Welcome to Building Redemption.  At first glance, it is the description of the design and construction of a 19 foot wooden speedboat in my basement.  However, it also is the story of how God redeemed and brought together various parts of my life, that at the time were not clearly connected in purpose.

Writing about building was an unlikely pastime for me, because the thought of extra time and energy, along with committing to a fairly regular new schedule, seemed like too much volunteer labor.  But interest from many friends and encouragement from my son Austin was compelling.  Finally, when my daughter crafted a blog home page for my Christmas present, it was reality. Thanks, Amanda, for your gift of creativity, vision, and support to start the ball rolling.  Thanks also to my other children and my wife, Jan, for going along on this adventure.

This blog is not yet recording current action.  I started the design process a year ago, and may be around a third done on the boat.  For the purpose of documentation, I decided to go back to the beginning to record some of the chapters with their twists and turns.  The big goal is to give the Lehman Craft LC19 a float test during the summer of 2014, and to bring the blog into real time before that.

Samuel Eliot Morison wrote, “Dream dreams, then write them.  Aye, but first live them.”