We were tired…..we were sore…..we were sleepy…..and more! We apologize for not having an update for the past few days, but as the week went on, time slipped away and we were focused on getting the job done!

Our “Bayou Boys” continued to have set backs with equipment and limited supplies, but by the end of the week they had four walls, a roof and a joyful family ready to return to the home they love. Our team continues to be amazed by the cultural difference in the longtime family heritage and roots the residents have in this area. Paul and his family shed tears of joy knowing they will be having Thanksgiving at “home” for the first time since 2004! Remember now, home for them right now is a roof and four walls – no electricity, no plumbing, no windows – but they are thrilled! We have pictures and a video of their reactions when they first saw what our guys had accomplished. All our hardworking guys felt truly blessed to be a small part of sending this family home to the place they love so much.

Besides the blessings mentioned above, there were others experienced involving this family and the work site. A member of Second Branch Baptist Church had given Harry a donation to bring with him to be used for a worthy cause while he was in Port Sulphur. After meeting Paul’s family, Harry fell in love with their youngest daughter. He had Virginia and some of our other ladies take her shopping in Belle Chase where she was able to pick out anything she wanted. You can see how proud she was of her gifts in some of our pictures. What a beautiful and happy child!

The other blessings that occurred were Dwayne almost overcoming his fear of heights (when your work site starts over six feet off the ground and goes up from there, you do what you gotta do) and the fact that no one got hurt! Our guys were out at their site for hours at a time with no way to get back to the mainland – if something serious had happened, they just would have had to wait…..Bayou Time. God was truly looking out for them.

The East Bank Team continued to work for Mr. Terry Bienemy laying tile throughout the house and they, too, had a successful week. This team was working with Rick Kesterson who is the new Construction Coordinator for CPR (Committee for Plaquemines Recovery). We were blessed with proper tools, equipment and instruction on how to do the job right. Everyone learned new skills, used new tools, and except for a few fire ant bites (can anyone tell us why they are on this earth), managed to come through the week injury free. Amen!

We had several visits with Mr. Terry and he was always there first thing in the morning with a smile and a “Good Morning”! He lives in a FEMA trailer right next to his house. We learned that he had served his community on the Plaquemines Parish police department for many years until he lost a leg to diabetes and is now on dialysis daily. He told us that without the help of volunteers like us, he would not be anywhere close to being back in his house. He said he thought he was going to have to pay about $2000 to get the tile laid in his house (the house is mostly tile because Mr. Terry is in a wheelchair) and he just didn’t have that kind of money. He said he had prayed for help and knew that it was his faith in God that had sent us to him. Mr. Terry could hardly look us in the face when he was thanking us for all we had done for him. Since he is in the wheelchair and the house has no ramp yet, we could only show him in pictures what we had done, but it didn’t matter to him.

Our clowns were really put through a test of endurance on Thursday.  They suited up and applied their clown faces before 8:00am and stayed that way until about 7:30pm that night! What troopers!! They started the day at the Boothville – Venice Elementary School where they performed for approximately 150 early elementary age students. The clowns performed skits and a magic show and the students were so happy to be laughing and enjoying themselves. Part way through their performance, a fire alarm went off and Sunflower, one of our clowns, came to the rescue of one of the small students’ who became hysterical at the sound of the alarm. She was not alone – many of the students continue to react in fear when they hear an emergency type alarm. They all still remember!

From there, the clowns returned to Port Sulphur Baptist Church to perform for the school there from 11-12. After lunch, they went to South Plaquemines Elementary Schoolfor yet more performances where they traveled from room to room visiting and performing for the students. They made balloon animals and hats for students which were a big hit. At all 3 locations, flyers were given out inviting the students and their families to PSBC that night for food, fun and more clowning around! We had 250 flyers printed and at one school, extras had to be made to give out!

After returning to PSBC, they had a little time to rest before the big event that evening. Because of the unbelievable amount of rain that had fallen that day and the threat of more, all activities were moved into the PSBC sanctuary. Dimples (Harry) performed magic for the children and parents, Sunflower (Eggie) and Honey Bee (Virginia) painted faces (for 3 hours !!!), and the rest of us served hamburgers and hot dogs to approximately 125 people – we were so swamped, no one had time to count!  Our grill masters Bruce and Clint cooked 120 hamburgers and 120 hot dogs and there were very few leftovers! It was such a blessing to see smiles on the faces of people who are still struggling to put their lives back together more than 2 years after Katrina.

 The bulk of our team could always depend on Margaret Ann, Virginia and Yvonne to keep us fed and organized at the church. Their hospitality gifts were invaluable as they prepared our meals, cleaned up after us and kept things at the church site running smoothly. They were helped by those of you from home who prepared homecooked meals for us that we brought with us. Many thanks to Donna Hadley, Terri Shea, and the Alwilda Reber Circle for supporting us in this “yummy” way. The cards and notes from the HRBC family (especially the hilarious ones from Healing Hearts) were most appreciated by all team members. The Second Branch teammates were amazed by this thoughtfulness from folks they don’t even know. A big “shout out” to our team member Dwayne Gibson for supplying us with all our breakfast food and coffee for the week. 

We have just checked in to our motel in Greenville, SC and it is midnight. We had a little trouble getting out of New Orleans due to a terrible accident on I-10. It put us behind by several hours after a long, but beautiful detour through a part of Louisiana that we would never have seen. We are glad to be in real beds and look forward to sharing many stories and experiences with everyone when we return tomorrow afternoon. We hope to have lots of pictures on the church website very soon and we pray that you can feel just a little of what we experienced this past week. None of us will ever forget it! 

We love you Second Branch Baptist team members!!!!! Let’s do it again!!

Julie was awakened by the sound of her cell phone.  Rick, the construction coordinator, wanted to know if she could go with him in 5 minutes to check out a different work-site. 5 minutes–it was still dark outside!!

The East Bank team had a last minute change in plans.  There would be no door hanging today!

The team worked on floors in a new home, preparing them for ceramic tile.  There was a lot of cutting, measuring, and more cutting.  We won’t say whether they cut or measure the most.

They had two minor first aid cases.  But since they were in the same family, they only count as one.  Norma managed to cut the same finger twice.  A band-aid saved her life!  However, not to be out-done by her mother, Melissa caught some stray cement particles in her eye!!  Dr. Fowler and Dr. Carr immediately preformed sugery (they flushed her eye) and she quickly recovered.   Someone said they overheard her complaining they got her shirt a little wet in the healing process.

The team is having fun learning new skills–sometimes on the first try!  They’re also getting to know each other real well–maybe too well!

After getting our second brand new generator because the first one broke down yesterday, our day had begun on an encouraging note.  After we piled our supplies into our makeshift barge, we headed down the Bayou.  Our day started to turn in a different direction.  We soon found out that the new generator was also broken!  With out the generator, there is no way for work to get done.  We, as a group, decided we would go back and repair the new generator.  (By the way, it was provided by FEMA two years ago.)  When we went to the local hardware store, the owners of the store told our team they had a spare generator at their house that we could borrow until we didn’t need it anymore.

That generator didn’t work either…the day was just not meant to be!

When Trish, one of the owners of the hardware store, took us to her her house to pick up the generator, she told us some stories of the locals and the family’s that stayed during the hurricane.  Just to give you an idea, we learned about a family that escaped flood waters in the top of a tree.  They lived there for three days living only on oranges until they were rescued.  The stories are truely amazing and we can’t wait to tell all of you when we get back!

All in all, we ended up finally getting one of the generators up and running and ended up working until 7:00 pm instead of the normal 4:30pm.  Needless to say, we made up for lost time.  But if you think about it, we would have missed some wonderful opportunities to meet wonderful people and hear awesome stories had our work progressed smoothly.  God does work in great ways!

A Bayou note:  Paul, one of the homeowners, has lived on the Bayou all of his life.  53 years ago, he was literally born on a boat in the Bayou when his parents couldn’t make it to the hospital in time!

Monday: “Do I get to write on the blob?” - Eggie Wilcox, Second Branch Baptist Church

Tuesday: “So you don’t screw it up, screw it down.” – Rick Kesterson, Construction Coordinator                                                              Background behind the quote: The team was laying cement board, preparing for ceramic tile.  Each board must be secured to the floor.

Our Home Team consisted of four member.  Two of our crew were the chefs preparing for dinner and cleaning the kitchen.  The other two were going to the food pantry to distribute food.  They waited around for about two hours before finding out God had other plans for them!  After getting very frustrated, they decided there were things around the church that needed to be done.  They tackled part of the storage shed storing supplies and labeling containers.  They will have a clinic and fair here in December.  They got a lot of supplies ready for that event.

After the team had lunch together, they sat on the floor and had a pow-wow…and really got to know each other.  Since our teams include people from different churches, a part of the challenge is getting to know each other.

God had different plans for us today than what we had planned.  We learned to be flexible.

When the guys arrived at their work site, they learned they were starting with nothing but a floor on top of stilts.  They should have realized it would be a unique day when the only way to get to their site was by boat!  They are starting to rebuild a home on the Grand Bayou.  We have some great pictures to share from this project!   You will be able to see them next week.

They are bringing us lots of examples about cultural differences of living on a bayou.  Paul, their homeowner, works for the school district and ‘drives’ the bus boat.  He uses the yellow boat to navigate the bayou every morning,  picking up 26 children.  He drops them at the bus stop at the main land.  At the end of the day, the bus boat delivers them back home

You live on the bayou…you’ve just come home from school…what do you do for fun?  There’s definitely no place for a basketball goal!  Kids on the bayou look forward to hunting season.  They hunt EVERYTHING!  They swim a lot and play in the marsh.  We’ve been told there are no alligators~yeah, right!!

Six members of our team-Jason, Laura, Guy, Norma, Julie, and Melissa-traveled by ferry to the east bank of the Mississippi. It’s the only way to get there! Just another example of the fact that you never know what to expect when you arrive in Port Sulphur!

Construction coordinator, Rick, gave us the tour of the tool trailer and then gave us our marching orders. Projects for the day were installing laminate wood floors and baseboards. Not too difficult for our team. The hard part comes tomorrow when we have to custom fit doors and then trim them out!

Horace is the homeowner we are working for. He is putting this mobile home on the property where his mother’s house used to be. We are learning a lot about him and his family. It’s still a lot of fun to just sit and talk to folks down here. After two years, they still want to tell you their stories. We can easily spend as much time listening as we can pounding nails!

Well, we’re more than half way there and the Second Branch folks haven’t left us yet! We’ve had an uneventful day of driving, great weather and even better fellowship. You would never know that this group is made up of members of two different churches! There has been much laughing, teasing and eating……Dwayne has a bag of surprise snacks that seems to have no bottom to it. Kind of like a clown car, except a bag of snacks! We think we’ll put him on the clown team…..yes, we can hear your comments about that one all the way to Georgia.

Don found his head stuck under the hood of the van again as deja vu set in when we realized that we needed to add to some fluid levels in the van. On the May trip, it was 5 quarts of oil in the donated van we were transporting to Port Sulphur Baptist Church. This time it was our own church van that needed power steering and brake fluid. Driving through downtown Atlanta is not the time to start hearing noises in your vehicle!

Tomorrow we will leave for Louisiana and will meet up with the rest of our team at the New Orleans airport. We plan to arrive a little early and take the team members that have not been there since the storm for a driving tour. We plan to visit some of the places our previous teams have worked and see how things are progressing. After collecting the rest of the team, we will head on south to Port Sulphur.  Please continue to pray for us as we start our week of work and we will continue to update you with all the latest news.

That’s all for now….it’s late and time for bed. God bless!!

It’s back to Port Sulphur for more Hurricane Katrina recovery work.  In addition to construction, this team will be hosting a community cook-out and working in the church school at Port Sulphur Baptist Church.  One of the bonus activities is that a group of professional clowns (really!) is going with them.  They are going to find ways to use their ministry to reach families in the community.

A team of 16 gathered on Sunday, Sept. 30 to get final information needed to prepare for the October 13 departure.  Check back after October 13 to get daily updates about the work in Port Sulphur. 

Note that the photo gallery for this mission experience will be viewable beginning October 22. 

Keep praying for this Port Sulphur team.