News Flash! First pictures from our work crew are in! Here's one of the whole group in front of the house they are all working on this week. Had a good phone conversation from Steve+ a few minutes ago, heard Cheryl and others shouting greetings from the background--they all sound great! More to come, but I need to get ready to go to work at the library! Sudie :-)
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Late last night (after I had gone to bed) the following email message came from Steve:
"Sudie, it's now 11:00 pm and I've been flat out since 5:15 am. Now I understand why it was so hard getting updates from folks last year.
We have been assigned to work on one house this week, owned by an elderly woman who takes care of several grandchildren, but has been evacuated to somewhere in Mississippi since Katrina. Most of the adults are blown away by the incompetence and neglect that led to the floods and have prevented rebuilding. The youth are mostly impressed by the sense of community evident in the poor neighborhood where we are working.
It makes us adults even madder when we realize how little of that community has actually come back. There is a sense of broken-heartedness about the city that is itself heartbreaking and makes us want to reach out and hug the whole place, or at least do what we can to bring back one matriarch and her family."
Also received this morning, forwarded by Paige, from a youth member of the group, Chris Ervin:
"We got our first assignment today and we are rebuilding a house in the upper ninth ward. The group I'm in consists of Gene, Steve, Cheryl, Tristan, and me. We are building ceilings in a large house. We finished one ceiling and now we are working on another. Gene, is probably the most enthusiastic. He really enjoys climbing up the scaffolding and drilling screws into the ceiling.
We got a large amount of work done. unlike last year were we wouldn't go back to the house we started we get to keep working on the same house all week witch will be really nice because we get to see our final product before we go.
I'm estimating that we may completely finish this house if we keep up the fast pace working."
I'm hoping to get some pictures of the team members at work before long. Stay tuned, and let's keep them all supported by our prayers--they are working hard!
Sudie :-)/
1 comment:
A note about the X painted on the front of the house, above our heads. This was the system of notation used by the search and rescue crews following the storm. At the top of the X is the date it was painted (not really visible in this photo). The left notation identifies the particular rescue team. The right should indicate entry or no entry (NE). In this case that was mistakenly written in the bottom. They were only listening for people alive, not going into homes. The bottom number indicates people or bodies found - 0 in this case: everyone had gotten out. The X was painted from people sitting in boats, so you can see how high the water was on that date based on how high the X is. The water line visible next to Jeanne's elbow shows where the water sat for weeks after it had settled down from the high point.
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