Katrina Mission Adult Team Day 2
Now that our two teams have connected, I can share the travel saga of Team 1. After leaving in the snowstorm on Saturday morning at 5:00 am, they struggled in the traffic on 495 at 40 miles per hour, until Mike Willett took over driving, and the sky cleared. They celebrated Bob Willome’s birthday (which was March 1st) with a chocolate chip cookie cake. They connected with the youth team in Roanoke Virginia where the Adult Team stayed for the night, while the Youth Team decided to press on through the night, and as we understand arrived in church in time to receive a celebratory welcome.
Then, the second adult team arrived at our accommodations just a bit before our tourist group did.
Today we reported to Aldersgate for our orientation, which this year was given by Dale Kimball, the Executive Director of the North Shore Recovery Operations. He had a great sense of humor, and had us in stitches several times, but made quite an impression as he insisted that so many more volunteers are needed (another 10,000 in 2008 above those currently scheduled) and that if the volunteers stop, the work will stop.
We reported to our work site, 2115 Angela Street, Arabi LA, a home that had been gutted, and the previous teams had begun the process of sheet rocking the walls. Unfortunately, the site supervisor and tools got delayed, so we found we were unable to do much since we didn’t have the proper tools, but we did get a bit of work done mudding and taping, until our site supervisor arrived. The home is a lovely brick home, quite nice in size, in a neighborhood that consists of about 1/4 rehabbed homes, 1/4 concrete slabs where homes have been demolished, 1/4 homes with yellow warning signs with big red “X”s on them indicating that if no one files paperwork, the house will be demolished, and 1/4 homes where something is going on, but it is hard to tell what and when. Apparently this is the local Parrish plan, to declare homes abandoned where sufficient work is not occurring, and demolish them, in fact, the house next door to the one we are working on has such a sign on it. Then the next house has been totally redone already and the people are living there. On the other side, are two slabs.
Our sense is that since last year there has been a tremendous amount of work done in Slidell, where Dale told us the work is about 85% completed, compared to across the bridge, where only about 7% of the work has been completed.
We shall keep you posted! In God’s Love,
Your Adult Mission Team