When CRWRC Disaster Response Services volunteers completed work on the home of Joan Alvarado and her son, Dennis, they held a celebration ceremony.

The Alvarado home had been damaged by a tornado in April of last year. While the family received some financial assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, it wasn’t enough to repair everything that had been damaged. CRWRC stepped in and sent teams of green-shirted volunteers to scrub, paint, install a new roof, put in new windows, replace damaged floors and walls, and even build a wheelchair accessible bathroom.

As the work drew to a close, CRWRC’s volunteers sang and prayed with the Alvarado family, provided them with a symbolic wreath, and encouraged them to hammer the last nail into their repaired home. It is a ceremony that they’ve done with every homeowner of every home they’ve worked on for the past 30 years.

The practice started in 1982, after CRWRC’s first Disaster Response Director, Neil Molenaar and a volunteer manager, Lou VandenBurg, began cleaning a tool trailer that had just returned from a disaster site.

“As we started to clean the trailer, we came face to face with Dutch frugality,” said Molenaar. “In the trailer were several pails of used and rusty nails. A few were fairly straight, but the majority was in need of major persuasion to be straight and useable once again. It didn’t take us long to make a decision that this supply of crooked and bent nails had served their useful purpose. It was now time to move them to their final resting place.”

The next day, Molenaar was doing his personal devotions and came across Romans 13:9-16. He especially noted the verse “mourn with those that mourn and rejoice with those that rejoice.”

“I truly believe that the Holy Spirit brought back to my mind the pails of nails that had been left in the tool trailer,” Molenaar said. “God’s Spirit reminded me that in the process of rebuilding or building a new home, the time arrives when the last nail is driven in place and it is announced that the home is ready for occupancy.”

Recognizing that this moment could be an opportunity to “rejoice with those that rejoice,” and also give thanks and acknowledgement to God for everything that had been accomplished, Molenaar pulled together other CRWRC-DRS staff and volunteers and put together a ceremony that would be used many times over.

The ceremony includes music, a litany of words, and a prayer of thanksgiving that involves both CRWRC volunteers on location and members of the family receiving the home. During the celebration, the owner of the home is given a small nail and a hammer and encouraged to drive in the last nail. A CRWRC wreath is then hung on that nail as a token of remembrance and thanksgiving.

The wreath itself was also carefully thought through. The outer circle represents the eternal God who has neither a beginning nor an end. The wings are an illustration of the angels He sends forth in all directions to do His will. The star is for Jesus, the Bright Morning Star. The small inner circle is symbolic of sin, while the heart and cross of CRWRC’s logo in its center represent the Savior’s atoning death.

“When we look on this wreath, may it help you recall His sacrifice,” CRWRC volunteer Bonnie Diekema said to Joan and Dennis Alvarado at the conclusion of their Last Nail Ceremony.

And that’s just what they and hundreds of families across North America do every day as they walk through their formerly disaster-damaged homes and remember the love of God that was made evident to them through the work of volunteers. To God be the praise and glory.