Monday July 24, 2006

Today our group awoke early to the wonderful aroma of a hearty breakfast that was cooked by Jeremy and Eliza – it was a great way to start our day. A small group left at 7 am for Home Depot - already a familiar place for us! – to pick up more supplies for the work ahead. The rest of us arrived at St. Paul’s around 8:30 and began to clean the debris from the church yard. We learned that 3 houses next door had literally been carried up and over a fence into the side yard of the church. Although the houses had been since moved, there was a lot of debris imbedded in the sandy group – including personal items like dolls and broken toys. There were some black widows in one section of the yard, so we had to be very careful in that spot! But we made good progress in cleaning the area. While we took a break, our Home Depot gang arrived in the pickup truck, with Randy standing triumphantly in the back.



We then opened the church and began all the projects we planned the previous night. It actually wasn’t that hot in the church, which was a nice surprise. We split up in our teams of carpenters, dry-wallers, and insulation installers – each with a team leader. Lee is our overall general contractor, and he is doing a great job of moving to and from the various projects, helping to ensure that they are going smoothly, troubleshooting, and joining the teams in the work. The teams worked with great purpose all morning – you could hear the hum of electric tools, machines, and discussions as we made a good start on the various projects.



We then took a break for lunch and headed to the coast, where there was a place for volunteers to have lunch. We piled in our vans, enjoyed the great air conditioning, and drove slowly on some coastal roads headed to the luncheon site. The devastation was incredible. There were numerous lots where the houses simply existed no more. There was an occasional boat lying in a green yard on its side purposelessly – clearly dropped there by the storm surge and never returned. And many of the houses that were still standing were not really habitable – many had painted X’s on the front with markings of “GAS” or “NO GAS” and various other indicators for building inspectors. We then headed down the coastal highway a few miles and came upon a huge tent where lunch was being served to volunteers – “Katrina’s Kitchen” – which was open to volunteers of all denominations with a great sign that read “Not one Church, just one God”. It was packed with volunteers from all over the country. We learned that the Kitchen serves 1,000-2,000 volunteers a day, which was a very heartening statistic. The volunteers were tired but friendly – it was a hopeful atmosphere. The open tent was pleasant – breezy with a great view of the Gulf. It was interesting and poignant that the beach stretched for miles in both directions, but almost no one was walking there on sunny summer day.


We then returned to the work site and continued our work from the morning. The groups made solid progress during the day. One note - Frank had to get an anti-inflammatory injection in the morning at a local hospital for some pain in his knee – but he is doing much better and joined us in the afternoon work. We then returned home around 5:30 and showered up for dinner – we let the insulators shower first because that is a messy job! Sandy Castillo, from St. Paul’s church, cooked us a terrific spaghetti dinner with her parents and grandchildren – they are very generous and kind and we are glad to grow closer to them and others here on the coast. After dinner some of us traveled in a van to a Gulfport Barnes and Noble, and we are typing and posting our blog here right now. It has been a great first day in our week’s actual work. (Written by Kevin Fain)