RVing With a Purpose

Sunday, April 24, 2022

This was the last week in Laurel for NOMADS tornado recovery.  But first, last weekend.  Saturday afternoon our new team members Sadowna and Mark arrived.  This was our first time to work with them and what a joy it was to have them join us. We had a great week!  We all celebrated Easter at Laurel First UMC where the music and message were so good.  We are so blessed to have a Savior who loved us enough to die for us even before we loved him.  Hope you all had a blessed Easter – the best Sunday of the year!

Sunday evening, we all ended up in the nursery again for the fifth week in a row.  How ironic that we had our last tornado warning on Easter.  Some of the homes we have repaired were damaged by the Easter 2020 tornado.  Fortunately this Easter, while there were trees and power lines down, and a few structures damaged, there were no injuries or severe damage.

Monday the four of us returned to the Todd house and installed the remaining siding on the back of the house, the garage doors and the front gable.  That completed the work there.

Tuesday thru Thursday we were back at the Henry house where we were not confident we could complete our list in the time we had left.  However, by Thursday afternoon, we had installed and trimmed out the three remaining doors on our list, caulked and painted the doors, patched the drywall that had been cut out for plumbing in one of the bedrooms, taped, mudded, textured and painted the patch, installed and caulked all the remaining baseboards, replaced another broken window pane and touched up paint and caulk where ever needed, had the Bible presentation for the Henry’s and the homeowners of another home that was completed earlier. Everything was checked off our list!!  As said above, it was another great week!

Friday we regrettably had to say “see you down the road” to our new friends Sadowna and Mark, and to our Laurel friends.  Closing down a disaster rebuild project is always so bittersweet.  We are so thankful God allowed us to help in the Laurel community and hopefully we can return another day.

Saturday, April 16, 2022

Last Friday we said goodbye to Sandy and Steve, Deb and Dave.  We missed them but the eight of us remaining in Laurel, Anne and Max, Stel and Jodi, Jim and Dee, Anne and Dale carried on.  It was another very busy week with a tremendous team.  On Monday Anne M. and Dale were at the Todd house, working on some additional oak flooring as well as installing two ceiling fans.  The rest of the team worked at the Henry house completing most of our work there.  Another door that was prepared last week by Stel and others was completed and installed Monday.  There was additional caulking and painting, trim work and general cleanup.

The remainder of the week the entire team was at the Todd house.  Based on the weather forecast we thought Tuesday would be the best day to avoid rain and paint the exterior of the house.  Wow, the entire team jumped on that project and completed the entire house.  We were all very tired at the end of that day.  Wednesday there was some touch up painting and we decided to paint the front door and porch ceiling.  We also began the siding.  This house was picked up by the tornado and moved 3 inches.  As a result, the brick on the lower portion of the house cracked and had to be removed.  We are covering the area previously bricked, with vinyl siding.  By Thursday afternoon, all but the top row on the back was completed.  One of the garage doors had all but the top row replaced.  Jim, Dale and Dee also did a great job using the sheet metal brake and replacing the damaged fascia in several areas. Even though we have not quite completed the Todd house we did the Bible presentation while we still had a lot of the team present.  We also did the presentation at one of the open house houses on Thursday morning.  Always such a sweet and happy time when people are finally back in their homes.

Thursday evening we had another bar-b-que dinner at the church with Hope and Grant from the Glory House joining us.  It was a fun evening.  Friday morning we had to say goodbye to Anne and Dale, Jim and Dee.  Glad they will be home for Easter, but we will certainly miss them this week.  Not to be ignored this week was another Wednesday night tornado warning – the fourth week in a row!  We are praying that tradition can be broken this next week. There was damage in Jones County but no injuries and nothing in our immediate area.  Thank you, God, for the safety of our team!

Today, Max and Anne helped with the Glory House and Laurel First UMC Easter egg hunt in the park and are very thankful that we were able to be a small part of sharing the real Easter story.  We were so glad the rain held off until the afternoon.

We had new team members join us this afternoon, Mark and Sadowna.  We have another busy week ahead.  However, we will pause tomorrow to celebrate what Jesus did for us all.  We hope you all will likewise remember the true meaning of Easter as you spend time with your family and friends.  Until next week…

Friday, April 8, 2022

We said goodbye to Suzanne Saturday morning and took over as leaders for the Laurel team.  We greeted team members Saturday and Sunday with our team meeting Sunday afternoon.   Monday we began another week of work on homes damaged by the December 2019 and April 2020 tornadoes that hit Laurel, MS. We had a team of 12 NOMADS who were hard workers and so much fun.  We had one couple, Deb and Dave who were on their first project. We hope they enjoyed themselves as much as we enjoyed getting to know them.   The rest of the team, Jim and Dee, Sandy and Steve, Stel and Jodi, and Anne and Dale are all experienced NOMADS.  The hardest work for us as leaders was to keep work and supplies lined up for them all and then just stand back and watch them get the work done.  Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we had Sandy, Steve, Anne and Dale at the Todd house working to replace/repair oak flooring that was water damaged.  They also had to replace subflooring.  What a huge job that was completed Thursday, and it looks great!  While there they also removed a lot of brick from the exterior that will be replaced with siding next week.

The rest of the team continued the work at the Henry house that lost its roof to the tornado, so of course there was also lots of water damage.  There, the team worked on trim, doors, replacing broken windows, caulking and painting Monday thru Wednesday.

Thursday Gumby visited and all the team but Steve and Sandy, who completed the work at the Todd house, were tasked with inspecting and making punch list last minute repairs/touch ups on six homes that have been completed and were having their open house today. Max and Anne mainly ran between the houses and the supply houses picking up necessary supplies so we didn’t get to take many pictures.

A lot of the various teams and individuals who have worked on the houses attended the celebrations today including some of the Mennonite Disaster Team members from Indiana.  What a special time it is when the homeowners take possession of their new homes.  We are so blessed to have been a tiny part of all the people and agencies working in Laurel.

The evenings this week were not dull either. On Monday, Jennifer from Laurel First UMC fed us again. This week it was a delicious shrimp boil with some crawfish added for those who had never eaten them before.

And on Tuesday morning we had our weekly tornado warning.

We had to say goodbye today to Sandy and Steve and Deb and Dave.  Safe travels and we will see you down the road.  Hope everyone gets some rest this weekend.

Sunday, April 3, 2022

Last Saturday we returned to Laurel, MS to assist with the Restore Jones County efforts to complete the rebuilding of homes from the December 2019 and April 2020 (Easter) tornadoes.  As you may remember we have worked here twice before, Spring 2021 and Fall 2021.  We joined the NOMADS team already in place, for our transition week.  One other couple joined for this week as well – brand new NOMADS on their first project, Tami and Craig.  It was great getting to know them and we look forward to working with them again soon!  We also had Suzanne as leader, and Charley and Joe and Les on our team.  We all worked on the house that we ended with last fall.  On our last day last fall we did some demo on this house.  Since then, there has a lot of work done by plumbers, electricians, and drywall people.  Most of the flooring has also been installed.  The team spent most of the week installing doors, trimming around the doors, installing baseboards, completing the installation of the vinyl plank flooring and caulking.  The doors were the major challenge as there are no two doors the same and there are no standard door sizes in the house.  Everything has been a custom build and very tedious.

Max and Anne were pulled from that location for Wednesday and Thursday, to work on one of the houses the Mennonite’s built.  Unfortunately, the person installing the stove scratched the flooring when moving the stove across the room.  We had to remove damaged planks that spanned about two thirds of the room.  The removal went fairly easily, but, reinstalling was considerably more difficult.  By the end of the day Thursday, we were celebrating the completion of the flooring as well as the re-installing the base and caulking.  All that remains is to touchup the paint on the lower walls just above the baseboard and the baseboard itself.  It was a successful week with much accomplished.

We had our traditional Thursday evening dinner with the team and then said our goodbyes because everyone was leaving Friday.   Friday we made a quick trip back to Alabama to have Max’s sutures removed and check on Aunt Helen’s house and then back to Laurel.  We left at 4:15am and were back in Laurel by 3:30pm.

Saturday we welcomed Anne and Dale, Sandy and Steve, and Stel and Jodi to Laurel.  Sunday the rest of our team, Jim and Dee, and Dave and Deb arrived.  We are looking forward to another great week with this fun group of hard working NOMADS.