Thursday, Mike and I checked out the projects that Phil had lined up. He gave us some back ground info on the people that we would be working for. One lady is taking care of her grandson because her daughter was shot by the daughter's husband who then turned the gun on himself. This happened in front of the grandson, in 2003. This caused turmoil between the Grandma and her husband who then left. She then moved to Gulfport in June of 05, and we all know what happened in August of 05.
Chris and Michelle Elmerick ran into challenges on the way down and had two "Godsightings". Randy and Dana Dobroat also had challenges but made it through. It seems that all our challenges happened in Alabama! We just need to find a way to bypass Alabama. I am writing this on Saturday night and one of the teen vans had a flat tire in Alabama.
I went out early on Friday to lay some block, since Chris got in about 9:30p and Randy got in about 3a. Mike took Chris and Randy out to look at some of the jobs Friday morning. I finished up about noon and came back to the camp to eat lunch. After lunch I went out with Mike, Chris, and Randy to look at the rest of the projects.
Tami Keigley, her sister and nephew got in about 7:30. Larry and Kim Brothers also came in Friday night.

I will try to quickly bring you up to date. Monday I was expecting the group from southren Indiana to be helping me. Well... there was a little communication challenge, they diddn't get in till late Monday afternoon. So I have help, major help, Tuesday and Wednesday. I have had four gentlemen and twoo teen males helping out, and they ROCK! We have gotten so much accomplished it amazing. Only one of them had ever laid block before, but two others jumped in and picked it up. It has been great! The ones not laying block have been mixing mortar, carrying blocks, cutting rebar, and just general fetching. This group has also brought two women and two female teens that are awesome cooks. The group is staying at the Wittenbergs,not at Gkk. There they have to provide their own meals, and I have been eatting supper with them. We had some killer Lasagna last night, and sloppy Joes the night before. The only bad part about all of this is they are leaving tommorrow morning early. :(
Mike and Carolyn Schaffer made it in yesterday afternoon. They were planning on being here Monday, but there truck decided that they needed to stay at the Prattville, Alabama Ford campground. They had some mechanical problems, but have them all fixed up now. I had the opportunity to catch up withh them last night. Chris and Michelle Emerick left last night, and Randy and Dana Dobrought are leaving this morning. More of the group is going to be here Friday, with the rest coming in Saturday and Sunday. I am so excited to see all these folks. (Especially my Wife and daughter :) !!!!!!!!!! )

This is the house on 34th ave that we closed in the back porch, screened the front porch, put down some flooring, and put in a bathroom exhaust fan.Turn your head sideways for the las t one. I will try to bring you up to date and add more pictures tonight.

Here are pics of the blocks we had to clean, and the homeowners home that had four feet of water in it.

Here are so pictures (I hope). These are of the house in Pass Christian that we did the tile floor in.

I will quickly bring you up to date on what I have been doing the last three days. Saturday Nash went out to the new house with me and helped me snap the outside lines and put down some measurements. We then went and looked at acouple of projects that he had been working on. Got back about 11a, so I started my laundry, ate lunch and then headed back up to the worksite. I got one corner of the house blocked.
Sunday I got up, went for a walk on the beach, went to church, then a group of us went to lunch. I then stopped by Circuit City and picked up an adapter so that I could download my pictures to the computer. Got back to camp and played around with trying to get pictures into my blog, couldn't quite get it figured out so I took a nap. Abunch of us then went up to Henderson Point for a BBQ. That was a lot of fun.
Monday, I went up to the worksite, got two more corners up, started the fourth corner and laid out the rest of the walls.
This morning I am heading back up there to start laying some serious block. There is a group from Southren Indiana that will be helping me today.

Friday, got up, got around, killed a little time before breakfast started. Ate breakfast, found Travis ( the leader of the Ohio State group) told him what I needed today and then headed to the new site. I had ten students come up, they pulled the forms and stakes, dug a trench, and moved a bunch of block onto the slab for me. We then headed back to camp to eat lunch. Some of my group desserted me because their rides were leaving to go home. I took what I had left up to another site where we hope to be building a house while the group is down here. They had to finish tearing down the sill and clean the lumber that was there. I took Travis back to where we worked in the morning so that we could set lines for the walls. We were working on that when the homeowner showed up with the windows he wanted to use in the house. It was a little different arrangement then what the blueprint had shown. I got those measurements written on the blue print so that I can lay out my block runs. By that time it was time to go pick up the other group. I got back and it was almost 5p, and I had set that time for me to get with Greg Porter about the daycare bus. Greg is the founder of GKK. They have a bus that they are going to equip with kids toys and stuff, and a puppet stage, to take to each of the FEMA parks on a daily basis. While the group is down here it is going to be used for a daycare. He has groups that are going to get it ready next week. Had supper, a shower, went to service, then chilled.

I had a fantastic day yesterday (for the most part). I didn't get out of bed untill 7:15, ate breakfasthung around for a little bit, made plans to meet with Matt and Jamie for lunch. I then headed for Lowes. I was attempting to find block trowels at a reasonable price. I checked out Lowes, and then went to a place called Hoods Discount. It is a surplus building materials store. I wondered around in there for a while untill Matt called me to say that they had left the camp. I met them at CiCi's pizza, where we had lunch and then we said goodbye. :( I am really going to miss them, hopefully they can be back before I leave. I would love for them to meet the rest of the group, and the group to meet them. After that I stopped and washed my car, stopped at Big Lots, Tuesday Morning, another surplus buildng supply store, and a catalog return store. Are you catching a theme here? Yes, I am cheap! I end up back at Lowes and bought the trowels there.
I came back to camp, got with Vicky to give her the lowdown on the rest of the group coming down. I then took a nap, and went to supper. After supper, two of my bunkies, Matt and John, and I walked down to the conveniance store. Came back, went to service, after which the staff surprised me with a birthday cake and card. It was really a good day. I have to start anew post for today.

What a day! We had 25+ students come out to help us today! We needed them. Our 38 yards of concrete ended up being 56 yards. Woops! I am not sure where I miscaculated, but I apparently did. We had a challenge getting the xtra concrete, the last truck getting there at 6p. After we got that down, we picked up tools, cleaned them, loaded them and come back to camp. We ended up leaving the site at 7:55p. The homeowner's son in law was attempting to get it troweled out with the power troweler.
I decided I am going to take it easy tomorrow. I need the clean out my car, and reorganize it. Nash wants me to replace a toliet here at the camp. I also have to say goodbye to Matt, Jamie and Rylan. They have to leave tomorrow. :( I am going to really miss them. I'll try to post again tomorrow.

Even though I didn't get to bed untill about 2a, my eyes popped open at 5:45. Got around, gather what we needed, and headed up to the new site about 7:45. Got up there, laid out the footers, and Matt started digging them about 10:30. Jamie brought us lunch about 12:30. We had a group of students from Ohio State at the old site cleaning lumber. After lunch three of the student came up to the new site to help us. They worked on final grading the footers, and kept taking readings for Matt to keep him on track. We worked till after 8p trying to get done, since we had the inspector coming on Tuesday.
Tuesday morning, Matt and I headed out about 6:40a. Matt finished fine tuning the footers while I worked on setting the rebar. We had five of the OSU students show up about 9a. We had them start leveling up the pads. The homeowner's son in law came over to help us out again this morning. By 12:30 when Jamie brought us lunch the kids had the pads leveled. In the afternoon we finished the horizontal rebar, got the plastic down, started forming the pad, and got the horizontal rebar done. We are finishing up the forms, and putting in the rewire in the morning before the concrete comes at 10a. The inspector came about ten and passed us, it looked like we knew what we were doing I guess. Left the site about 6p today, went by Home Depot to pick up a few things on the way home. Did email and a couple of calls after supper and a shower. Heading to bed now. Yak at you all later.

Saturday morning woke up about 2:30, got around and heded out by 3. I went to Little Rock, Ar for the weekend. I got into Lonoke, Ar about 1p. I went to Lonoke to visit Mildred Carroll's grave. Those of you who are not familiar with Mashalleske, Mildred was one of our original associates. She died January 7th, the day before inventory. She was everybody's Mom/Grandma. We were all her "kids".
I cleaned up her gravesite a little, and put some flowers out. I went and checked into the hotel, a Super 8 in North Little Rock. Had dinner at Cracker Barrel, and went to find Steve and Sara's church. Located it so I would know how to find it Sunday morning.
Sunday morning I got up, around, and headed to Grace Church. When I walked in the door, Steve was standing right there. He warmly greeted me, and we chatted a while, and decided to do dinner after the service. Enjoyed the service (have you ever known Steve to have a bad sermon?). Went to lunch and then went to their house and hung out for the afternoon, Left about 6p to head back to Gulfport. Crawled into my bunk about 1:55a Monday.

Thursday morning we had the IU group helping us again. We went out and finished cleaning the blocks! Finally! Got them all loaded on the dump truck, took them to the new site. Matt and I unloaded them. Matt called Jamie to bring us some lunch. We had just finished unloading the block when she got there. Matt started working on the water line, while I went down to the old site to check on the kids. By the time I got down there it was pouring rain. The kids where all in the van. One of them came over and jumped in the truck with me. We discussed the situation and decided that they would go back to camp. I went down to the homeowner's shop to pickup the drain pipe. Ran to the hardware store to pick up some parts Matt needed to finish the water line. Got back to the new site and Matt said it had only sprinkled there. Finished the water line, and rough laid out the drain line to find out the other parts I needed.
Friday, the IU students went out to clean lumber, Matt and I took the backhoe up to the new site. We got the pad built up, leveled out, and ready to dig footers.

tuesday, working around the excavator again. Had him scoop ou the pad for the home, we will just need to smooth it out with the backhoe. Dug the waterline from the homeownwer's daughter's place, and started to lay the water line. I got the foot print of the house laid out again.
Wednesday, they are predicting rain. Matt takes a group of IU students out to clean blocks and plywood. Phil takes me up to look at another site where they want to build a house for a couple. They had a 30 x 25 home that sustained some damage. When they went to remove the damaged part, they discovered a lot of the sill on the rest of the house was rotten. They are tearing down that part and want to rebuild a new 30 x 40 home. They have no money so the kitchen is trying to scrounge materials, and they do have some usable lumber from the old house. Matt and I went up to the new house site and ate lunch while it rained. The rain let up some and we started glueing the water line together. Jamie (Matt's wife) kept text messaging him weather updates. About 1p she texted that there was going to be a break in the rain for two hours and then it was going to really let loose. It started raining harder and we decided to call it quits about 2:15p. Went back to camp, where it wasn't raining did a few things and the sun came out. The sun wa out the rest of the day, no more rain! I told Jamie she was fired as our weather forcaster, lol.

....continued. Unloaded the backhoe and decided that we would come back after lunch, otherwise we would just be in the septic guys way. We went down and cleaned block till noon, then went to lunch. After lonch, headed back to the new site and Matt started clearing the pad. About 4:30 I went down and retreived the dump truck and trailer, which were now loaded with blocks. Once again these ladies did an excellant job. After unload ed the blocks , we loaded the backhoe, got back to camp about 7:10. Time to grab supper a shower and then get on the computer. Did manage to find my patch cord for the camera yesterday, but the computer is not recognizing the camera, so I still cannot add pictures to my blog :(, Gonna run now, it is 0:40 and I am tired. Bye!

Sunday was a pretty relaxing day. Went to church in the morning, ate lunch at IHOP, went to Home Depot to look around, came back to take a nap, cleaned out the backseat of my car, went to Arbys to get a Jamocha Shake and read the paper. Came back to camp, retrevied the computer from Matt, checked email, watched the last part of "The Man of the Year", went to bed. Man of the year was a good movie, funny, yet with a serious side.
Monday morning, woke up at 4:40, laid in bed until 5. Got up, got around, ate some oatmeal, went out to start to work. We are taking the backhoe out to Joey's place today, so we are checking it out before we go. Ray had sugested we check the anti freeze, so I did and it was bone dry. Couldn't find any around here so went to Wal Mart to pick some up since I had to fuel the dump truck anyway. Before I left at 6:30 I checked and there was no light on in Matt and Jamie's trailer. Hmmm Matt said he was going to be out at 6.
Got back to camp and Matt was up working on the backhoe. We got it aired up, greased, and radiator filled before loading it up. Collected our helpers from Phil, aand headed to the blocks once again. This time we got a group of ladies from Ontario. We took the out and showed them what needed to be done. Then Matt and I heading up to the building site, discovering they were there puting in the septic system....going to another post.

Friday, we took seven guys from Virgina Tech and we rocked! Had a trailer load of over 400 blocks cleaned, loaded, delivered and unloaded before lunch. After lunch we did the same thing again, and were still back at the camp before 4:30. We would have been back earlier if we would have left the tools with the students at lunch. Matt and I made a couple of stops on the way back up there after lunch. We got up there and they were playing frisbee. I was a little upset till I realized WE HAD THE TOOLS! DUH!
Today I went out to the site where we are building the new house and got the footprint all laid out. Monday Matt is going to take the John Deere Tractor up there and level out the spot where we are going to pu the house. We are then going to figure out how to dig the footers, and get going on them. Hopefully by the end of the week we can have footers and floor down. That would be awesome! Phil told me today that some one is putting in pilings and should be ready to build by the time the rest of the team comes down.

More blocks again

It is Thursday, I got up early went out to wherewe were cleaning the blocks and worked for about one and a half hours. Had the opportunity to meet the homeowner's wife. The homeowner came out to talk to me then. He was working on brazing a broken hub on a trailer when the grease heated up, blew off the hubcap and splattered hot grease all over his hand. He had a blister two inches acrosss and about one and a quarter inches high on the base of his thumb. He also had smaller areas all over his hand. He was heading down to the VA hospital to have it checked out. I went back to camp collected my 8 college students, Matt and the dump truck. We headed out to the block pile. We cleaned, loaded and moved 538 blocks today. We also got some of the lumber cleaned. It was a good day! We were back to camp before 5p. We have about 1400 blocks done all together. I figure it would take about 1700 blocks just to do the shell. I will need more to do the footing and interior walls. We are helping these homeowners soooo much. It would probably take them about two months to get this all done.

More blocks

Wednesday, Matt and I were up and loading tools by 6a this morning. Went over to the house on 34th street, want to get it finished today. We got two sections of screen up,then headed back to camp about 8:30a. We got our group of college students and headed out to clean blocks. Matt drove the dump truck and trailer out there. We got the kids started then Matt and I went to camp, picked up some supplies, went to Lowe's to get some more supplies, went back to camp to eat lunch, then back to 34th street. We finished up the front porch screen, put some screen in the soffit on the back porch, and put in a bath vent fan. We also did some sanding of drywall, put on some recepticle plates. Except for a little touch up painting, the house is ready to move into! We then headed out to the block site, took the blocks and students over to the new home site to unload the blocks. They had cleaned about 500 blocks, what a awesome job! It is great working with college students, they have so much energy! I got back to camp, showered, ate, went to CVS to get my Allegra. I did a little other shopping, stopped and got a Hot Fudge Sundae at DQ. Got back to camp about 8:45p. I had loaned Jamie, Matt's wife, my laptop in the afternoon, so I retreived it. In then checked email, payed a bill, and hit the sack. I loaned Jamie the laptop because she was going through internet withdrawal. What did we do before we had the internet? She thanked me profusly, over and over again.

You know you are working with college kids when....

Tuesday morning Phil took me out to meet Joey, the gentleman that wants the cement block house. He has about 3,000 cement blocks that need to be cleaned, a bunch of plywood and dimension lumber that he salvaged after the storm. He is going to use this to build his house. He wants to block both the outside and inside walls, pour them solid, and then put on a cement roof.
After lunch I took a group of college students out to start working on cleaning the blocks. They were talking about the TV shows that David Hasslehoff had been in. Of course it turned to Baywatch. One of them was asking "who was that older woman on there? O yeah, Jamie Lee Curtis"! I said thanks alot, she is about my age!
Matt is going to take the dump truck and equipment trailer out there tommorrow morning with me, and we are goint to get the crew going, then he and I are going back to finnish the house on 34th street.

Monday was another good day. Matt and I were sent over to the house on 34th street. The person that was suppossed to paint it was unable to do it. We got the opportunity to work with five women from Lancaster county, Pa. They were a hoot! They did all the painting while Matt and I caulked, did electrical work, drywall finishing, and laying some flooring. We just have to put the screen on the front porch, and put a vent fan in the bathroom, and these people can move back into their home! That is awesome!
The box truck broke down on the interstate, and I took Phil out to get it monday night. We got to discuss a lot of what was going on, which was a good thing. He had someone call him about having her house rebuilt. Hopefully we can get something worked out so that the team can work on it when they come down. He also is going to hook me up with a guy who wants to build a cement block house. Therefore we may have two houses for the group to work on.

I am stealing this from Oswald Chambers "My Upmost for His Highest". It was my Sunday devotion, and it really spoke to me. (I have no idea why I am suddenly typing in Italics!) "It is easier to serve or work for God without a vision and without a call, because you are not bothered by what he requires. Common sense, covered with a layer of Christian emotion becomes your guide. You maybe more prosperous and successful from the world's perspective, and have more leisure time, if you never acknowledge the call of God. But once youreceive a commission from Jesus Christ, the memory of what God asks of you will always be there to prod you on to do his will. You no longer will be able to workfor Him on the basis of common sense."
I am way behind in posting so I am going to break this into about three parts. Went to Pass Road Baptist on Sunday again. It was a two hour and ten minute service that seemed like about fortyfive minutes. The Pastor is doing a series on David going after the Lion and Bear that took lambs. Refering to the enemy trying to take our flock one lamb at a time. It is only one lamb, right? Pretty soon the enemy has the whole flock. Therefore we need to gaurd against any intrusion by the enemy, no matter how insignificant it seems.

Wow, it is Sunday already. On Friday Matt, Samuel, and I went to the house in the Pass to grout the tile. We got that done and went back over to the house on 34th st where we were doing the porches. Mat and Samuel put the battons on the back porch while I hung the storm door. We then went around front and started working on the front porch. Ran out of materials so we made a Lowes list. Matt and I decided that we would go to Lowes Saturday after we got done with our 5:30a to 1:30 kitchen duty. Got over to the kitchen Saturday morning and there was a bunch of help there, so about 7 Phil told us to take off. Phil is the person in charge of the skilled labor, he helps out in the kitchen on Saturday. Matt and I went to Lowes, got our materials and went to the house. We got the front porch done as far as we could, it needs to be painted, and then we can finish it out. Came back to camp, showered, ate, did some shopping, came back and watched the movie they were showing. It was "Facing the Giants". Excellant movie, one I think we are going to have to purchase.

Good Morning everyone! Yesterday was another good day. We got all the tile down at the house in the Pass. We finished, got everything cleaned up, and loaded just as it started to sprinkle. As we were driving back to camp it really let loose. We got back, got the equipment unloaded in the rain, it let up for a couple of minutes and got a running start. The wind blew and it poured for about a half hour. It was dry the rest of the night then. No damage here, but I heard fifteen people were killed in Alabama by tornados. I took some pictures yesterday, but I can not find my patch cord right now, so I am unable to post them.
Not sure what today is going to bring, I think it will be too wet to grout that tile today, so I think we will be back on the porch project. Yak at everybody later.

It is early Thursday morning and I need to catch this up. Tuesday we had a productive day. Leveled the floor at a house in Pass Christian so that it would be ready for tile. We then wet over to Gulfport where we are helping Matt close in a back porch. Matt is from Booneville, In and has his own business of flipping houses. He also has an excavator amd dump truck and does septic systems, site prep, and tearing down of buildings. He is down here with his wife Jamie, and their five and a half month old son Rylae. He didn't have work up home so they are down here for three weeks at least. His brother has a full time job, but helps him out with the business too. His brother has been getting lots of calls for work now that Matt is down here! Seems like the devil is trying to play with Matt a little, saying "you don't want to be dowm there, there is work at home to be done". Right now it is not enough work to keep hin busy if he goes back.
Anyway, back to Mississippi, On Wednesday we went back to the house in Pass Christian to lay tile. It was Matt, Samuel, who is down from Denver, Rachel, a 20 year old from James Madison University, and I. We got the job about half done. Samuel does flooring for a living, the rest of us are kind of novices. We will be down there to finish the floor today, and if we get that done, we will go back to the house in Gulfport. Besides closing in the back porch so that they have a dry place to keep their washer and dryer, we are also screening in the front porch.
It is really neat getting to know some of the long termers stories. Like John, one of my roommates. He is here from Grand Haven, Mi. His youngest son died in an industrial accident in 1999, I believe he was 18. Then in 2003 his oldest son fell asleep at the wheel of his truck and ran off the road and was killed. I believe he was 28. John also had some other friends and relatives die in this time frame. It seemed like all he was doing was going to funnerals. He is having struggles processing all of it. He thought if he came down here where people lost everything they had, maybe he could relate to them, and they could relate to him.