This was no Frosty the Snowman. The winter creation skillfully built by the Wiersma Family was remarkable. Dad, Nolan, also a youth pastor, tells us the icy lighthouse “stands about 14-feet tall, has a spiral staircase on the inside, and an observation deck around the outside.”
You may be wondering, ‘why?’
Family, fun, life lessons, and most of all, Jesus.
This is the fourth year the Pella, Iowa, family worked together on an outdoor winter project – and this one was, by far, the most complex. The tradition began “as a way to just get out of the house and now it’s turned into a fun family thing for us.”
In addition, “We think there’s a ton of life lessons in this for our kids as far as teamwork and patience and hard work and perseverance. And it’s not all roses, so there’s time when we have to use a little conflict resolution as well – quality time – and it’s really become something that people have enjoyed in our community and it kind of allows us to work with our kids on having a mindset of looking to serve others and make other’s day.”
Sidenote: 60% of the Lighthouse Snow Fort workforce was under the age of 10.
Nolan explains he and wife, Katie, like to ”wrap their faith” into family projects as an example to their children and even the community. “So, we kind of liked the idea of a lighthouse because there was a new challenge for us, with the observation deck and the spiral staircase, but we also like the picture of a lighthouse and how that relates to our faith in Jesus ... the true light in life.”
Something even bigger about the towering project:
“As we were working on the ice sculpture this year, we just kept feeling this nudge to maybe try and let God make it be something bigger than we originally planned. The Sunday School that our kids attend was collecting donations for Living Water Wells who were digging clean water wells in Zambia. The Sunday School coordinator at our church chose this cause because our church’s previous pastor and his family recently relocated to Zambia to work in the mission field. We were building something using water in the frozen form and we knew of a place that was in need of water, so we simply threw out an offer on Facebook that if people enjoyed our creative use of water they might be interested in blessing others with clean water too.”
Project strategy:
How did you get the snow to pack so well? “We had to heat our garage and load Rubbermaid bins filled with snow that we scooped from the yard. We often sprayed the snow down using a 2-gallon yard sprayer. Since it was so cold when we built it, we’d let the snow sit in the garage for anywhere from one to two hours before it was wet enough to pack into bricks using Rubbermaid tubs. Once packed, we’d dump the packed snow brick out and cut it in half using a handsaw. Most of the lighthouse was created using these types of bricks although the spindles of the observation deck, triangular supports for the observation deck, and steps for the spiral staircase required a different mold. We estimate that we hauled in around 200 Rubbermaid bins of snow into our garage.”
With a chuckle of mixed feelings, Nolan explains, even in Iowa, winter is not always boneshaking. The lighthouse “lasted about two-and-a-half days” until the temperature hit near 50-degrees one day with bright sunshine. The Wiersmas tried some snow resuscitation on the project, “but we were fighting a losing battle.” The lighthouse became “a big pile of snow.”
But there’s always next year.
In our complete podcast interview below, learn how a Rend Collective song also played a role in their decision to try and build a lighthouse. And there will be some permanent fond family memories, like the night they ate dinner in the garage, surrounded by bins of snow, as they worked on the lighthouse.
