Thursday Evening

Today was a long day. Our first task was to clean the former school which we're staying in, which was an ordeal. Carey, Bill Edson, and Patty cleaned the men's restrooms and showers, Kevin mopped the place, and on and on. After finishing that, we had a spill with Diet Coke in the cafeteria right after the floor finished drying, so that had to be cleaned up before heading to the work site. Both of us were at Miss Fontenot's house doing the tiling, we had to take down all of the old insulation in the room with the rat skeleton and replace it all. Afterwards we all had some fun in the showers scrubbing the fiberglass off of us. The best part of the day was interacting with Miss Fontenot and seeing her smile, along with her daughter and grandchildren. At the end of the day, we headed over and paid some big bucks at an upscale cajun restaurant, had a devotional, and wrote this post. -- Carey Boyd and Derek Farris

After mopping the dining hall this morning, like yesterday, I worked in the office to help where I was most needed. I was more productive today than yesterday, as Barbara the new manager gave us solid direction yesterday afternoon on what they really needed on a priority basis. The clients had not all been entered in the Access database, which helps to sort the clients by their application date. A few clients from 2006 and 2007 had gotten ahead of the 2005 clients' needs, so the data entry that Carolyn McKee and I did today is instrumental in getting the right date order in place for clients to receive services. "Everything decent and in order." Seems like something Albert Swarts would say. I think I appreciate my current job in Houston more - and the walls and roof that keep my family safe and dry. I think I appreciate my family more. That includes my church family. Diane Anderson's thumbs are numb from the volume of filing she has been doing to help catch them up. They can find their files now - Yay!! - and more importantly, God's work is being done. --April Dickson

Christie (mom), Howard (dad), and Breneston (9-year old son) DeJean continue to be friendly, involved, thoughtful hosts for our work at their house, together with their BIG boxer dog, Prince Ali. As you may have previously missed (since I don't think our team blogged recently), new vinyl siding now covers an 18-inch by 12-foot hole high up on the outside bathroom wall that had long been left open to further rain damage. Sadly, the DeJean's have now shared with us that insurance money only covered re-roofing costs, which led to the first well-meaning but disorganized Christian volunteers promising to do siding, bathroom, and window restoration work on their house over 1-1/2 years ago but then FORGETTING to ever come back and finish (until now, when WE finally walked in to start making good on that promise). That same terribly rotted, water-damaged bathroom which we gutted to the studs on Monday now has new gleaming white tileboard all over. Its worn-looking mouldings around window, ceiling, tub, and door have all been re-stained and reinstalled. New waterproof plastic woodgrain mouldings and quarter rounds have also been installed around the bottom of all walls plus the vanity and the one-piece fiberglass tub. The existing vanity, sink and faucet have now been re-installed after the new tileboard, but now with renewed cabinet stain, plus DEEP cleaning and renewing of the acrylic sink, plus no more undersink leaks from the shutoff valves and the drain pipe to their bright new vanity cabinet floor (that our team member Sally thought to create from a tileboard scrap). An unsafe, water-damaged light fixture has also been replaced with a new fixture that any wife and mother might enjoy having in her "master bath". Seeing all of this, Christie put her hands to her mouth and gasped about something that all of our team members USED TO take for granted - "Finally after all this time, no more big holes all over the inside of rotten bathroom walls, and no more LEAKS all over the place!" In addition, Howard has insisted on taking time between his double shifts in a Johnny Carino's restaurant kitchen to thank us by fixing us one kingly lunch yesterday (by his family's modest budget standards) of Beans and Rice with Beef tips, then today even while he was at work to have Christie warm up a tray of Carino's lasagna that he thought to bring home FOR US after his second shift last night. And perhaps most significantly, through many discussions while watching and helping, young Breneston has had whole new worlds opened to him - asking and learning why strangers might travel to help others even without getting paid, learning about circular saws, jig saws, miter saws, reciprocating saws, measuring tapes, pliers, utility knives, valves and pipes that he might someday like to work with for himself. He also learned about caulking (and its curious "guns" that DON'T hurt anybody), about friends who like to help together even if they don't all look and speak the same way or even come from the same continent, and especially about being a helper himself and the joy that it can provide him now and into his own future. Thanks to all back at our little Saint Paul Presbyterian Church in Houston who are supporting us both in prayer and financially this week. -- Dewayne Anderson