Another Update

It's about time for another update! The last two days have been days of learning our way around our home for the week at Aldersgate Methodist Church in Slidell, Louisiana. Tuesday we got trained in on drywall finishing (mudding, taping and sanding the sheetrock that other teams have installed) and we were introduced to the house we will be working at for the rest of the week. Our house belongs to Michelle and her four children. It is in a lower-middle class neighborhood that didn't expect flooding because it has it's own levee. Instead, the water came up over the levee (Michelle's house was flooded to about 5 feet) and then when the water started to recede a couple of hours later, the levee caught the water and held it for a couple of weeks in Michelle's neighborhood until they could figure out how to drain it. Most of the people in Michelle's neighborhood are rebuilding, because they have mortages to pay off on their houses and they can't afford to move away.

Michelle got her name on the church list asking for help last October, and they were finally able to start on her home in June. By the time we got there, a couple of teams from North Carolina, Illinois and New York had already put up the sheetrock and done about half of the first layer of mudding. It's hot, sweaty work, but after two days we have finished the first layer of mudding throughout the whole house. Tomorrow we will be sanding!

Michelle's dad Carol, who is also from Slidell but suffered no damage in the storm, and Michelle's 13 year-old daughter Amanda have been spending quite a bit of time talking with us as we work on the house. They all evacuated a couple of days before Katrina came through, but by the time they returned, the mold had taken over the house and so the drywall needed to be stripped down to the studs and treated with bleach up to about 8 feet off the ground. Michelle and her two youngest children are currently living on a FEMA trailer in their front yard and are hoping their home will be finished and they can move back in by October.

Tomorrow is another big day so I better finish up, but please keep praying for us! We will be heading in to get a tour of the 9th Ward in New Orleans tomorrow (one of the districts that was hit the worst in the flooding) which we have heard is an eye-opening experience about how bad things really still area in some areas down here. Check back for more details soon!

(posted by Rebecca at 7:59 pm on 8/9/2006)