Reflections on a bridge surveying trip

In this early morning hour, the sky still blazes with night’s blackness and the stars that pierce it. But, I am awakened by freshness from sleep and reflections of my journey. 

We surveyed three bridge sites yesterday here in the beauty of western North Carolina.   

Bridges that cross rivers of crystal clear trout waters, rushing over stones and boulders polished by millennia of erosion of the Appalachian Mountains many thousands of feet higher than they are now. Some bridges serving houses more stately than my own, in landscapes that tourists flock to admire. I think of the need for bridges in West Virginia that cross creeks polluted with mine tailings and sewage, leading to houses with leaking roofs and leaning on their rotten foundations, which their inhabitants must reach by long walks along railroad tracks, or across rickety wooden walk bridges. I think of the people in the Dominican Republic who live in shacks of wood walls, rusted-through tin roofs and dirt floors. I stayed up late the night before collaborating on a project to raise funds for their self-help efforts.  

How different all my work settings. How can one compare need? Can one compare need? What is material need? What is poverty? 

After examining his bridge site yesterday, we followed Ted over the remains of a teetering bridge to his house and admired the cherry wood interior and swimming pool nestled into big artificial rocks crafted like a zoo setting for sea lions. He insisted on taking us to town for lunch. Eventually he came to the subject of his estranged son. He never mentioned his wife. We parted with his profuse thanks for taking time to listen to him, and for coming to look at the bridge.  

The next stop was with Ben, who was fortunate to have the temporary use of a downstream neighbor’s bridge to allow him access to his house. A 60-foot-wide gully 15 feet deep marked the place where his bridge had previously stood. Even deeper was the gully created by the loss of his wife a year ago, for whom he expressed his gratefulness for 57 loving years together.  

Another person, Susan, did need her bridge replaced, because the river channel had widened from 40 feet to 80 feet, and the next storm could destroy the remains of her temporary crossing. What she needed at that moment, though, was to rehash that, a week after losing the bridge in the flood, her father died, and a week after that, her son died. Hugs were needed for swollen red eyes and a broken heart. 

As we survey more flood-damaged bridge sites, besides measurements and technical data, what needs will our hearts encounter? 

One morning, we set out in 17 degrees and wound our way along mountain rivers. Sunlight pierced the trees and turned the ice covered rocks into jumbles of sparkling jewels. Sam’s bridge looked solid, composed of big steel beams supported by concrete abutments sitting on bedrock. Only on closer look did we see the damage to the deck created by the logs and debris that swept over it during the flood. He had just been in Florida to grieve the death of his mother and to support his father. In the midst of that, he received a message that a pickup had fallen through the deck of his bridge. “Oh my Lord, this is just too much to take at once. I can’t take any more. But then I remembered that the Lord says he doesn’t give us any more than we can handle. An hour after that news, a Cathy Earl calls and I hear the Mennonites want to fix my bridge. Here you are already! The Lord does answer prayer!” 

We found Samantha, a middle-aged woman, while she was hauling wood to her house in a wheelbarrow, getting ready for the upcoming snowstorm. She needed a short 20-foot long bridge to span the ditch which separated her from the highway. “Can you put guard posts on that bridge? You never know with all the teenage drivers that come to see me.” Oh, you have teenage children? “Well not my blood children, but all the children that I have come to love at the addiction center who come to visit me as if this were their home.”  

Maybe that’s what we are doing, building bridges, so that homes can be a place of welcome.  

Johann Zimmermann is principal engineer for JZ Engineering, a longstanding MDS partner.