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McCulle Wright
Today was the most exciting day as far as work goes. At my site we where responsible for ripping down this shed in the back yard of a 87 year old lady. It was full of the three most disgusting things on the planet, rotting wood, roaches, and poop. By lunch time we had gotten most of the shed down and we where invited to her church to eat lunch in a nice air conditioned room. At that point she told us that there was this mound, AND I MEAN MOUND, of kitty litter. It stank so bad but we finally got all the way done with that and we headed back to the church. After a few rounds and a nice cold shower we got ready to eat dinner. As I made my plate and walked out the door there was this guy in a Polaris and said he needed help. So before I knew it we where headed off to his field where there was a “average” grass fire and we where in charge of transferring water from his tank through buckets and cups to the blazeing grass. It was so hot and smokey that my eyes where like an ocean of water smoke. But when the fire department showed up we let them take over and we headed home for some well deserved rest.
Chris Boyd
Today was one of the more experienced days of my life. Where to start…Gosh. Today my work group was assigned to the house of an 87 year old woman. She had a shed full of debris (which we demolished for her because she wanted it gone) and a house FULL of hurricane things. Her daughter-in-law told us we saved this woman’s life. Apparently there was so much stuff that her home was to be condemned and demolished. A homeless 87 year old single woman. Thank God we could keep that from happening. We also gave the inside a fresh coat of paint. We got back to the church where we’re staying, relaxed, and had just started to go through the dinner line. Then, Keith came in and said a man’s farm next door had a bad grassfire. So, me and 3 other guys went with Keith and put it out. So rewarding. When the fire dept. came about a half hour later there wasn’t much left for them to put it out. We did it all with 2 buckets and a fast food cup. One of the most rewarding experiences of my entire life. Today was a day that I can tell my grandkids about. God was with us the whole day, not one injury on my whole work team, and then nobody got hurt with the fire, what a day.
Paul Farrell
Today started off early (6:30 woo hoo 30 extra minutes off sleep.) as we all slowly made our way back from the dead and ate we went off to our work sites. We went to the hurricane relief building and got our tools and projects. I got to work on an old unfortunate lady’s house. We didn’t see her much because she’s scared of the bugs, snakes, and opossums that roam around her house. We worked on caulking and painting the house. I believed God smiled on her because her roof was torn off by the hurricane but she got a new before we came and when we came we sealed the cracks to keep water from leaking in and rotting the wood. I see God in all of our workers because we helped an old woman fix her house when she’s scared to go outside and financially unable to fix it. I feel bad for her but I believe we can make it better.
Hannah Larson:
Today my group helped clean out the Louisiana Disaster Recovery warehouse. We took apart these huge wooden shelves and it was very fun. There was a lot of loading and unloading trucks today also and I was exhausted. Sarah, Rachel Thatcher and I went to Wal-Mart with Matt to get food for all the meals tomorrow and that was very fun. When we got back to Sweetlake we made dinner—grilled chicken, green beans and potatoes. I had a blast grilling and I also got off the hook for cleaning after dinner since I cooked. Everyone loved the food. It was great. Matt had a near death experience when Luke lifted the weight that was keeping the 80lb grill lid up. The lid came down and Matt barely escaped by millimeters! I think I saw God through everyone today. The people we were helping seemed so incredibly thankful of us, like we were sent from God. I also saw God in the watermelon we ate. It was very good.
Kelsey Lovell:
Today was our first work day and I ended up in my mom’s group which actually ended up being just fine. I really like my group and I don’t want to change groups. I wish we could stay in them, but we probably won’t which is fine. We went to a warehouse to tear down shelves and everything. We all worked so hard together and got everything done early because we didn’t want to stop working. We then went to the LA Storm Relief Center to rake leaves. We got to get Sonic and then go back. I saw God in my whole group, but especially Matt Grubish, Will, Carter and Ryan because it was time for lunch, but they wanted to complete the job first which showed true dedication. It showed that they really wanted to finish what we had started before taking a break. It was amazing to see how much they were in to it and really opened my eyes. I also saw God in Craig because he wasn’t supposed to be lifting anything because of his stitches on his back, but he was the one in our group that worked the hardest and he lifted things anyways. We had to stop him all the time and tell him, “No” which just shows he wanted to work and that he wouldn’t let the stitches stop him from finishing the job. It was pretty amazing at how many people told him no and how often during the day. I couldn’t believe it because I know that I wouldn’t have been like that at all. I would have followed the rules as much as possible.
Today wasn’t a too early start, but it was still early. After we ate breakfast we broke up into our work groups and head out to the Lake Charles UMCOR headquarters that officially closed its doors at the end of the day today. We were met by the three people that would take us to our different sites. My work group went with a lady named Renee. The job site we were working on was very close to her heart, because we were working on her mother-in-law’s house. Recently a tree fell into the roof of her house and caused a hole in the roof. The roof has been repaired, but when the tree fell it infested her house with roaches. They have been making her house their home for the past 5 weeks. She couldn’t get an exterminator, because it was too expensive. To make matters worse after Rita hit, she was so terrified of another storm that she gathered any and all hurricane supplies into her house. She didn’t have much before the storm, i.e running water, that she didn’t want to be even worse off if another storm hit. Renee was telling us that she could have furnished each of our houses for years to come. We split up into two groups, one working outside tearing down a shed while one worked inside painting the three bedrooms and bathroom. I was working with Jill in this really small bedroom that had a ton of furniture in the middle. I really saw God in Renee today, because she showed her love for us even though she had only known us for a couple of hours. She brought us fudge pops, and made sure we were all completely comfortable while we were working. She would even take the paint rollers and paint the walls. For lunch she took us to her church where there was a lady who told us all about
Tyler Dawson:
This morning, I didn’t want to get up, so Craig flipped me out of my cot. What a nice surprise J We had eggs with leftover taco meat, bacon, and biscuits. Luke and CJ came last night and Mrs. Lunsford came to give Mrs. Lofland some company. Mrs. Lofland and Mrs. Lunsford left this morning. We went to the UMCOR building where we met a whole bunch of people. It was nice to know that we are helping them end on a good note.
The lady’s house my group is working on is the mother-in-law of one of the volunteer leaders. The volunteer leader’s name was Renee. She said that we were helping save her mother-in-law’s house, and also her life. Half of us went inside to paint, and half stayed outside to tear down a shed. We had a pretty large group, including Parker, Trey, Mac, Chris, and some others. The shed was pretty large and had stuff littered all over the inside of the shed. We began demolition and got pretty far before lunch.
We had sandwiches for lunch at a church in the area. One of the old ladies talked to us about
After lunch, we went back and the lady’s great-grandsons who were in 2nd grade wanted to help us with demolition. We got the entire shed torn down. There was also a giant pile of kitty litter that we scooped up. She just had it in her backyard. We smelt awful after we were done for the day.
We came back, showered, and ate dinner, which was chicken, potatoes, and green beans. We played knock out after dinner and hung out. And then we went to worship.
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