Mack, Jon, Mike, Susan

Rudy's Electrical crew - Monday

We are working on Roy's house. His house was covered by 17 feet of water. He evacuated to Texas. He had been living here for 20 years. They are now in the small trailer next to the house.

We are doing electrical work, installing outlets (30 of them), lights, and some pluming - we put in a toilet.

The weather is very hot and humid, we are sweat through all of our clothes within minutes.

We are having a good time working and goofing a bit too.

Scott Sweeney

Tuesday afternoon

Just got back from Howard and Helen's house. We worked hard, got drenched with sweat, got dirty, got rained on... and feel like we still have so much to do. It must be frustrating for house residents to count on free labor like us, as the work doesn't get done as fast. Howard and Helen stopped in again to inspect our work and are buying Karin and the girls more nails. Great work today by Jordan D'Eri, who gets the "Hardest Worker Award"!

Supper Time

Grace Lutheran Team

Howard and Helen's House

Showing up on day one.

Morning Devotional

Every morning we begin with a morning devotional and prayer, followed by breakfast.

Monday evening

We have 3 different work crews, but my crew went about 4 miles from Camp Restore to work in a house that has been abandoned since Katrina in August 2005. It belongs to a wonderful couple, Howard and Helen, who are probably in their 70s. They have 9 children and 36 grandchildren and had lived in the house for about 50 years! They were evacuated with only a change of clothing and then unable to get back to their house for 3 1/2 months! When they came back, the house was moldy, smelly, and rotting. Everything had to be thrown out. Fred said NONE of their possession were saved! Since then, they have been living in a trailer and slowly gutting and cleaning out their house.

Anyway, today we were fitting and installation insulation, cutting and hanging dry wall, and mudding and sanding dry wall that had already been installed. There are 12 of us from Grace working at their house. Keep us in your prayers -- pray for cooperation and dedication from our crew and for hope and perseverance for Howard and Helen.

Monday morning

Greetings from New Orleans. We are at Camp Restore -- about 175 volunteers this week. Our church group will be working on 3 sites today... 2 are in people's homes in the 9th ward (the hardest hit flood area) and the 3rd group will be painting inside a school in the 9th ward. Very bizarre here -- trashed buildings and rebuilt buildings stand side by side each other. You see a trashed, abandoned motel next to a McDonald's, for instance. Of course, many people were displaced and many have not returned to the area. In addition, many of the homes in the 9th ward were handed down from one generation to the next without ever changing the deed to the house. The 'owner' of the house was a person who lived in the 1800s. Therefore, the government will not make payments to the current home owner, as his name is not on the deed. FEMA has officially left, so it is churches that are the ones re-building now.