How many homes?

Donnie and Sissi are 99% complete. The Texas team had to leave by noon today so tomorrow part of the Virginia team will return to wrap up the final small details. It is absolutely beautiful, you can see the girls painting the bookcases (which barely survived) above. We are so thankful to this team as they were completely prepared, took on the project and did what needed to be done! We hope to see them return sometime soon.

Butch and Teresa are getting help in replacing their deck that was lost in the storm. The team painted inside, cut down a tree with a sawsall ??!! and generally fell in love with Butch. He's an amazing teacher and has patience that put us all to shame!

Art has all his rough in plumbing underneath the house and is getting the insulation under the flooring (see the "muscles" on the guy above) and is ready to bring in some sheetrock to be carried up the steps and into the house to prepare for further work. The team has done wonders, and they thought they couldn't do what needed done!?

Archie is teaching his team to do things they also thought they couldn't do. When I stopped by this afternoon one of the younger guys was all bright eyed at the thought of all he was learning and that he was nailing in subflooring with a nail gun! Archie also planned ahead and this team will be learning to hang sheetrock on the ceiling tomorrow! This is where the young with strong backs really come in handy!

And yet another team that was working at Donnie's this morning headed to Trang's house to help her get some of her lot cleaned of overgrown plants and mess from the storm. They finished that up and will join the others tomorrow.

Mariano and Marie's house is changing by the hour! The old siding is coming off, the new (first time) insulation is being installed from the outside, the housewrap goes on top of the insulation and then the new cement based siding is put on. Following that the trim will go up around the windows, doors and where the siding meets at the top. This team has quite a few youth on it and I am amazed to see how each one works -- finds something that needs to be done and does it. One girl had her own trash bag and was literally on her hands and knees picking up bits of broken glass around the yard. Remember that in all the destruction and piles of debris there is glass and pieces of material that aren't normally harmful, unless they are broken! When I spoke with Maria today (her daughter interpreting for each of us) she was embarrased when I asked her what color she would like to have her house, she asked me to decide. I returned with the question as to what her favorite color was = yellow. So my next trip to Lowes will be to pick some samples and try and get Maria involved and feeling like she can make good decisions.

Last but definitely not least is our Maryland team. Yesterday they finished up the cleaning underneath Hank and Cherie's trailer (complete with mama rat running out and across the top of Cherie's foot creating a completely new dance for Cherie) and then headed about 30 minutes south to sanitize another home for us. The gutting had been done but the bleach solution needed sprayed and they got the job done. Today they headed to Victor's to start installing his new kitchen cabinets and counter top. They have been all over the place and are quite the awesome team. They will also be doing quite a bit of inside painting for Victor tomorrow - something Victor had not counted on. When I stopped by Victor had them all out under the shade tree eating freshly cooked crab and crawfish -- he loves to spoil the teams!

Now, just in case you are trying to keep count of the homes being blessed this week -- if you can do it please let me know so when I do my weekly report I'll know myself! Just trying to get to each home each day can be quite the task but we love to stop in, answer questions and just sincerely thank each team member! THEY are what makes all this work and we are so grateful to each of them. Especially with the temps touching 100 degrees, full sunshine and no rain in sight!!

Tomorrow is Thursday, the day where each team must evaluate where they are and just how much they can get done and also clean up by the end of Friday. It's the day where it starts to sink in "we won't get done" and that can be tough. What they must realize is that what they did makes it possible for the next team coming in to pick up behind them and with team after team the job will get done -- in God's timing! And that is always perfect!

Until next time . . . be blessed. Susan and Monty