled into the lot to empty the store’s dumpster. While the truck’s beep-beep-beep created background music, the Restore manager eyed my goods.

“The bad news is, we’re not interested,” he said. To be fair, the accordion divider had seen better days and the built-in was designed for, well, a church. “The good news is, I can try to talk to the trash guy into taking them. I’ll help you move them from your truck to his.”

The garbage man agreed. It being a couple of weeks before Christmas, I hurriedly dug ten bucks in cash out of my purse and thanked the dump truck driver profusely. I was sorry to be further filling a landfill, but grateful for serendipity.

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Tomorrow: I find a couple of motley manger families living in the Christmas closet. Click here to read it.