The Love Your Neighbor team was recently blessed with a large donation of woodworking equipment and tools – enough tools, in fact, to set up a complete workshop!
We now have a workshop onsite at Pulpit Rock filled with high quality tools ready to build bunk beds for kids, nightstands for families starting over, and anything else we can think of to love our neighbors here in Colorado Springs.
We have decided to name our new gift the Humblewood Workshop. We chose this name for two reasons:
The tools were owned by a woodworker in Union, Maine named Lowell “Si” Sibole. He ran a woodshop called HumbleWood. Si passed away in 2016 and his brother was holding onto the tools until he found somewhere to donate them. I am overwhelmed that he thought the Love Your Neighbor team was worthy. I did not have the privilege of meeting Si, but the more I learn about him, it sounds like he was a great man.
Written by his family, this small excerpt paints a picture of a man with a big heart and love for everyone:
“His life was full of story, art, humor, good cooking, music, and most of all friends and family. Union, Maine, where he spent the last 15 years of his life, says it all.
Union! He brought everyone together! He was not a fighter and instead strived to bring peace and love thru the simple promise of a smile if you were to pause and sit or even just wave as you passed. He never stopped giving, never turned his back, and was always there with a warm welcome, a cold drink, and the offer to help.
If he wasn’t swapping stories on the stoop, you could find him building something or perhaps carving a little treasure – a little mouse perhaps. Look around, he may have hidden one in your house!
He made beautiful furniture his whole life and his work is in homes, private collections, and shops all over the country. In each and everything he has ever made, rests a piece of his heart and love for woodworking.
Si was an Air Force veteran, and not having seen active service, humbly turned down any recognition. He was a hero in his own way to so many. He’d be more likely to share the stories of his marble championship and soap box derby days as a child in his hometown of Conshohocken, PA than he would of piloting planes.”
There are so many things I love about what they wrote, but my favorite is, “In each and everything he has ever made, rests a piece of his heart and love for woodworking.”
That is something we can strive for in our new Humblewood Workshop. We can be intentional about using our gifts and talents and making sure all we do is done in love. Like Si, we can leave a piece of our heart in everything we make – we can give so others can feel loved.
Si was a very talented woodworker and it is evident in the partially completed pieces, jigs and patterns left behind with his tools. (Check out this replica that Si built of Andy Warhol’s dining room).
As we move forward and work to make Love Your Neighbor a more sustainable ministry, every piece we make to generate funding for bunk beds will be branded with our new Humblewood Workshop brand.
Some of the things we make will be exact replicas of pieces Si designed. Others will be our own designs, but all will (hopefully) reflect the love and care Si put into his projects.
Please join us this Sunday, February 9th, in the new Humblewood Workshop (room 115 at Pulpit Rock). We’ll be in there before and after both services – so stop by to see the workshop, ask questions and hang out for a little bit.
We’re looking forward to showing you the amazing blessing that is the Humblewood Workshop.
While our focus is still building beds, we are thrilled that we get to serve the community in a variety of ways as Love Your Neighbor has grown over the years.
