First Update (One Month Since the Fire)

Originally written June 16, 2023

Thankful. Grateful.

I've been wanting to write a social media post every day for the last month. But I could never find the words to put into perspective the wild ride the past 30 days have been.

In short, I realized that I had to just start typing and see what came out, and that no matter what, I wanted the first words that anyone read regarding this entire process; the ups and downs, the late nights and early mornings, the sparse time to share with my wife, the physical and mental exhaustion, the soot, the rust, and the abruptness of it all, is that I am thankful and grateful. My wife and I's perspective on all of this is that things happen. I'm a firm believer that there isn't "good" things that happen or "bad" things that happen, but things that happen in which we can work to control our perspective on the circumstance that creates our reality. We are intentionally choosing joy daily. Issues are presented, but we can solve those issues with tenacity and creativity. My kids are safe, my wife is safe, and everyone I know has their health, so I promise you, we are good.

Even standing there watching the smoke billowing from the building, I personally never experienced any unmanageable sort of worry, frustration, anxiety, or "why me?". Amidst the chaos, I watched athletes drop what they were doing to come love on us as we stood across the road watching our building burn. We watched members of ours who are firefighters whom we love storm into the building (even on their day off) in full gear to combat the fire, risking their own safety. Policemen whom we know and love stop by and offer their time and experience. Members of ours who are doctors and nurses asking us "is everyone okay?" ready to render themselves as utility to help with the gifts they have. Others comforting my wife, praying for us, and consoling anyone who needed a hug. A friend of ours stayed to comfort our kids while we could work to begin to resolve this long process of what is to come. And further, the bank President who holds our mortgage even came to offer comfort in giving us expectations of what's to come and provide us with an understanding of a bright future. And lastly, the doers asking me "what can I do?" offering their hands and backs as tools to be utilized in whatever task needed to be built, dug, created, crafted, cut, or painted. They knew we were starting fresh as soon as possible, and offered concrete support in making that a reality.

Within an hour of leaving the property, we had equipment secured and a space to occupy. Both men who I spoke with equally share credit in allowing us to never miss a class. I am forever grateful to both of these men in allowing us to negotiate a mutually beneficial scenario that gave us the opportunity to jump back into offering a service that we felt held the standard to the best of our ability. The morning after the fire, 20-30 of our athletes showed up like a scene out of Mad Max with trucks, enclosed trailers, and open trailers. We drove two towns over and picked up the equipment that we have been using for the past month. Athletes took time off of work, sacrificed time they could have spent otherwise with their friends and family, and donated what I consider to be most precious of gifts, their time, to us. We do not take this lightly, and it is beyond us how so many people have been so selflessly helpful.

From that point on, the process of getting the church up and running began. Turning a literal church into a literal gym each week requires a massive amount of manpower that goes under appreciated. Every Friday after our final class, we pick up every single flooring mat, all of the barbells, dumbbells, rowers, echo bikes, kettlebells, racks, medicine balls, jump ropes, change plates, chairs, coolers, trash cans, TVs, rogue timers, plyo boxes, chalk buckets, and bands and store them in trailers and closets. Only after the room is completely cleared do we bring out the 150 chairs for church and begin reorganizing the lobby area and turn CFT 100% back into Gateway, that is ready to rock and roll for Sunday morning. Just as soon as everything was picked up on Friday evening, on Sunday morning after church, we put up all 150 chairs, and the lobby and we then begin pulling out all of the equipment once more to begin offering classes.

It's been a wild ride of turning this situation at the church from "less than ideal" to "better than we could have ever expected." Weeks ago, Lee and I drove to Atlanta and picked up a 15' tall 24' pull-up rig, this was then mounted to the 14'x 50' concrete pad that was poured and dried JUST in time so that we could host Memorial Day Murph as a gym and actually 100% do it. Considering this as well, Mike Pender and his son came out with massive machinery and cleared a running trail across the heavily wooded back 8 acres of the churches property. So not only was Gabriel able to schedule and set-up to pour a concrete pad on the back of the church with a couple weeks notice, and not only was Lee able to find the perfect rig in Atlanta, and not only did we find the time to drive 6 hours to pick it up, and not only did Mike and his son clear us a mile long running trail, and not only did Oscar have and let us use a 24' enclosed trailer to make set up and take down possible, and not only were Andy and I able to build a bridge across a creek so that the run could be smoother and a bit safer, but all of this was completed in just the first three weeks of being at the church. Not to mention all of the other 100 moving parts going on in the background. It cannot be overstated just how impossible it is to do any of this without all of the incredible people involved.

I cannot begin to express my appreciation to everyone that reached out to us to check on us asking how we were doing and expressing their genuine concern for us. If I named everyone that comes to mind that I am appreciative for, this post would be 300 pages. I am beyond appreciative for every coach, for every athlete, for my wife, my babysitter, and for my kids who've been incredible. The 12-18 hour work days we've had since the fire is just that, only work. Most importantly we have our health, and we have our community, which is what we care about. We've lost members of course, I personally understand completely, but what cracks me up is that we've had many people JOIN while we are at the church. I genuinely cannot even begin to express how excited I am for them to go from this as being all that they know, to progress forward into what is to come. If any of you are reading this, just know that what you are experiencing now is going to get x30'd in just a little while. I am exceedingly hopeful that we can make their jaws drop at the building we will be returning to shortly. I can honestly look you in the eye and say I've spent nearly every waking minute of every day trying my best to keep the experience that we've had at CFT for the past 13 years alive and well within the walls of Gateway. It's not perfect by any means, and I make mistakes all the time, but I hope I can make it up to all of you and really, with your input and approval, turn the building we knew and loved into something even better. With heating and AC this time...

We aren't slowing down. Within the first two weeks we had either met with or had appointments to meet with engineers, the mayor, the city inspector, fire marshal, architects, and builders (we e-mailed the engineer again this morning actually). Last week when we met with him, the engineer told us bluntly that the "Part of what's going to take quite a while before you can even begin is you getting a concept of what you want. You'll need to really sit down and spend some time figuring that out before we meet." To that I just asked for a sheet of paper. That's already done, I took the time between asking for a meeting and the actual meeting to knock that out. So now he's working through what he needs to get done. We are ahead of the curve and will strive to remain there. We were able to get him an understanding of exactly what we are envisioning. I drew out exactly what I was thinking, and Candace and I met with an architect and builder that day and toured the engineers team around. We are confident in him and we are going to get this thing rolling and break ground as quickly as possible. We've never done any of this and (hopefully) will never have to go through anything like this ever again. But we are communicating with all parties involved as soon as possible so that when the starter pistol goes off we are sprinting. We aren't going to be on our heels.

We are making this work. We will remain resilient. We will retain our perspective. We will rebuild our building, the business, and our community better than ever. Our passion before May 7th remains identical to our passion after May 7th. We will make our future #bettereveryday. We will hold the standard and work as hard as we can to provide you all with the best we possibly can. We will resolve every issue to the best of our ability. I may not get on social media often, but I am always available. I am always a text away if you need anything at all or have questions. I appreciate input and just again want to express my sincere appreciation to everyone. Thank you Trussville Fire Department, thank you former members, current members, future members, friends, family, the city, the church, the church members, literally everyone. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.