Rising early, the group was under way from Alexandria by 8:00 after a quick continental breakfast courtesy of the motel.  We figured that the trip to Long Beach would be uneventful.  Moving smoothly over the I-12 Mississippi bridge at Baton Rouge on cruise control, I cheerfully told Ed Bull by cellphone that we’d be in Long Beach in an hour and a half.  Ed, who had spent the weekend in New Orleans at an NGCA (that’s the National Golf Coaches of America) convention, had driven over to Long Beach by himself earlier in the morning.  Well, I turned out to be off by a considerable amount.

An 18 wheeler had jack-knifed and burned in the early morning hours, blocking both of the eastbound lanes of I-12 east of Hammond.  It had still not been completely cleared by afernoon.  After much maneuvering and great patience, three of our cars made it through the jam.  Tara and I took an alternate route that took us miles out of the way but put us into Long Beach ahead of the rest of the group.  We thanked God for cellphones; everyone stayed in touch with one another.

When we pulled up to the church, Ed was just finishing organizing a load of 2 X 4s.  Good timing!  We met Van Richardson, the site manager and a volunteer named Dale who was a professional roofer and who would be coordinating our construction work.  When the entire group had gathered, we got back into our cars and followed Dale to the three sites where we would be working.

The first site, a house owned by Moses Ervin, had been given up for ruin by the professionals but through the perseverance of many work groups was completely framed and sided.  Interior walls were also framed and wired, and duct work was installed—but nothing else.  A group consisting of Rick, Nancy, Brian, Tara, Pam, and Joan will work here, putting insulation in the roof and outer walls, cosmetically building around some of the duct work, and—time permitting—sheetrocking the ceiling and as much of the interior as possible.

Our second visit was to the home of Chris and Renee Liberto and their sons, a family who had roofed their own house shortly after the storm and had redone some of the plumbing but had neglected to reattach the sewer lines.  Raw sewage accumulated under their house and the moisture eventually caused mold to creep into the kitchen area, up all four of the walls behind some newly installed cabinets.  A group consisting of me, Harold, Carl, and Steve will take down the cabinets, tear out the old sheetrock and moldings, dispose of the sheetrock, remediate the mold in the walls, and hang new sheetrock and cabinets.

Our third visit was to the home of Jeanette Lewis, grandmother of an extended family that has had numerous difficulties.   A group consisting of Ed, Jim M, Jim K, Jim W, and Dot (immediately dubbed “Jim squared dot bull”) will clean a profoundly filthy stove, removed it along with the washer and dryer, rip out the sheetrock in the dining room walls and ceiling, and hang new sheetrock.

We are sharing the facilities with an Amish group from Lancaster and Chester Counties, Pennsylvania.  Some of them are skilled carpenters, framing new homes in the area.  Others are doing demolition work to make way for new construction.  Their women are quiet, wearing the traditional garb and working solely in the kitchen.  The men were mildly surprised that the women would be working alongside the men in our group.  We have established very cordial relations with them, but because of the lack of space, it is not possible to share common meals, except on Wednesday.  That’s the day that the homeowners and the community are invited to dinner, at which we are anticipating nearly 70 people.

This evening, Beth and Shiela served a hearty dinner of taco soup, fruit, and homemade cookies and peanut brittle.  We can’t help but think that they will have their work cut out for them on Wednesday!  Following dinner, Van Richardson gave us detailed information about each of the houses and households to which we’ll go.  It was a chronicle of incredible human misery and suffering, too lengthy and grim for this writing.  Our devotional time consisted of lifting up in prayer each of the homeowners, ourselves, those who wanted to come but could not, and others.  We unwound with dominoes, reading, and tea.

It’s been a long day.  As Samuel Pepys would say, “and so to bed.”