Sold ?? Not so!!

What a couple of days it has been.

Each day my phone battery has died before mid afternoon, each day registering nearly 100 incoming calls! I had to get a charger to plug into my truck today so I could charge it while on the go! What in the world did we do before cell phones!? I don't think I can remember!

The first phone call I received was a bit of a shock -- the couple that had planned on buying our home in Indiana called to say they couldn't raise the downpayment and would not be buying it!!! And this is after they had a garage sale, sold our couch, chair and both beds! Oh well -- we were't using them anyway. Guess we'll get an air mattress or something if we get back home for any time at all! I admit I was greatly disappointed but I also know God has it all under His perfect timing and this wasn't in His timing! Doesn't He have quite the sense of humor!?

As I finished that call I arrived at the meeting with our new UMCOR team! Did you catch that amazing word -- team!! And what a team it is! Our duties are shifting from the case management and construction to just focusing on the construction -- a great shift for us! We received our schedule of teams that will be assigned to work with us and as I looked at the schedule I realized teams are booked clear to the end of October!!!!!!!!!! Is that awesome or what! We have homes ready and more going onto the books daily! We are so excited!

From that meeting it was driving back and forth with errands to prepare for case management review this morning -- getting all the paperwork lined up and each piece copied for the review team. Yes, I have about 11 cases that I will still manage through the process but any new ones will be referred to Lee, the UMCOR case manager. I've already been sending them! But I had 4 cases to prepare and it took me until bedtime but they got done.

Monty spent his day also running to and fro. He was picking up paperwork for me, checking on some ongoing jobs and enjoying all of it. It's so great for the both of us to be working together as a team again -- it's what God put us together to do!

This morning started early with Monty visiting even more homeowners getting some estimates from them to help get them lined up for the funding process. I headed off to the case review meeting where everything went very well. I just have to get a couple documents from a couple of homeowners, proof that their property taxes are paid. The approval is done and all I need do is fax over those documents and the checks will be prepared.

Speaking of checks, the funding came through for Benjamin and Rita so their progress with speed up. Laura is getting her big deck built and her skirting on her trailer is complete. Hai continues moving forward and inching closer and closer to having only the outside siding to be done and pronounce her "home."

After my meeting I was invited to a luncheon hosted by the Houston Christian radio station. They are planning a community wide event where they will offer 3 different weekends where the public can sign up and come and volunteer for a day. We will offer one weekend of working on churches, one working on a school and another working in homes. They do some sort of community project each year and have wonderful turnouts. This should be fun, it will just take a bit of organizing on the ground first.

From there it was off the the lumber yard to get materials for AJ's house. The team will be arriving there tomorrow morning and be unloading the materials we packed into the van and then doing trim and framing and anything else they can get done in the 2 days they are here. I also learned how blessed I am to have the relationship with Lowes that I have, I was not at Lowes and it took nearly 2 hours to just load some trim things!!!

It was after 5pm before I got back to the trailer, loaded down with papers and files. With what Monty had picked up I had some of them complete. He talked about his visits with Art, a veteran that has alot on his plate also. Monty was able to minister to him and I think it was a great help. Monty has a gift of being able to do that with homeowners, they seem to sense that gift and love opening up to them -- and he spends as much time as is needed with them!

As we were eating dinner I received a call from my youngest daughter who currently lives in Ft Lauderdale. She has been offered a job in Boston, has accepted and will be making the move in about a week! Talk about a temperature change --- she's really excited but will need to make the drive alone. Please keep her in your prayers that her trip will be uneventful and safe. It makes a mother worry!

Tomorrow is a new day -- a new team arrives -- a new homeowner will get to experience the blessing of that team -- and the team will get to experience the blessing of the homeowner -- it's what makes the disaster relief work! We serve such an amazing God!