NEWORLEANSMISSION's Xanga

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:51:56 GMT

The final day was interesting. Up at 4, on the road at 5, rain, rain and more rain. We encountered Crimson tide traffic near Tuscaloosa. That didn't slow us down at all.
Finally into Ohio about 10 p.m. We had to have one more glitch. This time we had a flat on Dave's van.
We finally arrived in Findlay about 1 a.m.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 00:28:19 GMT

Time for a little fellowship with Leona and Gerald at Cafe Domonde and the French Quarter

Three in the bathroom ---- tight!

What's this Sally is not in the closet

Sally in the closet again!

Leona Sanding

Leona sanding

Gerald mudding

This is not completely correct but it's time for bed. Long day tomorrow. This is Pam and Gerald's side of the house. We got it completely insulated, but didn't get up any drywall.

Friday, September 25, 2009

Fri, 25 Sep 2009 00:35:18 GMT

We are really making progress. The house is completely insulated!!! One half has all of the dry wall done. There will be several rooms finished with second coat before we leave and Gerald seems to be skilled at mudding. Maybe they will paint next week.

We are going to the French Quarter and enjoy Beniets Friday afternoon and maybe walk along the river.

You do the closet I'll do the rest.

It doesn't get any better that this

Smooth

Smooth # 2

Fill that crack!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:59:52 GMT

Leona South and Leona North

Gerald

Leona and Sally Makin' it look good

Karen and Diane warming the place up

Diane

Jack ??????

Last full sheet! --- of 5/8 inch x 12' sheet rock --- on the ceiling

We'll be muddin' tomorrow

Show off with the pink bandana

\
Why doesn't that fit the hole?

Aren't you suppose to measure BEFORE you put it up?

Pink verses green

Was that 18 or 19 inches?

I'm supposed to do what???

Those 12 foot 5/8 inch sheet take a lot of support!!

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 00:09:32 GMT

The house is beginning to take shape. Most of the insulation is done and the walls are looking better.

There is now a toilet.

Here's Jack cutting blue board to finish the bathroom

We see who the hard workers are!!

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:47:40 GMT

Another great day. We cleared the floor -- somewhat! We tripped over stuff. We stuffed insulation and we ordered more sheet rock. The dry wall is mostly finished in two of the rooms.and most of the house is insulated.
We locked the trailer to the van with a padlock before we left findlay just as a precaution. Did you ever have a padlock that you couldn't unlock? We had to cut the lock off today and we still haven't fixed the tire.
We did have a different sort of mantle service. Leona Bullock presented the mantles.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 02:23:55 GMT

Thank you Will Brown. For those of you who do not know Will has been our favorite word smith on our trips. Even though he is not here with us I called him and ask if he would write our story. He graciously consented for only a modest increase in compensation. However, the saga continues.
We arrived at Aurora, unloaded, and headed over to Leona's house. We arrived to find that the house is not yet ready for the first sheet of dry wall. There is little insulation done and the house is cluttered with materials and tools. The list of supplies we must have before we can begin is growing as we speak. With a lot of perseverance we should be able to make a good start. It's late, good night.

Rocky Start

Sun, 20 Sep 2009 19:39:51 GMT

Hello again from the ever optimistic group of St. Paul's Findlay volunteers. Another group of eager beavers is en route to New Orleans this weekend to help victims of Hurrican Katrina. Just to catch you up a bit, when St. Paul's first went down as a group to New Orleans in May of 2006, we helped a woman named Leona in the ninth ward. At the time, we were in charge of removing everything down to the studs, but while we were at it, we made life long friends. Ever since, our own Leona has been in contact with our New Orleans Leona and keeping tabs.

When the group finally went back down to New Orleans this past May 2009, we decided to pay a short visit to Leona to see how she was doing. The house didn't look much different since the days when we tore it apart. It looked like electrical had been put in but Leona's son, Gerald, was under the house working on plumbing. For the past 3 years, Leona and Gerald have been struggling to get the electrical and plumbing installed and inspected. It just seems to be one thing after another that has kept things from getting done. So, our group promised Leona that we would do whatever we could to get back down there this fall and install drywall.

That brings you up to this week. Dave Tharp has been in contact with Gerald on his progress to get the plumbing and electrical inspected so that the drywall can go up. Last Friday, Gerald called with bad news and told Dave that the electrical had not been inspected yet. So Dave was a bit concerned about what the group would be doing this week and considered working for the Louisiana Storm Shelter or going back to D'Iberville. Can you imagine the stress?? Some people are picked for their special abilities and others are picked for the cool under fire.

It looks like Dave can rest easy now as Gerald called back on Saturday and said that he was finally able to get the electrical inspected and the team could proceed with their primary objective. Whew!! As an added bonus, Gerald promised to have a toilet working in the house.

That is quite a story to begin with but you have to know what it is like to travel 1,500 miles across country with a work crew. For those that have followed this blog religiously (pun intended), you can recall the trips that started with blinding snow storms and getting separated on major Interstates, so when Jack Cupples started mentioning that he felt a strange vibration while towing the crew's trailor, everyone should have known something was going to happen.

One of the trailor tires disintegrated going down the freeway so the group had to stop. Of course, a good boy scout always comes prepared and the spare had air!! So the group is continuing its journey to New Orleans to meet Jim Mace for dinner. Let's hope they are not late, Jim does not like to miss a meal.

And, hey, if anyone finds a trailor fender alongside the Interstate, bring it back, it may be off of our trailor.

Friday - Part 2

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:59:10 GMT

Our story includes the same information, but veers off for slightly more walking then the previous entree writers as our group was split in two. Our group continued onward, after the viewing of the St. Louis Cathedral, to peruse some more of the Decatur Street shops. Many of these shops held the standard fare of knick knacks, t-shirts, beads and masks, etc. When we grew hungry, we stopped in Franks Italian and Seafood restaurant and tried our hands at the famous po boy and muffaletta sandwiches, all of which were delicious. Afterwords, we continued to view the streetside shops and marvel at the many different kinds of trinkets. On a tangent trip, we journeyed down the street to enter two antique bookshops both of which had a great many kinds of used and interesting books, though few of us actually made purchases. Content with our prizes from shopping we headed to the famous Cafe du Monde to try some of the famous pastries, the beignetes and some cold beverages of our choosing, be they water or one of the many types of coffee available to us. Full from our pastries, we walked to the nearest terminal to take a trolly ride back to the Riverfront Mall to rejoin or missing companions. Within the mall, a few of us made a last ditch attempt at shopping and almost made us late for the ferry back to the west bank of the river. Luckily, though, we made it in time and returned with the spoils of our trip to enjoy yet another home-cooked meal, all of which was provided by Ms. Shannon, a woman who had provided dinner for us all of this last week. Our last day coming to a close, we began to make preparations for our early departure in the morning.
                                                                                                                                            Colin Mercer
                                                                                                                                                       and
                                                                                                                                          Kevin Shuler

Friday

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 02:34:09 GMT

Today is our day of rest on the seventh day just like Jesus took after his seventh day of work. We got to sleep in a bit and have this amazing breakfast, egg stuff. After our breakfast we started to head to downtown New Orleans. The city is huge and filled with tons of people and tons to do that we couldn't get to it all. We started at the French Quarter looking around and getting little nick-nacks for our souvenirs. There was the hussel and bussel of people everywhere even though it was in the mid nineties by eleven in the morning. On our way back to the other end of the city we would stop in little shops along the way. For lunch we went to a RiverWalk Resturant. It was pretty good food:) I was excited!!! We went into the St. Louis Cathedral. That place was huge, very intresting, and filled with lots of information. After the Cathedral, it was starting to get really hot when we made our way to the Riverwalk mall for the afternoon. We didn't do a lot in the afternoon but the morning was amazing and now we are going to get ready for bed so we can make our way home bright and early in the morning:) see you all soon:)!!!

Emily and Amanda