98 degrees is HOT

Lunch is always served when we work at the Spanish Village! Thanks to Anita and her family the volunteers never go without a wonderful lunch! Diane continues to work there, framing windows, hanging curtains, installing window air conditioners and whatever is needed. What an amazing place to be working in!

Our Illinois team got started at Barbara's house this morning and worked till dinner time. The heat is oppressive and being inside makes it worse. Thankfully they brought two gigantic fans to use inside the house and it saved the day, or atleast made it nearly bearable! They hung and finished sheetrock all day and proved to be quite the finishers. There is an art to the taping and mudding process and these guys know the art! They brought the quick dry mud and what a smart thing to do as drying time in this humidity can take forever! Barbara also came to town for the next couple of days, she has doctor appointments, and she took the time to come by and sit and visit with the team for awhile. It's always so nice when the teams have the opportunity to meet the homeowners, it brings awesome blessings! She will be coming back tomorrow. She was just so surprised to see all of the progress that has been and is being made! It's actually beginning to look like a real house again! We are just so thankful to this team for taking time from their own lives to come here, knowing it would be extremely hot, and blessing others!

Monty and I headed north of town to take a look at another home that has not even been torn out yet! The lady had filled out a request for work form and we always go and look at the homes before sending teams there. This one has alot of dried black mold but it is dead mold. She just has so much "stuff" in the house that it must be cleaned out before we can do any kind of remodeling. We will be sending members of our teams coming next week to just go in and help her sort through everything and decide what can be saved and what must be thrown out. She has rented a storage facility to put the saved things in and these can be taked directly there as they are being sorted. This is the kind of task that does not require a "skilled" person, just a person with the heart to help. There is no such thing as unskilled and this job is a perfect example of there being something for everyone! We will probably send 8 - 10 people to help her and they will most likely be there all week --- there IS that much stuff!

We also welcomed Dee Dee here to Gautier tonight! She only has a couple more days to teach in Pascagoula and we felt she would be alot better off here with other volunteers. Being over there all alone is not necessary, and besides, we missed her! Being here she will be helping the church office staff with things they need later in the days after teaching and then joining in with the teams of volunteers all next week! She found the accomadations to be quite nice in comparison also -- carpeted floors! It's the little things that mean so much!!!! :) It was also nice for her and Diane to join us for dinner this evening. Having real friends here means the world to us!

Tomorrow will involve making some decisions about Barbara's house. Her air conditioning unit may need to be replaced, not to mention appliances and bathroom fixtures. She lost nearly everything and what insurance money she did get went to put on the new roof. As always, we pray God will provide what is needed at the time it is needed. It's just another step of faith!

As always, we thank all of you that are following our journey on the road to rebuilding. Without you and your support we would not be able to do what we are called to do. If others of you would like to help us continue this relief work you can send your gifts to us through our home church, Vineyard Community Church at PO Box 3277 in Bloomington, Indiana 47402. Please remember to note "Katrina" on your gift as all of it does come to us, the church does not keep anything. Your hearts of service and giving are such a blessing to us and the people here in Mississippi.

Also, as you might have already seen, there is the first tropical storm now off the coast of Florida and has been updated to a hurricane. Please keep everyone all along the coastline of the USA in your prayers. NO ONE is ready for another storm!!!!

God bless each and every one of you. Until tomorrow....Susan and Monty