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Joey English and three close friends took time off from work in Georgia late last week and drove a four-seat pickup truck 1,300 miles in 22 hours straight to spend a week helping strangers build a house in Milo.
They weren’t nervous about what, or who, they might find in Maine. Not a bit.
Experienced construction workers, English and his friends, whom he thinks of as brothers, had clues that their philanthropy would not be for naught. They knew that the family they were helping, the Metillys of Deer Run Drive, were devout Messianic Jews, as are they.
“I had faith that we would come up here and get as much done as we could,” said Matthew Smith, 34, of Adairsville, Ga.
“We were led,” said English, 23, of Calhoun, Ga. “You know what trust is? It’s faith in action.”
They had heard through their network of churches that the Metillys were a family of 13 – 11 children, plus a baby on the way – who were building a massive but no-frills house on land where fire destroyed their uninsured home and belongings in March.
“We just heard this as a cry for help,” said Hubert Barbee, 34, of Cohutta, Ga., “and with them being the same faith as we are … I hope someone would do this for me.”
But their second-biggest clue, they said, was their get-to-know-you telephone conversations that revealed family patriarch Gary Metilly’s fatal weakness for puns.
Really bad puns.
Like when Metilly learned that English’s nickname was “Nut” and that he liked to sing and play guitar, English instantly became “Johnny Cashew.”
In similar fast, goofy fashion, “Maine” begat “Mainiac” which begat “JerMaine,” and so on, as Metilly and English vied for the dubious title of master punster.
“Yahweh has a sense of humor. He made every one of us,” Smith said in reference to himself and his pals.
“And he made the Northeastern accent,” said Michael Abernathy, 27, of Ranger, Ga.
“We did not ride up in the ‘cah,'” English joked in a slightly exaggerated Maine accent. “We took the truck. Three in front and one in the back seat.”
Yahweh, and the men’s craftsmanship, helped the Georgian construction crew, along with the Metillys and 15 other volunteers, do a lot of work in a short time, said Gary’s wife, Nancy Metilly, who is due to give birth in a few weeks.
“Gary had the first-floor joists up and some of the floor, but they did the rest of the stairs, the flooring and two walls on the first day,” Nancy Metilly said. “I couldn’t believe it.”
By Wednesday night, the crew and other volunteers had about 25 percent of the entire job done, Abernathy said. The first floor, outer walls and inner wall framing were up, as was the second floor. The crew estimated that the volunteer work would have cost at least $3,700 for labor, plus $20,000 for materials.
By 5 p.m. Friday, all of the second-floor exterior walls were done, as were the first-floor walls and floor. The porch walls had been started. Enough had been accomplished that the men from Georgia decided to return home today.
The quality of the work, Gary Metilly said, is “awesome.”
“Things are in line, so all of my loading and electrical work will be easy,” Metilly said. “I will not be running into needlessly used nails. Everything fits, and it’s a tight fit. They have a routine right down pat, which makes them more efficient.”
The crew expected to finish the outside walls and do much of the inside work, presuming they did not run out of building supplies.
“Myself and my guys, we work harder on this job than we would on a paying job,” Abernathy said. “We want it to be great.”
“We wanted to have it dried in, with the roof on and tarpapered, by the time we left,” English said, “but I don’t think we’ve got enough supplies for that.”
At 2,000 square feet on each of its three levels – the basement and two floors – the house might seem large, but it is small for the 14 people who will live there, Abernathy and Metilly said.
It will have six toilets and showers, four sinks – “they’ll still have to wait to use the bathroom,” Barbee said – a large kitchen, dining, living and school rooms, and four bedrooms, including a master bedroom for Gary and Nancy Metilly, a guest room and two large girls and boys bedrooms for the rest of the Metillys. Their children are Isaiah, 19, Elizabeth, 17, Jonathan, 16, Andrew, 14, Josiah, 13, Hannah, 10, Hadassah, 7, Miriam, 5, Ribqah, 3, Shamyah, 2, and 15-month-old Ezekiel.
The cellar will be for firewood, storage and an office for Metilly, an aspiring electrician looking for full-time work, plus a small workshop and the building’s utilities.
“There’s nothing extravagant about it,” Abernathy said. “They are just getting what they need.”
Acting as the job’s unofficial architect and foreman, Gary Metilly said it was a challenge keeping up with the Georgians.
“I wanted to be sure that I knew enough about the job and what needed to be done, and how it needed to be done, so I could keep everybody busy,” he said.
“What he really means is that he wanted to be sure he could check our work out,” English teased.
Metilly is a gentle boss, the Georgians said, and they loved being around his family.
“Dude, they have one girl there, she is just the cutest thing,” English said of Shamyah. “Every time she looks at you and she smiles, you have just got to smile back.”
“Their kids are amazing,” Abernathy said. “They are some of the best-behaved children I have ever seen. They never argue.”
The politeness, generosity and quiet friendliness of the Milo residents they met also impressed the Georgians. The donations to the Metillys include a $1,300 Wal-Mart gift certificate, a Three Rivers Kiwanis Club gift of $1,000, and tons of clothes and other goods. The Georgians stayed at Down Home Bed & Breakfast of Milo at a reduced rate.
“And every morning, we have had homemade bread and doughnuts, and it is good,” Abernathy said. “They bring us coffee and homemade bread and doughnuts, healthy doughnuts, every morning for breakfast.”
“It’s kind of like an oxymoron, ‘healthy doughnuts,’ but these are,” Smith said.
Metilly said he was intensely grateful for their help and faith.
“They are getting this house up in really short order. We have gotten so much done,” Metilly said, “and they have been really great. If at all possible, if God provides the cash, we would probably go down there and spend some time with them, too.”
The four men might have come to Milo as strangers, Metilly said, but they are leaving as family.
How to help
Mail donations to the rebuilding effort to The Metilly Fire Fund, c/o Maine Savings Bank, P.O. Box 447, Milo 04463. To help rebuild the house or donate materials, call Metilly at 943-3402 or bring them to 33 Deer Run Drive in Milo.
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