Although we committed one weekend (October 11-13) to remodeling a nail/hair salon, it was a long and eventually rewarding process. For anyone who knows my background, after 7 years of education, this salon was my first REAL project. I was able to do pretty much every aspect on the job, including initial schematics, final design, project management, budget, buying, manual labor, and clean-up. There were multiple aspects to the project. This semester the youth group had watched the movie, Pay it Forward, where the young boy in the movie suggests that everyone do three BIG things for three other people. In return he only asks that they do something big for someone else, hence pay it forward. Well, doing something big for Celia, fit into this concept. Although I got to do a design and Carol and I used our funding to make this project happen, it is mostly about serving others in the name of Christ. The youth group made this project happen along with some really awesome people who gave up part of their weekend. Although the design was brewing for about 2 months, the actual execution of the project took place over about 2 weeks, and really just one weekend. We bought supplies in São Paulo the week before. Then the Thursday night youth group was used as a service night and we spray painted shelving and made vases to hang in the salon. Projects continued on to Saturday at 5 when the salon closed and we moved in. I like to call the project, “While you were out, Itu style.” We worked from 2 p.m. -10 p.m. on Saturday, 2 p.m.-10 p.m. on Sunday, and 9 a.m. to 1:30 a.m. on Monday. We cleaned, taped, PAINTED, painted, and painted some more, made flower arrangements, rearranged furniture, and turned a very industrial looking space into a girly salon, in the Victoria Secret, pink/black color scheme. Celia came back on Tuesday morning and seemed shocked that we had finished so much. There are a couple of impending projects, but for all intensive purposes we are DONE.
