Goodbye, For Now

Friday, May 18, 2018

Today was another beautiful HOT day. However, just before leaving work a little before 4:00 it started raining. Amazingly, when we were driving home this afternoon it was 72 degrees. All week long it has been above 90, 93 the past two days, when we drove home. 72 – Nice!

We started the day this morning with Pastor David coming over to take a picture of the team before everyone started leaving. He frames a picture of each team that stays at Francis Asbury UMC and hangs it in the hallway of the church. After visiting with Pastor for a while, Stel, Dave, Carol, Anne and Max headed back to Richard’s house to try to finish up some of the loose ends we left yesterday afternoon. The project is officially over but we decided to stay one additional day. We all have other places we have to be next week so today was the last day. We missed Lisa and Mark today but they had to head home this morning. They will be enjoying some grandparent duties tomorrow. We feel really good about what was accomplished today. When we left today all the doors were hung, all the flooring was completed, the shower was caulked, most of the base was down, trim work was up, transition strips were installed and a lot of clean up was done.

We brought a lot of the tools and other supplies back to Francis Asbury for storage and use by the summer volunteers.  There is a youth group already scheduled to go to Richard’s to do all the construction debris cleanup, get the large heavy tools back to the church and install the insulation under the house once the plumbing is complete.  The plumbing should be complete next week and Richard and Sandy should be able to move into their new home. They are very excited and happy. We can only try to imagine our home being bulldozed down after a flood and still living in a FEMA trailer 22 months later. May God continue to be with Richard and Sandy as they finally get to move in their home. We have promised them we will visit them next February when we return to Baton Rouge. Looking forward to that reunion and seeing them enjoying their home.

Thank you to all the Louisiana UM Disaster Response team members, Francis Asbury church members and the entire Baton Rouge community for so warmly welcoming us and allowing us to assist in your rebuilding efforts.