Team 23 Returns, Team 24 Heads for New Orleans

Most of Team 23 returned from their week in Bayou La Batre at 4:30 this afternoon. One family flew home and a couple took a father son trip to Atlanta on their way home... kinda... no word on whether they got tickets, but we all now know that there will be a serious rematch Monday night! Here's the crew coming back to Marysville Church of Christ:
Also along were a few from Wooster Church of Christ. Welcome to the gang to Mike and company!

I'm taking Team 24 down to Chalmette tomorrow morning. Half are meeting up in Westerville at 7:15 and picking the rest up at Grove City Christian at 8:00. Pray for our safe trip and a productive week. Also pray for opportunities for us to share our faith. With this team, we are over 700 volunteer weeks of labor!

Team 25 will not be next week. We have 3 high school kids, but no adult leaders so our next team scheduled is North Canton Church of Christ, June 8.

Two more groups called last week to plan summer trips putting us over 250 more prospective volunteers for summer! If you'd like to schedule a group we'll find a place for you. If you don't have one and would like to join one, I'll be publishing existing dates as they solidify. Any time between June 15 and July 30, the work camp will be open in Bayou La Batre and all are welcome.

Watch the blog this week for more updates on our work in Chalmette and some pics of this past week's work once I have them.

John McGuire

Winter Storm Relief

Remember a couple months ago I forwarded a request from Andy Vance at Vinyard who was taking a team out to St. Louis for winter storm relief? I asked for and got an update from him on the work they did and wanted to share it with all.

Just 2 of us went from Ohio, but a group of 20 showed up in Missouri.
We stayed at a Baptist church in Miller, Missouri and worked just North of it in Everton.

Many were poor, elderly or ill. All were very grateful. Many commented that they had no idea how they were going to clean up the mess.

It honestly looked like someone took a huge weed-eater to the tops of every tree in the county. The limbs were all broken at the top. Some limbs were still attached and broken, but many became vertical projectiles once encased in ice and plummeted to earth. Tree limbs pierced roofs, cars and the ground. Fences were destroyed, and in cattle-country that's a big problem.

Our small group cleared over 150 homes in 5 days, with the help of 2 Bobcats. It was a blessing to be able to see so many lives impacted. We prayed with each family and presented each with a Bible from Samaritan's Purse.

we also re-located mid-week to Pierce City. So, 2 communities were helped, but the total homes cleared were over 150.

The weather didn't present any issues. The 5 to 15 degree weather (not including wind chill) actually didn't create any major challenges. We ended up losing a few layers of clothes after about 10 minutes of working.

One person was taken to the hospital for a chainsaw injury to the knee. He wasn't wearing the kevlar chaps that were provided. After that, everyone with a chainsaw had them. The roads were slippery and snow covered (it snowed while we were there) but we didn't have to travel far to the worksites and we were mostly in 4x4 vehicles.

Thanks.
Andy

Article on Team Buffalo in their campus paper

http://spectrum.buffalo.edu/article.php?id=31611 is the article that Erin wrote when she returned with contributors from the group.

Also, find the "La Batre Boys" mentioned in the article on YouTube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWywaIpT7J4

See why I'm so impressed by them!

John McGuire

A note from Team 22

Hey John! So we made it home!!!!! I'm sorry again that we weren't able to email you while we were down there. We were in the boonies!!! lol Anyways, the trip was great! W we took off shingles and put on new shingles. It was so much fun and I only almost fell off once!! We also picked up debris from random places. Then one afternoon Jessica and I stayed at the church to hand out food, personal, infant etc. boxes out. By doing this we were able to meet people from the community that were affected the tornado. I'd have to say all together the trip went well.

The living arrangements were nice. Like I said we stayed at a church youth camp and we were blessed to stay in the nurses station which was a house so we lived very comfortably...although mission trips are not about being comfortable we were very blessed.

Melissa Gauder
New Life Church, Canal Winchester

Team 23 Monday Update

Team 23 had a productive day today. I spoke with Nate Holton, the youth leader from Marysville Church of Christ who makes up 3/4 of the team. They painted houses, set cabinets, and other tasks today.

Yesterday was the beach.

Interesting wrinkle in their week. Be watching for the community center in the evening news Thursday. A dignitary will be visiting there requiring tight security. The team will be restricted in their access to the building for parking and meals, but Daphne's got the contingencies covered. It'll be interesting to see who they may meet :-)

Updates from the team are not forthcoming as the dodgy Internet access has them off the information highway. Nate promises to send out updates when he can find access.

More Team 21 pics

Erin from Buffalo posted a few pictures to her facebook that show the trailer demo work we did two weeks ago. I pulled copies of them to share here: