7 cleared a yard still cluttered with flotsam from Katrina's storm surge
4 helped a plumber from Minnesota on a bathroom
10 cleaned and painted fire "plugs" (hydrants) for the city as part of the restoration of fire protection
4 pressure washed a house
10 (including me ;-) cleaned up after a dodgy contractor at a house where several people are living
Roy (bottom right) lives in a room of this home with his wife who is having that baby tomorrow! He works with the homeowner's daughter and she's letting them live in the house. His buddy behind them is a ranger who just got out of the Army 3 weeks ago.The neighboring house and half the rest of the houses on the street have been condemned. They are designated with a Red X. While the apple tree is blombing and beautiful, this relic of the storm has half the roof removed.
We pressure washed mildew off the outside of the house
We removed the poorly installed ceiling tiles and put them up with enough staples to hold them up. This job will be finished tomorrow with the tiles we bought tonight.
We cleaned out the edges of a floor and removed trim to cover where the tile didn't extend to the wall.
We also nailed down a lot of buckling paneling (cheap easy wall covering), cleared out some more tile problems, installed some crown molding and other tasks. We're all going back tomorrow to finish the job, but really that baby is being induced at 6:00 tomorrow night! We prayed over mother, baby, and family before going to a park on the shore for lunch and our noon devo. Please add your prayers. These kids need all the help they can get.The park is down along the docs from the house we worked on. There are rows and rows of fishing boats. Seafood smell fills the air. There are piles of shucked oyster shells.
This morning at breakfast I handed Miss Daphne a saw donated by Don in Columbus the day before we left. We also used donated funds to purchase a cordless drill and jigsaw, compound miter saw, sledge hammers, drywall squares, level, wire cutters, tin snips, and some other odd tools required for work tomorrow.
I caught Lisa making breakfast and liked this shot, so... here I am sharing.
This kids from UB are great. Not just saying that either. No complaining about any inconvenience. Smart (lots of engineering majors), and very hard workers. I see why Bill Neiss had so much fun with them last year.Here's what a couple of the gang had to say about their day and trip here. TJ is back from last year and Mike is a new participant.
Mike Robinson
Lima, New York
Working today was different than I thought it was going to be. When I agreed to go on this trip, I pictured myself helping families rebuild their houses. I also wanted to have that feeling that I was really helping people, but that wasn’t how things happened. We started to pick jobs, and there weren’t enough people who wanted to go paint fire hydrants, so I signed up. At first I felt like we had been given the busy work, almost like there wasn’t really enough work to go around, so they asked people what jobs some students could do. I stuck with the work and found it to be completely different than I expected. We had a great group to work with, and everybody did their part to make it fun. We set up a good system, and we were able to work well together. I think that everyone wants to do the jobs that get a lot of attention and gratitude, but it’s also important to be willing to do the less obvious jobs. That’s what being a servant is all about.
TJ Burns
University at Buffalo Student
Alfred, NY
Coming into this Spring break I was definitely really excited to come back down and help again with the relief efforts. Last year I was blessed with the opportunity to go to New Orleans to help de-muck houses with Hilltop rescue together with my InterVarsity chapter from UB. That experience was very eye opening and I believe God used us in many awesome ways to touch the lives of those devastated by Katrina.
This year when I found out we were going to Bayou La Batre I was pretty excited to be going to a new place to help. I was also quite excited about the opportunity to do reconstruction work and see the reconstruction process in a new level with new opportunities to share Christ’s Love.
Today, the first day of work, I went with a group of four guys to work on renovating a bathroom. I was interested in the job because it involved a little bit of demolition (which is what I did last year) and also some rebuilding work – a little bit of everything. It turned out to be a little different than what I expected. First, there was a pretty cool blessing that God brought this older guy Clarence out of nowhere to help with plumbing and such. The homeowner, Rosie, was a very friendly lady who seemed to have lots to share when you got her going. I ended up talking to her for a while right off the bat since four guys can’t really work in a 5x5 bathroom too well (at the same time at least ). That was definitely a blessing though and it was great to hear and talk with her about her experiences.
The cramped work, in addition to missing supplies by the end of the day when it came to rebuilding, gave me my first bit of frustration for the week though. I feel like today was a day God used to break down MY expectations about what I think I should be doing or what things should be like and get me thinking more along his lines. Overall I think it will be a very different sort of week, but after day one I think I’m ready to see where God takes me and hopefully not complain as much as I did today! – Tomorrow I’ll be destroying a trailer though which will be a reminder of last year so maybe it won’t be so different after all. I’m excited to serve!
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