Month: November 2023

Saturday November 11, 2023

We continued leadership of the Oklahoma Disaster Rebuild for this our last week. Last Friday, we said goodbye to Chris and Laura and Bruce and Janette.  We had a great two weeks with both couples who helped the team accomplish so much.  Thursday night the team went to one of the local Mexican restaurants and had a fun last meal together.  On Sunday we welcomed new team member Nettie and her sweet furry friend Amos.  This was Nettie’s first DR project and we look forward to working with her on a future DR.

This week we spent a lot of our time completing William’s house.  With the delivery of the shingles on Monday morning, we were able to complete the roof before lunch.  ROAD also brought us new paint on Monday morning.  Last Thursday when we ran out of shingles, we began painting the fascia and soffit.  We were not happy with the paint and wondered if it had been through a freeze.  With the new paint the painting went much better and by Tuesday we completed the exterior painting.  Wednesday, we completed the repairs, drywall and painting in the bathroom as well as painting the ceilings in the living room and hallway and part of the kitchen.  Wow, what a difference that made in the interior appearance of the house. The installation of the new door was also completed this week.  We also completed several punch list items and at the end of the day Wednesday presented William his Bible.  He was so pleased and excited about all the improvements made in his home.  Such a blessing to help people restore their homes.

We also returned to Margaret’s home to complete the few punch list items there this week – touchup on some trim, paint, clean up, etc.  We were able to present her with her Bible on Wednesday afternoon as well.  She also was so very appreciative of all the many NOMADS who worked at her home.

Thursday the entire team returned to Okmulgee, 50 minutes away, to help our ROAD friends Gary and Sam complete a lot of items at Tiara’s house.  We painted the bathroom ceiling and lots of trim, installed ceiling and floor trim, closet doors, assisted with some subfloor/beams/joist work and installed some lights as well as some general cleanup.  We also had the pleasure of meeting Tiara Thursday and presented her with her Bible.

We closed the week with all the assigned tasks for our homes completed.  No carryover work for the new leaders.  We think this is the first time that has happened when we were turning over a DR to new leaders. Yesterday, November 10, Ken, Michelle and Nettie headed to their next project or home and we left the Oklahoma project in the great hands of Leone and Bob who will be starting some new work Monday.

Also, for the past three weeks, we have worked alongside two other wonderful volunteers, Jake and Angela.  They usually work with Habitat but fortunately for us the Habitat build they had planned to work was cancelled so they worked alongside us on William’s house. They had more roofing experience than us and were a tremendous asset.  Hope we get to work with Jake and Angela again sometime. (Just maybe they will become NOMADS some day.)

Friday morning we said goodbyes to our new friends in Muskogee. We hope we can return sometime.  They do great work and there are many people still needing assistance.  Fred took us to an Arkansas rest area yesterday where we stopped for the night.  This morning we were up early and made it back to Camp Sumatanga early this afternoon.  Thank you, God, for safe travels.  We are looking forward to worshiping with our friends at our home church tomorrow.  Until next time, stay safe and ask God to help you be the light in this crazy world.

Saturday, November 4, 2023

We continued leadership of the Oklahoma disaster rebuild this week.  We had to say goodbye to Lee and Beth, our new NOMADS and friends, but welcomed Ken and Michele and Bob and Leone.  Before Beth and Lee left the team had a great barbeque dinner at one of the local restaurants.  Since we all worked at different houses on Thursday, we were very thankful for one last dinner together.

This week we continued the work on William’s home, almost completing the new roof.  Tuesday and Wednesday, we were all either on the roof or working to support those on the roof, cleaning up and keeping us in supplies.   Unfortunately, we ran out of shingles with one small section remaining.

That meant more people were available Thursday afternoon to work on caulking and painting the new fascia and soffit Laura and Chris installed.

Bob took on the task of replacing an exterior door that had rotted at the bottom.

Bruce and Jan completed the repair of the vanity in the large bathroom and began the work on the smaller bath, removing the vanity, removing and reinstalling bathroom drywall damaged in the flood as well as damaged drywall in the closet.  Next week we will begin with the finishing and painting of the drywall and then paint and install trim and the new vanity.  Hopefully we will complete everything for William next week.

Max and Anne began work at Tiara’s home in Okmulgee, OK, about 45 minutes from Muskogee, Monday afternoon.  This house is also being worked on by a TV show, “Fast: Home Rescue”, a show for the Weather Channel. It’s a small house and sometimes it gets very crowded.  Monday, we worked on tearing out and shoring up the beams, and joists and reinstalling subflooring in the bathroom.  Anne and Leone returned on Thursday for some exterior painting and painting the living room.

The weather was not our friend this week. We had record breaking cold weather with very heavy frost.  We had to postpone our start time for an hour some mornings because we had to wait until the heavy frost melted off the roof.  On the positive side, the grass and fields we drove by were beautiful. It was another great week in OK with lots of work accomplished for our homeowners still recovering from the flood waters.