This was our last week on Grand Isle. It was a busy and productive week. On Saturday morning we said goodbye and a big thank you to Ken and Michelle. They worked on the fall and spring project here on Grand Isle. The joke has been that they have been here long enough to vote in the upcoming municipal elections. All kidding aside, they have been tremendous servants to the people on the island and they will be missed. Cliff and Ann joined us a few hours later and we were so excited to have them join the team. We served with them here last year.
This week we continued to work on the exterior of Bozo’s home. There was lots of high ladder work painting the soffit and fascia, but our team was up for the challenge and completed the job on Tuesday.
More painting at Bozo’s
Finishing at Bozo’s house
Front of Bozo’s house finished
Back of the house finished
West side finished
We also continued the work on Jay’s house with the entire team working there Wednesday and Thursday. The team completed the installation of the ceiling tile in four of the five rooms and the hall. Next week’s team will just have to complete about ½ of the kitchen and that project will be completed.
The process of repairing Jay’s ceilings involved pulling staples …
… pulling trim …
… pulling nails from the trim so it can be reused…
… and then finally installing new ceiling tiles.
Sherry and Sam working in the bathroom
The laundry room crew
On Wednesday and Thursday everyone worked at Jay’s.
Ann, Cliff, Dan and Virgie celebrating the last tile going up in the first bedroom.
The kitchen was the only room that required replacing all the ceiling, so Sam and Dan took great care in getting it started correctly.
Laundry room before
Laundry room after
First bedroom before
First bedroom after
Second bedroom before
Second bedroom after
Kitchen before
Kitchen at the end of the week
Thursday morning we had Bozo’s Bible presentation at the start of our morning meeting. Bozo also stayed with us for our morning devotion. It was a great start to the day and a great way to end our week.
Bible presentation for Bozo at our morning devotion
Before we left Grand Isle we went to see Wanda and her house after another group of volunteers painted the outside.
This was Anne and Max’s last week in Grand Isle. We want to thank all our team members over the past month for their hard work and servants’ heart’s. It’s been a great month working with the people of the island and Dean, our construction coordinator. It’s truly been a blessing to be a part of the disaster rebuild team.
We departed the island early Friday morning and arrived back in Oneonta, AL about 5PM. It was a long drive day but it sure was good to back. Saturday was spent visiting with friends and we were able to attend our home church, Lester Memorial, Sunday. So good to worship at our home church again. We are now back in South Carolina visiting with Randy and Debra and getting a little rest.
This week we were blessed to have the exact same team as last week. They are such a cohesive, hardworking team. It seems that we have had a number of NOMADS return to Grand Isle this year. This community is so welcoming and so appreciative of everything we do. The people are just so precious. Neighbors around where we work come over and thank us for working on their friend or family members home. We meet people at church, the store or the beach and they seem to know we are here to assist with the recovery and they stop us and say, “thank you so much for coming all the way here to help our island.” Especially fun has been the chance meetups with people we worked for last year. The women of the church are still after all this time still bringing us fantastic meals two days a week and leaving us notes of thanks.
We sure were glad to have our Dream Team for another week.
The team did an amazing amount of work last week. We completed the siding on Ms. Olga’s home and got to present her Bible on Thursday. (For those that might not remember, NOMADS traditionally have all the team members sign a Bible and include a note or bible verse for the homeowner and we present it to the home owner when we complete our work at their home.) Richard, a representative of the Bayou Foundation and Dean, our construction supervisor, joined the team for the celebration. It’s always such a joy to finish a home. Ms. Olga was so appreciative of all the work all the NOMADS did for her.
Sam was the brake operator for the metal fascia at Olga’s.
Ken and Michele installing the new soffit for Olga. The lift made the work easier here and at Bozo’s house.
Bible presentation for Ms. Olga
Peanut’s home is very close to completion. All that remains on the interior is the transition strip for the new flooring. It was due to arrive on Wednesday but sadly we are still awaiting its arrival. (Materials are sometimes in short supply way out on this island.) Hopefully next week. The outside looks so nice with the new coat of paint on the railings.
Jack installing the last of Peanut’s new flooring
Waiting for transition strips
Barb and Sherry finishing bedroom painting
Peanut’s (finally) finished bedroom
Bozo’s home is really coming along. As soon as we completed Olga’s home, we moved the scaffolding and lift across the street to Bozo’s and began to tackle the repairs to the soffit and fascia, replacing all the vents, scraping, priming, and painting of the siding and trim on the upper level. The front and east side are completed except for some minor touchups. The back has all the repairs completed and about 2/3’s of the painting complete. Work has begun on the west side but it still needs a lot of love.
Barb painting plywood for the soffits
Sam and Max replacing another section of soffit
Ken and Sam replacing and painting soffits. We got a lot of use out of the lift and scaffolds this week.
Everyone did some painting this week.
The east side of Bozo’s house at the end of this week
The back of Bozo’s house at end of this week. All we have left is some painting.
The front of Bozo’s house at the end of this week. Before we leave we will go around the house and touch up any spots that need it.
The teams have made good progress on the west side of Bozo’s house but there is still some work to be done.
The team also installed baseboard in Bozo’s house. Dan and Jack measured, cut and coped the baseboard joints …
… while Sherry and Virgie installed it.
We also began work on Jay’s house on Thursday. There we need to replace/repair ceiling tiles in five rooms and the hall. The first step required removal of many, many staples in the ceiling that were left after the old tiles were removed. There was also a lot of glue on the ceilings that had to be removed. Virgie, Dan and Michelle volunteered to tackle that project and completed the ceiling preparations by the end of the day Thursday!
This is one of the ceilings in Jay’s house before the staples were removed.
It’s been another wonderful week, of devotions, prayer, hard work and growing friendships. We are so blessed by God to be able to do his work here on Grand Isle. Please pray for our safety and for us to be able to share God’s love, light, and hope as we repair these homes.
This weekend we said goodbye to Jeff and Joyce, Larry and Jean as they took some much-deserved rest time before moving to their next project. Max and Anne took over as leaders. We especially thank Larry and Jean for leading week 5. Saturday, although the weather was not very welcoming, we welcomed Dan and Vergie and Sam to join the work on the island. Saturday and Sunday we had storms and lots of rain. Monday afternoon Jack and Barb joined us and Tuesday afternoon Sherry joined us giving us a full team of six RVs and 10 talented NOMADS.
When we began the work week it was still too wet to go back to Bozo’s for painting, so the entire team began our work on Peanut’s house – a new jobsite for the NOMADS. We made good progress, completing the removal of the bedroom flooring and began the installation of the new flooring, removed the window trim, removed quarter round, patched the kitchen floor, and began the arduous task of scraping and sanding the outside spindles and railings. By the end of the week, the railing and spindles were repaired and painted, the bedroom flooring was completed, paneling was installed and the ceiling and walls painted. The kitchen flooring is almost complete.
Michele, Anne and Virgie removing the water damaged laminate.
Ken, Anne and Sam worked on the bedroom flooring on Monday.
Jack and Virgie finished the bedroom floor on Tuesday.
Ken paneling the bedroom wall that was water damaged.
Bedroom floor and paneling finished
Sherry painting the bedroom ceiling
Bedroom at the end of the week
Before we could replace the kitchen flooring Ken had to repair a section of the subfloor.
Jack had to make a lot of extra notches and special cuts for the kitchen flooring.
Jack preparing the floor for the kitchen flooring to extend out into a landing inside the front door.
New kitchen floor installed
Michele and Anne scraping the stairs and railing. Our assignment was to just paint the parts that were painted before. Dan and Virgie also spent a lot of time scraping.
Dan painting the columns
Virgie painting the railings
Dan and Barb installing the new balusters that Dan made and Barb painted.
The repaired and painted railings at the end of the week
By Tuesday it was dry enough to return to Bozo’s to resume the exterior work there. There was lots of painting and sanding, installation of new outside lighting, painting of baseboards. Next week we hope to have a lift available to complete a little more painting at the highest points and repair and paint the fascia and soffit.
Sam and Anne continued the painting to the upper parts of the house.
The back of Bozo’s at end of the week
The front of Bozo’s at end of the week. Notice the new front door trim.
Our great construction manager, Dean, worked very hard and was finally able to locate and secure the necessary siding for Olga’s house. It’s very hard to find a matching siding for siding installed in the 70’s. Ken, Michelle and Sherry were able to complete that task on Wednesday. We hope to have the soffit material next week so we can complete that home.
Michele, Ken and Sherry installing siding on Olga’s house.
Olga’s new siding finished
The team made great use of their varied talents and they made great progress on the three homes we are currently assigned. We praise God for another successful and accident-free week!
Of course, since we are in Louisiana during carnival season, the team has been enjoying King Cakes and Saturday enjoyed the family friendly Mardis Gras parade here on Grand Isle. There were side-by-sides, trucks, boats and floats in the parade with lots and lots of beads. Everyone seemed to have a good time.
Our team eagerly waiting for the parade.
The Mardi Gras parade was led by the police department and a Coast Guard honor guard.
Along with the floats were decorated boats…
… and UTV’s …
… and of course a fire engine with Sparky the Fire Dog.
We’re not sure how big of a parade it would have been if it were not for the upcoming elections. This is the only place we have been where the chief of police is an elected official.
As did most of the team, Jack collected his share of beads.
And Anne knows some little girls who really like these.
We would appreciate your prayers for our team as we will be working from scaffolding and a lift this next week.
Our Lady of the Isle Catholic Church is still being repaired from the storm damage.
As the weather in Grand Isle is warming more birds are returning. We haven’t seen many of the the migrating songbirds, but a couple of roseate spoonbills are staying in one of the retention ponds near our campsites.
We were the new kids on the block this week as we joined 6 of our NOMADS friends last Friday afternoon, on Grand Isle, LA. We had worked with four of the NOMADS on previous disaster rebuild (DR) projects and had the joy of making two new friends from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Jeff and Joyce. We spent the first two days working at Wanda’s house, which was nice since it was all inside work and the mornings were pretty chilly (in the lower 40’s). NOMADS had been working there for several weeks and we had the joy of being part of the team that completed her home and giving her the Bible that all the teams signed. We painted and caulked walls, trim, and doors, installed her air conditioner, installed her storm door and various other punch list items. Wanda was so very happy with her home. We painted it bright and cheerful beach colors she got to select. It was all great except for the LSU purple doors that Anne had to paint. Just kidding, Anne was happy she could make Wanda happy even if it did go against her Tuscaloosa, AL heritage.
Jeff and Larry installing a door
New closet doors
Ken installing the air conditioner
Finished air conditioner installation. Previous NOMADS teams did the flooring and painting in this room.
One of the punchlist items was to install new quarter-round on the tub.
Anne admiring one of the doors she painted
Bible presentation for Wanda
The last two days this week, we began work on a new to us home owned by Bozo. Yes, that is his name – well the name everyone on the island knows him by. We asked what his real name is so we could put that in his bible and the first few people we asked didn’t know anything but Bozo. We worked on replacing siding, and priming, caulking and painting. We completed most of the lower level but since all the homes in southern LA, are on tall piers, we will require a lift for the higher level. We also did some additional siding repair work on Olga’s home which NOMADS began earlier. We need some additional siding which hasn’t yet been located to complete that task – hopefully next week.
Quite a few pieces of siding had to be replaced on three sides of Bozo’s house.
Removing broken siding pieces
Replacing the siding pieces.
The wood behind some of the siding had to be replaced.
Anne, Michele, Jean and Joyce applying primer to the wooden siding that was installed before we started on the house.
This type siding takes a lot of paint.
Almost everyone had a hand in the painting.
The west side of the house at the end of the week.
Front of the house at the end of the week. About a dozen siding tiles were replaced and the lower section was primed and partially painted.
Eight or nine rows of vinyl siding had to be replaced on this side of Olga’s house.
Friday was a beautiful day and we took our first beach walk. The sea was very calm and the water very clear. Friday was also that day that Jean and Larry, our leaders, and Joyce and Jeff left us. We really appreciate the great job Jean and Larry did and for getting us up to speed on the project. We will now be leading for the next three weeks and we will have 6 new team members next week along with Ken and Michele who will be stay for a few more weeks. Please pray that we all stay safe and accomplish much for the people of Grand Isle but most importantly that we show the love of Jesus to all we meet.
RVing With a Purpose 