2008-11-15
We slept in just a bit. Breakfast got a little later each day. Margie led yoga every morning. Off to our final job in beautiful historic part of West Orange. There we met Cardell to rip up floors in his historic home built in 1876. His home began it's life as a saloon, but now has been in his family for a few generations. It took all hands on deck to remove the particle board on top of styrofoam on top of the sub-floor. The installers must have been paid by the nail as there were thousands of nails. Most of them rusted to the wood. We moved furniture, removed floor in two rooms and removed a drop ceiling in one room.

Back to Wesley UMC to clean up and on the road for a beautiful trip through East Texas. This closes out this adventure of CUMC DRT Response. Until next time. God Bless You.

LeAnne Goes In Through the Window

Flooring Covered with Styrofoam and Particle Board

Beautiful Old House Built in 1876

Debbie & LeAnne

How many people does it take to pick up the pieces?

Herb - Dancin' Machine

Homeowner Cardell Receives A DRT Cross

2008-11-14
The day started early for Herb. Hearing Ralph's phone beeping he thought it was the alarm. So Herb got up, shaved and brushed his teeth and was ready for breakfast. But the cooks were still asleep, and this concerned Herb. He didn't even smell coffee brewing. So he turned on the kitchen light to discover that it was only 12:30 a.m. So he had 2 choices, start the coffee or go back to bed. Since he doesn't drink coffee, he went back to bed. The rest of us got up about 5:15. Margie held her early morning yoga session, like she does every morning. After yoga, Debbie was busy in the kitchen cooking up sausage, biscuits and eggs.

On to the worksite ... we returned to Mr. Delano's where we spent almost the entire day removing floors, drywall and insulation. LeAnne Ray, our youngest member and rookie, taught the old timers how to remove tongue and groove flooring. We call it "the LeAnne Technique." Even the seasoned Ryan, our second youngest member, used this technique. Meanwhile, back in the kitchen, Debbie continued her assault on the kitchen flooring. After many hours of peeling layers, our team captain, David, decided we would just rip up the whole sub floor and in 30 minutes the job was done. Debbie still claimed victory because without all of the nails she pulled out, it made removing the plywood much easier. LeAnne, wielded a sledge hammer to demolish the bathtub. Team Captain David hesitated to let her do it because she couldn't pass the sledge test - holding it out at arms length and using only your wrist, tip the hammer back to touch your nose.

Cheers went up when we found out our last job of the day was chain saw work. Outside with fresh air and everything!!

A Study in Mold (or what we were breathing all day)

Homeowner Harry Delano

Pump Up The Bleach

Last Job Of The Day

2008-11-13
Our leader said we would finish today's job around lunchtime, but no one believed him. There were so many rooms of solid oak flooring to be removed, we just couldn't believe it would be possible. But, he was right, that's why he's the leader. Yea David! No wonder he passed out on the pile of rubble.

The homeowner, Margaret, was a lovely widow who has lived in the home for 52 years. She lost her husband to cancer 4 years ago and is dealing with this mess herself. In spite of all this, she finds time to volunteer with a local food pantry. When we presented her with the DRT Cross, she was so touched that she asked each of us to sign our names on the cross.

After lunch, we went to West Orange, Texas, to Delano street, which is named after our homeowner's family. The homeowner, Harry Delano will be joining us tomorrow. OMG! The home is a complete tear out and is extremely mold ridden. We left for the evening with two enormous piles out front, yet there is still lots to do tomorrow.

As we arrive back at the church, tired and depleted, it is so nice to be greeted by our loving hosts with a home cooked meal. Wednesday we had fabulous B-B-Q brisket from a local restauranteur, Gary Richards, owner of Billy Joe's. Thursday night was burgers on the grill and homemade banana pudding that was out of this world.

A Game of Toss

Herb Says Water Was This High

Margie Pulling Nails

Ralph is a Real Cut Up

Susan Pulls Lots of Nails

Sleeping On The Job

Margaret with her cross and Team Champion

Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. - Matthew 20:26-28

Team Bravo made it home tonight safe and tired but happy. We put in a good half day of work this morning at Willie's house. We really wanted to get it finished but ended up turning it over to the more than capable hands of Team Champion. I just read their blog for the day and was very happy to see that he touched them as much as he touched us. He even brought us donuts this morning - now that is someone you aren't just working for, that is someone who is now your friend.

Earl and Neil work to seal the broken windows so water cannot do any more damage.

Jim finishes gutting the utility room. What a mess!

Pam had a great technique for removing wood flooring - and she did the entire room herself!!

Even though Tom and John failed at their imitation of the tiling divas, they did manage to do a great job gutting the bathroom.

Rick may be one of our newest team members but he certainly wasted no time impressing the group with his hard work, dedication and caring. He also wasted no time gutting a bathroom.

One awesome team!!!

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in it's various forms. - 1 Peter 4:8-10

2008-11-12
Arrival and half work-day today. Team Champion departed about 5:30am this morning for the drive to Nederland, TX. We quickly changed and drove to the first site to finish up Team Bravo's awesome work this morning. We finished working on Willie's house where we ripped up hardwoods, tile, hundreds of spare nails and other items. We ended our workday by completing the connection between Team Bravo, Team Champion and our newfound friend and homeowner Willie with a prayer and a gift of the DRT cross.

Heading for Nederland at 0-dark:30

Willie's House

Men can sweep after all

Ugh!

Leaving a Symbol of Connection

Working from top to bottom

Team Bravo had a hard day of work on Tuesday but we survived and still had our smiles on. We finished gutting Ms. Novella's house - four layers of flooring, a billion nails and all. From this day on, we all pledge do be very, very conservative with our use of nails and told Earl he has to figure out how to build the next HOTC without them! We got to meet Novella's great grandson who kept telling us his grandma's house was broken. Well when we got through with it, it looked a lot more broken but Novella's spirits were not and she is now on her way to rebuilding and recovery. We would love to be able to come back down and help in that effort - in fact, she actually wants to request us!

After we finished Novella's house, we started work on her son Willie's house. Willie has a very interesting house indeed. He lives in what was former Navy housing and boy does the Navy know how to build solid houses! Gutting was slow going because the walls just did not want to budge but we were able to finally prevail and get most of them out. We still have work to do and are heading back their this morning. Hopefully the weather will be on our side one more time and this rain will stop.

Just in case you are wondering who we are, Team Bravo is led by Don Kyle - seems the energizer bunny is finally mellowing a little so some us can keep up now. Our crew consists of Earl Dedman, Pam Walker, Tom Pritchard, John Estill, Neil Stampe, Rick Thomson, Jim Casten, and April Kyle. This is the first DRT trip for Rick and Neil and I don't think we have scared them off yet. They have been wonderful additions to our team and are extremely hard workers. Jim has joined us before but is not a member of CUMC. He has the same passion for this work as we do and shares the same serving spirit. Neil does not go to CUMC either but Earl talked us up so much he decided to see what all the fun was about! We are so blessed to have people join us and work with us outside our little CUMC group. Being able to share our experience with others, both in working for and working with is what we are all about.

And is case you are wondering about that title ... well, we removed Willie's front door yesterday to make hauling out debris easier. At the end of the day, Neil and John put it back and and thought they had it right. We packed up, circled up and Earl did the honor of saying our closing prayer. As soon as he said Amen ... kathump, there went the door. Seems they neglected getting the top of the door in correctly. I must say, it was quite a funny ending to a long day - and now John won't in charge of doors for HOTC anymore!! :-)

Team Bravo arrived safely in Nederland, TX yesterday afternoon and quickly got to work. Sunday we finished up the house that Team Alpha left for us. It was very nice to get back in the DRT shape working on a house that was almost finished!

Today we worked on the house of a wonderful lady in Orange, TX. Like the other houses our teams have been working on, the sheetrock had to be removed up to four feet but this home also had what were once beautiful wood floors that were now buckled and rotting from the exposure to water. It was a tough job and we aren't quite finished yet, but we hope to have it done in the morning. Our next job is more of the same and will be for the lady we helped today's son. He worked most of the day with us and we are really looking forward to helping him too.

The people at Wesley UMC have been wonderful and the food has been great. We are tired but having a great time doing what we love. We do really miss our peeps and divas that couldn't make it - we understand but we really wish you were here!!!

It was a beautiful day today in southeast Texas. Perfect weather for gutting houses. We went back the house we started on Thursday in Orange, TX and completed the job. We had to finish a couple of the rooms by removing walls, pulling up some carpet, and final cleanup. Paul, the homeowners son, was at the house and helped with the cleanup. He was very thankful for our help. Once we completed the job, we had a group prayer with Paul, and we moved to our next job.

Our second house is located in Bridge City, TX, which is about 15-20 minutes from Nederland. Bridge City seems to have been hit pretty good by Ike. It is close to some bayous and the bay. The house we are working on had about 12-18 inches of water in it. It was also damaged during Hurricane Rita back in September 2005. This job is a complete house gutting. When we picked up the key from the owner this afternoon, she was very thankful for our help.

We haven't uploaded any pictures the previous days, but we have some today. Enjoy!

Do you like all the different colors of mold?

Can Larry actually see anything through his glasses?

Getting ready to work...

The team with Paul

The divas are alive and well!

Chuck is working hard...

Dan working hard on those pesky hardwood floors

Larry and Mark marking walls to cut

Darcy cleaning up our messes

"Pastor" Penny preparing for the mosquitos

Richard cutting up the hardwood floors

Jane throwing things out the window

Mark having his picture taken when he didn't want it

Look at all the stuff that comes from a gutted house

Tomorrow is our last day in Nederland. We will work tomorrow morning in Bridge City, and then Team Bravo will take over and we will drive back to Plano. We have enjoyed our time in Nederland. Our prayers go out to the people in this area and we hope that they can rebuild and get their lives back to normal.

Team Alpha had a very good work day today. We started early this morning (as usual), and went back to the house we started working on yesterday. We had many "finds" today in our work. While we were working in the living room, we think we may have disrupted the winter food supply of one local squirrel. We found at least a dozen pecans in the wall. The pecans were in good shape, and hopefully that squirrel has another place where he/she stores pecans. We had to remove the walls, counters, and cabinets in the kitchen. Unfortunately, we disrupted the home of the "little critters" that were living behind the cabinets. While working on the bathroom, we were cleaning out the bathroom cabinet and we found some bacon in there- water in a house causes some weird things to happen. And lastly, we did find the "Geico Gecko" in the kitchen. He was pretty cool, and we let him go outside to find a new home.

Overall, we made very good progress on the house we started yesterday. We have a couple more rooms to finish on Saturday. We should finish this house in the morning, and continue to the next house. The next house will be more of the same- muckin' and guttin'.

Team Alpha left CUMC at 5:30am this morning for our drive to Nederland, TX to work on houses that were damaged by Hurricane Ike. Nederland is located in the Beaumont/ Port Arthur area. The team is led by Larry Rex, and is comprised of Chuck and Darcy Rohre, Penny Mitchell, Jane Hamm, Dan Deaton, Mark Meaders, and Richard Streller (who is from Decatur, TX and is a guest with our team). We were surprised not to see much visible damage when we got in the area, and driving around. The exception to this rule is that EVERY McDonalds sign from Houston to Nederland had some sort of damage. We don't know why, but we will have to "Google it"- inquiring minds need to know! We are very fortunate to be able to stay at Wesley United Methodist Church (WUMC) in Nederland. Our hosts are very gracious and nice, and they are cooking dinner for two out of the three nights we are staying here. Tonight, the United Methodist Women cooked ham, rolls, corn caserole, blueberry and peach cobbler, cake, and ice cream. We get very hungry on our DRT trips, and this hit the spot. Most of us went back more than once for more food.

Due to our travels, we did not get a full work day under our belt. After we dropped our gear off at WUMC, we were off to our first job at a woman's house in Orange, TX (about 30 min. drive from Nederland). Her house had about 12-18 inches of water in it from the storm. All of her floors (which are mostly wood) are damaged and need to be taken up, and the sheetrock up to 4 feet high needs to be removed. We removed the floor from one of the rooms (which happens to have 2 layers with some kind of tar/glue on top of the foundation), and the sheetrock. It is a big job, and we will be going back tomorrow to continue our work. The woman is not able to live in her house due to the damage and mold, but she is fortunate to be able to stay with her daughter who lives in the area. Her daughter was very appreciative of our efforts to help her mother, and we are happy to do it. This is what we love to do.

Unfortunately, there are no pictures today. We should have some tomorrow. Now it is time for a shower...